| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
November 29, 2013 - 3:41am
#1
FLAC vs. WAV -- proposed test for Stereophile
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
That's what some people whose ears I trust say. Certainly when you play a FLAC or WAV files, the same bits are presented to the DAC with both types of file, so if FLACs and WAVs sound different, there must be some sort of secondary effect at work..
It sounds like an intriguing test, but I suspect that it might be not quite as straightforward to perform as you suggest. I'll give it some thought.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
You're not "allowed" to say that because as an engineer and scientist, it violates the religious doctrines (e.g., by his fellow scientists Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy"). Also you "protect Stereophile advertiser interest..." Yada ... yada ...
It's not just the fact that certain hard-core "objectivists" simply (unreflectively) tow the party line with the above rhetoric ...they actually believe them as truisms...hence the passionate -- and often emotionally radical -- defense of their fragile beliefs.
Here are some personal truisms: For the sake of economy (and shelf space!) I let all of my hi-fi mag subscriptions (including Stereophile) expire a few years ago -- still waiting for the DVD-rom of print-edition back issues!
More important, I haven't invested in anything other than mid-priced portable/iDevice/headphone-type gear ... I have WAY less $$ invested in audio gear than most budget objectivist (I'll post pix of some of my gear as proof. See below for starters ***).
Having been a careful and OBJECTIVE audio enthusiast (of both electronics and signal), since a very young age, I can say with absolute (personal) certainty that ABX and most modern audio-science** metrics reveal only a partial chunk of audio reality.
I think as new parameters are discovered and added to the metrics database, some of the obj./subj. controversy will disappear. E.g., years after CDs appeared, linearity and (later) jitter were added to lab paradigms as legitimate metrics correlating importantly to SQ.
** "Modern audio science" is best/most we know (can know??) about audio reproduction ... from physical [electronics to acoustical mechanics] ... to biological [psychoacoustics (esp from an evolutionary perspective)].
*** One of my MAIN (daily-use) rigs is a portable/DIY job ... Sennheiser IE8, Etymotic ER-4S; Shure SE-530, and other IEMs, with better-than-iPod Chinese DAPs (one is the WAV-only QLS-Hi-Fi 350; the other is a dual-WM8470 Nationite S:Flo2). The headphone amp is a class-A home-brewed/DIY with crossfeed. Oh .. and just to rub salt into the open sores of objectivists ... see those interconencts? ... DIY, but I use Switchcraft, Neutrik and Canare parts with ... drum roll... silver solder. Yes, they do improve sound qual. over stds. Etc....
Love,
- Your fellow, ultra-economy, dirt-poor Stereophile -- and recovering Objectivist ;)
such a test is worthless. even idiotic!
audio information is the same. period. end of. fact.
"Slam" goes the sound of a mind shutting :-)
No-one is disputing that fact. But if people find they sound different, and assuming that they are not deluding themselves, as I said, they must be some secondary or tertiary effect occurring. See my quoting of an example of "LP demagnetizing" at www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go-there-something-the in my Richard Heyser memorial Lecture to the Audio Engineering Society.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
At least one poster in this thread is an objectivist. For the record it's not me.
Why is it that every time there is some audiophile claim that runs completely counter to well known and provable scientific fact the people who stand by the science are the being closed minded?
I am closed minded because I believe 2+2 to be equal to 4? Or closed minded because I know that sticking my finger into a candle's flame will result in my finger getting burned?
Oh no! Wait a minute 2+2=4 does not apply in the world of quantum mechanics and the burn is only in my mind.
But here's a better one:
Why is it that the only lossless audio codec being said to sound inferior to wav is flac? Why not Apple lossless audio? Here's why because Apple would demand that the people claiming to hear a difference between alac and wav present concrete and repeatable proof, that's why. Flac is open source and as such does not have the monetary or legal firepower of Apple.
Finally if on the fly decompression is such a major problem why doesn't some manufacturer build a media player which decodes the flac file to wav then puts the wav file into a buffer and then plays the wav file from the buffer? Seems like a pretty simple solution to all this nonsense. By the way this solution would be a total waste of money and therefore a big, big hit with audiophiles.