why does flac converted/burned to cd audio sound poor ?

[sthomas048]

Hello,

I think its just how it goes with converting/burning flac music files to cd audio format (for playing on my cd player), i have tried a few different programs but the quality of the cd it produces is fairly poor. The sound is always compressed sounding, not as good as an original cd you would buy in a shop. Are there other options ? What is the best way to do this ?

I am pants at tech stuff and i realise i would be better off just getting a dac and playing my flac this way, but i was curious as to if i could improve the quality of my flac to cd burning first.

Thanks.

 

[manicm]

Firstly, download the free FLAC Frontend to unpack the WAV files from your FLAC files. If you're using Vista / W7 right-click and run the program as Administrator, otherwise won't work.

Now the actual CD-burning is not an exact science IMO. For starters different brand CD-Rs give different results. I'm currently happy with Sony discs. Find a brand that works and stick to it.

What CD-burning software do you use?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Surely if you've made the FLAC files in the first place, you still have the original CDs to play?

 

[sthomas048]

manicm:
Firstly, download the free FLAC Frontend to unpack the WAV files from your FLAC files. If you're using Vista / W7 right-click and run the program as Administrator, otherwise won't work.

Now the actual CD-burning is not an exact science IMO. For starters different brand CD-Rs give different results. I'm currently happy with Sony discs. Find a brand that works and stick to it.

What CD-burning software do you use?

Is it better to decode the flac to wav first ? One less step in the burning process ? I use Ashampoo Burning Studio to burn the flac to cd. I am using Sony CD-R discs at the moment.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Andrew Everard:Surely if you've made the FLAC files in the first place, you still have the original CDs to play?

not necessarily. they can be downloaded flacs (B&W SOS, for example) or even if made from CDs - a playlist to become a CDR compilation?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Indeed they can: was just curious...

 

[sthomas048]

Yeah, i love making compilations like this. I have so many cds that its quite fun making themed discs by picking out tracks from them.

 

[manicm]

sthomas048:manicm:

Firstly, download the free FLAC Frontend to unpack the WAV files from your FLAC files. If you're using Vista / W7 right-click and run the program as Administrator, otherwise won't work.

Now the actual CD-burning is not an exact science IMO. For starters different brand CD-Rs give different results. I'm currently happy with Sony discs. Find a brand that works and stick to it.

What CD-burning software do you use?

Is it better to decode the flac to wav first ? One less step in the burning process ? I use Ashampoo Burning Studio to burn the flac to cd. I am using Sony CD-R discs at the moment.

I may be paranoid, but if I can do any transcoding before the burning process I will. Better be safe than sorry. I would not trust any burning software in this process.

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like ur burning software is transcoding to a lossy formar before burning.

I use Nero with the flac plugin and have no problems.

 

[sthomas048]

Well, ive tried decoding the flac files to wav then burning to cd and there is a subtle improvement.

 

[TALON1973]

does flac now work with windows 7 >> as i could never get it to work

edit i;m usinf w7 64 bit

 

[nij_1]

I've tried ripping WAV files from CD and burning them back onto CDR, just for curiosity!

The playback
quality in the cd player was terrible. Apart from the sound quality not being as good as the original there were digital artefacts present.

I don't know the reason for this, maybe its the fact I'm using a usb external dvd rom drive.

 

[Anonymous]

I use software called Burrrn, it's a very simple tool that converts files into WAV files (you can see them in the temp folder) before burning then to disc, it's free so worth a shot.

 

[pete321]

If you use audio CD's rather than CD-ROM's you should get nearer to the original. I use Taiyo-Yuden CD-ROM's and get good results compared to most I've used.

 

[manicm]

Stephen, I think the problem is your software. Before purchasing or downloading anything else try iTunes to burn a CD. I've found it sometimes sounds a bit thin, but is fundamentally ok.

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:Surely if you've made the FLAC files in the first place, you still have the original CDs to play?

challenging

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:Surely if you've made the FLAC files in the first place, you still have the original CDs to play?

He probably have. There can be other reasons to do it. I recording music back to cd-r because I want my own compilation of artist's music, so I can enjoy him without changing CDs. And I still using CDs because I do not like my computer's noise at late night.
About recording. There is two things which is useful to check. Burning has better quality at lower possible speed, and you need check in software options if it does not do any additional audio processing, like maximize volume of all tracks, or normalize volume, or maybe something else.

 

[aliEnRIK]

I use MEDIA MONKEY to burn flac direct to cd

As to the OPs question - maybe your cd player isnt upto much? maybe your burn speed is too high? poor discs? Poor conversion? etc etc etc