WAV vs. FLAC vs. AIFF

""Malfunction"? Are you saying that the 16/24 bit data for each sample is incorrect? That the data that comes out of a flac decode is different that the wav data?"

Yes, I believe its incorrect when the decoding is done on-the-fly.

Steve N.

"The idea that the FLAC decoder produces wrong numbers is just not credible. People have repeatedly shown that the compression/decompression algorithms works."

Yes they have, but only staticly, never real-time.

Electrical noise in the PC is not the cause of these differences, and jitter is not the cause either. Noise will not change significantly with different tracks or different formats. Jitter is a non-issue with Async USB.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

EDorr - are you using a USB interface? What player S/W? Are you using a Preamp? What ripper did you use?

All of these must be optimized in order to get stellar results, and to hear these differencees easily.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"The noise transients I am envisioning are associated with the abrupt SWITCHING of cpu clock rate, and in some cases voltage as well, that unless disabled by the user will occur as processing tasks intermittently start and stop."

Huh? There are certainly differences in power in the computer when there is highly CPU intensive calculations ocurring, but as noted, we have not seen this in the CPU usage numbers.

Has anyone looked at the CPU usage graphs while running .wav compared to FLAC?

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

If flac or any format encoded + decoded produces different results than original, assuming same resolution applied throughout then there is either a bug or defect in the system somewhere or a decision was made to sacrifice detail rather than implement a robust design. Like I said, things like bugs and defects can and do happen.

But if it is done correctly format encoding to and from at same resolution should produce the same results. IF not the case, please offer a more specific example of why.

ANother reason to go with devices explicitly designed to retain sound quality in a high end system. Real time compression/decompression, encoding/decoding is easily achieved with readily available modern processors. It is not rocket science to do right. But it still has to be done right......