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has anybody else noticed this about flac audio?

o.k are you ready for some truth friends ? flac has compression levels from 0 to 8 with the official flac default level being 5. now flac is lossless compression so there should be no sound loss from the original source no matter what compression level you use however if you encode the same song using every different flac compression level even though they will all be lossless there absolutely is a difference in the overall sound including tone and sound stage from level to level and doing your own test will only prove me right. now here’s where it gets strange? vintage vinyl has stereo + stereo depth perception (3d sound stage).digital audio has stereo + mono depth perception (2d sound stage) and this includes all new remastered vinyl cut from the digital master. this is why digital audio does not sound like vintage vinyl along with brick wall compression.i find it odd that the only flac compression level not recommended as a default no matter what software you use is flac compression level 4 ? it just so happens that re-encoding digital audio to flac with compression level 4 converts digital mono depth perception back into digital stereo depth perception (3d sound stage) just like vintage vinyl! and i don’t think this is by mistake friends ? do your own test and get ready to have your mind blown. here is an audio sample: level 5 http://pc.cd/pCcrtalK level 4 http://pc.cd/iVWrtalK
guitarsam
mlsstl
1,578 posts
 
My conversion project started in the early 2000s and was finished eight or nine years ago. My equipment wasn't all that fancy - a Dual turntable with an Ortofon cartridge, and a Conrad Johnson preamp that fed a Dell PC with an aftermarket sound card (Creative Tech, as I recall.) Software used was Adobe Audition with recordings saved to flac file format at CD rates (16/44.1KHz.) 

Just a side note. I do not consider myself an "audiophile" -- the term has acquired way too much pretense over the years for me. I am just a music lover who also enjoys quality sound. I'm only describing what works for me. As they say, take what you want and leave the rest. 


rudolfogrease
37 posts
 

Hi there,

I have a question about this flac format since I haven’t used it yet. Is there a significant difference between Flac and Alac (apple lossless...)? If you think I owe to try it, which one would you recommend as a flac ripper? My tuner/media player has a flac capability just checked it. 

guitarsam OP
179 posts
 
guitarsam here and i am not an audiophile and i realize that it makes no sense that flac with compression level 4 should sound any different than any other level.
i can accept that i’m fooling myself and my ears maybe fooling me.

she by gram parsons ripped from cd with jriver media center 23 to flac (0) and flac (4)
what i believe i hear is a more open soundstage with more stereoness to the music on flac (4)

flac (0) http://pc.cd/QzzotalK flac (4) http://pc.cd/XBS

guitarsam OP
179 posts
 
sam here as misstl pointed out if he does a vinyl to digital transfer it sounds the same however when the record company does the same thing with the master source the sound is not there? and to suggest the finest producers in the world are not aware of this is pure crap! they don't get to play the stupid card 
ap1
22 posts
 
It is very easy to test this hypothesis - take WAV audio file, compress into FLAC, decompress back to WAV and then compare two WAV files. Other than metadata header, they should match bit to bit.

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