Dissapointed with FLAC/WAV quality:(

[vinod_david]

Hi folks:

Thought I would give the cdp a rest and jump into pc-based music. So, started with ripping a few cds in dbpoweramp and EAC - .flac and .wav (loseless) formats respectively for comparison. Ripped 'Best of Dire Straits' in flac and wav and did an A/B testing in my setup streaming from SqueezeServer from my PC to SB3 and to my amp - all analog connections. I was very impressed with both format and they both sounded the same, i listened hard to find any difference, but none i could find.

Now, I did an A/B/C test with the above formats and the original CD - cdp is a 640C v2. The CD quality of Dire Straits kicked both .flac and .wav formats out of the water. The sound from CD had huge soundstage, excellent dynamics, and able to bring out the nuances in songs as opposed to the lifeless sound from these 'loseless' formats.

I wanted to jump into pc-based music after much reading about loseless. I really want to know from pc-based music folks here 'while ripping in dbpower and EAC, should i use some techniques or tweaking, which i missed in my trials ? so the lifeless sound ?

Thanks for helping.

PS - You can explain in detail for a beginner like me 🙂

 

[Anonymous]

Try a Dacmagic between your SB3 and amp. Should liven things up.

 

[The_Lhc]

vinod_david:Hi folks:

Thought I would give the cdp a rest and jump into pc-based music. So, started with ripping a few cds in dbpoweramp and EAC - .flac and .wav (loseless) formats respectively for comparison. Ripped 'Best of Dire Straits' in flac and wav and did an A/B testing in my setup streaming from SqueezeServer from my PC to SB3 and to my amp - all analog connections.

I hope the connection between the PC and the SB3 isn't analogue? Network surely?

I was very impressed with both format and they both sounded the same, i listened hard to find any difference, but none i could find.

Now, I did an A/B/C test with the above formats and the original CD - cdp is a 640C v2. The CD quality of Dire Straits kicked both .flac and .wav formats out of the water. The sound from CD had huge soundstage, excellent dynamics, and able to bring out the nuances in songs as opposed to the lifeless sound from these 'loseless' formats.

I wanted to jump into pc-based music after much reading about loseless. I really want to know from pc-based music folks here 'while ripping in dbpower and EAC, should i use some techniques or tweaking, which i missed in my trials ? so the lifeless sound ?

I've not used the Squeezebbox but I do use Sonos and to be honest, I'd blame the DACs in the Squeezebox. I use flac and when I first hooked up the ZP90 to my amp I used the analogue connections (thus using the ZP's internal DAC). I was distinctly unimpressed. So I then connected the digital output (optical I think, not that it matters) into the amp and the difference was astonishing, literally like someone had lifted a blanket off the speakers. And this isn't with any fancy DAC/amp, it's with a ten year old Sony AV amplifier!

Does your CA CD player have a digital input allowing you to use the DAC within the CD player for an external source? If not I'd suggest borrowing an external DAC (such as the CA DACMagic for example, that would be a fair test) and plugging the digital out of the SB3 into it. I'm pretty confident you'd hear a big difference.

 

[basshound]

Yes,an external DAC would definately improve the quality.

 

[Anonymous]

His CDP does not have digital input so I would also suggest getting a dacmagic (or similar dac) between your amp and SB3. Ive tried the SB3 without a dac and it sounds boring.

 

[pete321]

Same again, the DAC, capacitors, opamps will all be better in the CD player. It's essentail to have an external DAC for lossless PC based music.

 

[Anonymous]

pete321:Same again, the DAC, capacitors, opamps will all be better in the CD player. It's essentail to have an external DAC for lossless PC based music.

Pete

I notice you've added op amps to your dac. Is this expensive?, difficult? and how much of an improvement?

 

[vinod_david]

So, the missing ext. DAC is the culprit here and not loseless according to you all.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Alec]

And just for good measure - as i know you've been wondering - i agree, its the absence of an external dac.

 

[pete321]

heystak:I notice you've added op amps to your dac. Is this expensive?, difficult? and how much of an improvement?

The Burson opamps for the DacMagic are £90, it sort of puts it all in perspective when you consider the actual DAC element is between £5 to £20. I got a company called AudioUpgrades to do it for me. If you speak to Brent there he is very helpful.

With regard to the Burson opamps, they take a long time to burn in, but give a much more natural sound to the music as opposed to the sometimes overly clinical sound from the original DacMagic. I'm pleased with the upgrades which included some better capacitors costing about £150 in total. I found the modded DacMagic to do a better job with stereo music than the DAC in my previous Arcam AVR600.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm new to this forum

Question regarding various DACmagic/alternative solutions mentioned earlier: are these still required when using most recent A/Vreceivers (eg. Denon AVR-3310) that has built-in Clock Jitter Reducer available for all digital inputs ? Does this replace separate DAC ?