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In Reply to: an INTENDEd repost posted by steppe on March 10, 2016 at 12:51:15:
I hear no difference between wav and flac files on the various converters I've lived with. Many people have posted comparisons of wav and flac encode/decode - all show them to be bit-level identical. Yes, it starts more CPU threads, especially on encoding, but unless the processor is only marginally capable of handling a wav file (with whatever software you use) there shouldn't be any noticeable difference with flac. Maybe I've missed something here... ?
"Upsampling" can result in different sound for a number of reasons. DACs can sound different at various sample rates. We all know that taking a 44.1 kHz sampled file and converting it to, say 96 kHz does not magically give us any more information. It's not as though we "spread out" the audio signal so now we can retrieve finer details from it. What it *does* do is run the file through the converter's DAC algorithm, then through its ADC algorithm at the new sample rate, and re-saves it. Playing the results runs it through the DAC algorithm again. Could all these trips change anything? Probably. Can it allow you to retrieve more detail from the source file that was missed at the lower sample rate? No. Might it sound better on your system? Could be. You do realize the "upsampling a flac" means decoding it back into wav, converting the wav to the new sample rate, then encoding the result back into flac. When you save it, the resulting larger file will occupy different memory locations or disc clusters. "More," in this case, does *not* mean more information; it means "in a different place, in a different format."
"Flac is a bad format, as it is packed..."
Wrong. It is a data-compression encryption only, and the round-trip encoding/decoding is bit-perfect with the original wav file. Consider this: the number 2.1670000E3 and the integer 2167 are identical at any significant level of precision. One takes more space to store on disc or s/s memory. Flac is a way to save storage space without affecting AT ALL the data being stored.
"God knows what's happening in memory during unpacking..."
Anyone can know this. Flac is an open source standard.
Tagging, metadata
These do not affect the resultant wav files at all. They do not affect the sound. The do not create more "garbage" that is read, like noise, and has to be separated out from the sound. All they are is additional information about the data that is used by some software.
"Half-cluster garbage" is handled by the o/s, and, to a small degree, the disc controller. It's not as though noise or "garbage" from the unused sectors in the cluster are passed on to the ADC, where they have to be separated out from the sound. Yes, most o/s read hard disc data by cluster, but only the actual data from the saved file is passed on to the o/s and application. This is true for all file reads, whether for the o/s or for an application, and whether audio or other kinds of files.
Flac is a perfect data-compression algorithm for audio files, as the round-trip result is bit-perfect with the source. The only price to pay is processing resources, and flac is set up to require very little of that when decoding.
If you don't like flac on general principles, don't use it. Storage is getting cheaper by the day, so the advantage of flac will continue to decline.
WW
"Put on your high heeled sneakers. Baby, we''re goin'' out tonight.
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Follow Ups
- RE: an INTENDEd repost - Bill Way 03/11/1611:57:25 03/11/16 (0)
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