FLAC to WAV Conversion

[NRG]

Hi

What SB setup are you using, what amplification, etc, is it partnered with?

Best Wishes
Mark Bartlett

I have a modified SB MKI, MKII and standard MKIII, all are hardwired to an XP based PC when in the main system. I use wireless if using them around the house. Not sure what amplification has to do with it but I uses valve amplification and have a choice of 300B PP, 2A3, 6550 or 5881 amplifiers and two ss amplifiers a MF and Linn.

[Gazjam]

Hey Steve,

The best I've heard is Foobar 2K running bit-perfect through ASIO drivers.

You tried that?

[leo]

Hello All
This topic may have already been covered but I could not find a thread on the subject.

I am currently streaming FLAC & WAV files to a Squeezebox Classic [standard version 3 using basic wall-wart] with the digital out to a Sony DAS-R1. The best sounding files have been those extracted from CD to WAV using Exact Audio Copy. Although FLAC files should be equal in sound quality to WAV, the FLAC version of the same extract has poorer quality than the WAV; despite the lossless compression. If I take a FLAC file from a downloaded source and convert back to WAV using foobar2000, the WAV file again sounds better than FLAC.

Has anybody else had similar experiences, or can comment on why the WAV files sound superior?

Thanks and Happy New Year

Best Wishes
Mark Bartlett

I hear a big difference with Flac and WAV if using say the pc sound card or a USB dac/ USB to SPDIF .
The difference with the Squeezebox is much smaller but I still hear a difference, to me WAV seems a little louder, a bit more open than Flac.

The firmwares do seem to make some audible difference, I recently updated the firmware from 48 to 55 on my Duet receiver, 55 sounds more brighter and metalic than 48 this difference is heard using either of my external dacs

I decided to try this firmware selector which worked fine with my OS (Vista) http://mike.galusha.googlepages.com/...rmwareselector
changing back to 48 I heard a difference straight away

I'm still hearing a difference between WAV and Flac , Ape seems to be closer to WAV in sound than Flac

[Tony Moore]

Hi All,

I have to say that when I first heard that people were suggesting that there was a difference between FLAC and WAV format I did do a comparison and as Neal said, I couldn't hear any difference whatsoever. That was with the SB3, Slimserver 6.2.1 and a much earlier firmware revision. I have kept that firmware revision ever since. I did once allow the Slimserver upgrade to also upgrade the firmware in my SB3 but I noticed a difference in sound right away and opted to go back to the earlier one. (You just bung the firmware file in the right directory and edit the config file to point to it - or use the firmware selector which does the same thing)

I have to say that I've not done comparisons with SqueezeCentre and Duet firmware revisions - that's a job for another day.

To be honest, when I changed from Windows to Suse Linux to run the SqueezeCentre I thought I heard an improvement in sound quality but when I mentioned it on SD forum I was told I was imagining it. So I guess they told _me_!

Interesting thread!

& Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Tony

[leo]

Its one of the reasons I don't bother mentioning it Tony, folks seem to think

48 seems to be ok for me with the Duet, tbh I don't mind the small differences between WAV and Flac, its far less noticeable with the Squeezebox's than with say USB

[sastusbulbas]

Hey Steve,

The best I've heard is Foobar 2K running bit-perfect through ASIO drivers.

You tried that?

Hi Gaz,

Yes I preferred Mediamonkey to Foobar, but to be honest the differences were small, and the WMA interface much preferred but due to the amount of varied video/audio types I use went back to K-Lite codecs with WMA instead.

How big a difference did you find?

I have to say by comparison I have found Windows Media capable, both WMA with K-Lite codecs, and Mediamonkey can play more types of file inc high resolution audio, than the others such as Foobar, and Itunes. Though I have sort of went back to just MP3 and standard WAV as I only have limited high res downloads which I like.

To be honest if I was "only" using WAV or FLAC I would run stripped Windows with Mediamonkey, I have done this before (may be doing it again, maybe with a stipped Linux Distro) when I first started complaining about computer sound, but as I have a load of different family members from 5 year old's to the wife using varied files, and much open source stuff coming and going, having a modified WMA player which plays 99% of all known files with 90% + of the claimed audio quality of Free Media Players seems the better option.

Steve

[Audiocom AV]

I hear a big difference with Flac and WAV if using say the pc sound card or a USB dac/ USB to SPDIF .
The difference with the Squeezebox is much smaller but I still hear a difference, to me WAV seems a little louder, a bit more open than Flac.

The firmwares do seem to make some audible difference, I recently updated the firmware from 48 to 55 on my Duet receiver, 55 sounds more brighter and metalic than 48 this difference is heard using either of my external dacs

Hi Leo

Thanks for the information to the firmware selector. It is now running with the option to select one version only. Is there a source to downloads older versions, I could not find the older versions at the Logitech site.

I expect there are other contributors to what we are each perceiving between the quality of WAV versus FLAC. In our system, WAV sounds closer to the CD transport whereas FLAC sounds like better mp3.

Have you listened to the Duet with a linear supply? I have a Paul Hynes SR1 here which I have yet to try. There are two set-ups I am keen to test;

SB CLASSIC + PH SR1 SUPPLY w/ DIGITAL OUT TO SONY DAS-R1 >
SB TRANSPORTER w/ DIGITAL OUT TO SONY DAS-R1 >

I have had several customers give up CD players for the SB Transporter including owners of Teac Esoteric products.

Best Wishes
Mark Bartlett

[sastusbulbas]

Could running older tech dacs be a contributing factor?

Would a "make all digital input sound the same with off the shelf DSP plug n solutions" dac produce less noticeable differences than an old "Legacy" dac which "must be rubbish if you can hear a difference cause all digital is the same if you use a competent dac" dac?

Steve

[Audiocom AV]

Could running older tech dacs be a contributing factor?

Would a "make all digital input sound the same with off the shelf DSP plug n solutions" dac produce less noticeable differences than an old "Legacy" dac which "must be rubbish if you can hear a difference cause all digital is the same if you use a competent dac" dac?

Steve

Hi Steve

An interesting point, I get the similar results when using a Benchmark DAC1 instead of the Sony DAS-R1. I have yet to try the Transporter via its own analogue outputs.

Whatever the reasons are, they are there and should be explainable, and I can clearly hear it.

All the best
Mark

[NRG]

It seems people have been reporting differences between f/w levels for some years, it would seem any noted sound differences between WAV and FLAC on the SB is more down to the f/w than the file format. I've not changed from v40 on the SB1 and v81 on the SB2 but may experiment with the SB2...danger though is to loose features that I find useful like Internet radio...