Listen to say Michael Jackson (Quincy Jones production) or an Alan Parsons track on an ordinary system through the CD and it could sound better than an audiophile system with an average recording.
Quite right Cheng. And at any rate, one wonders, given human ear ageing, whether the question is moot. All due respect to Paul, but he, like others in his age group, probably can't hear anything above 10kHz anyway. Cables? C'mon.
Seriously taken blind tests with professional musicians and audio journalists have shown that there is no statistical discernment between higher resolution mp3s and cds. Good recording, good mastering, good streamer, good dac and good other electronics (and cables 😉 ) does the job. I forgot to mention good room and good speaker placement.
Recording and Mixing tenths or hundreds of channels in a daw with processing plugging effects while almost maxing out my cpu is ok. The moment my music hits your dac there is some heavy lifting to be done and all hell brakes loose!
John Swenson made the point about processing noise or load affecting sound quality on Audiostream about 10 years ago. Very important to reiterate that digital decoding is not a process that happens in isolation as if by magic.
Your video has gotten me to thinking about sound quality and CDs. I think the amount of error correction actually going on during playback has an effect. When I was selling audio in my younger days, the place where I was working had two copies of the same CD that we used on the sales floor. One of them got quite scratched up, so badly we doubted it could play. We tried it - and it played with no skips or obvious errors in the output. Then we played the one what was "perfect." It sounded much more open, much better imaging, like an upgrade. These were the same CD, from the same source (it was a demo disc from one of our manufacturers). We concluded that it must have had something to do with how much error correcting the CD player had to do with the scratched CD. What do you think?
The reason it would sound different is that the scratched disc has uncorrectable errors. The CD player tries to hide this by interpolating the missing samples. If there are too many missing samples, it will skip, but if only a few are missing, it will play smoothly but at a reduced quality due to the interpolation.
My format of choice is 24 96 Flac, I bought many years ago I box set a five CD by the band Rush I ripped the albums in wav to my Apple mMac mini played back through Audirvana It sounded Ok, I noticed on a site that same item but in 24 96 and costing just 20 pounds. I bought it and downloaded it from High Rez audio, my go to site, for many years, the difference was night and day whereas the Cd;s sounded sharp and top these downloads had a analog quality to them and sounded great. To my ears 24 96 Flac sound better, than other formats aside from blu ray audio, I don't need some geek to show me reams of graphs to show me otherwise, the sound is sweet powerful detailed and for 5 albums very cheap.
Realistically you can convert 100 times FLAC to WAV to ALAC to AIFF to FLAC and the first and the last files will be absolutely identical (bit berfect), this is why it's called loseless.
@PomstaZLesa You have to compare the file data only. The metadata can change, but it does not affect the sound. I have done byte by byte comparisons: no difference!
After decades of downloading music, I have found that SHN-Shorten and FLAC-Free Lossless Audio Codec are the best sounding formats for compressing .WAV giving about 50% compression and can be played directly without decompressing the file first.
"You were under the impression That when you were walking forwards That you'd end up further onward But things ain't quite that simple" -- Pete Townshend (1973) "I've Had Enough" Quadrophenia
The odds of being able to actually hear a difference in noise between playing back uncompressed and losslessly compressed audio, even in the lowliest of low-end systems, are probably no better than simple chance-especially because most of the noise generated by a CPU or other microprocessors will be far outside the audible range. But if one were *really* concerned, there's a dead-simple solution: uncompress your audio files before playback.
even if its above our range it still affects everything in the system, for example your speakers are more affected then anything else cause of noise! the DAC as well, but the speaker the tweeter for example is affected by stuff above 20khz if its in the tweeters range it could excite the brake up frequency of the dome or membrane and distort everything bellow 20khz as well and is well in your audible range why? cause the dome or membrane wont have a posttonic motion anymore, there are some tweeters that are better then others especially planar tweeters and obviously better speakers will have less break up also noise even if is above 20khz will make that speaker work harder as well
I half expected to disagree with you until you said "Chance" and no doubt an element of placebo after all we are all watching a Hify channel. It is wrong to say they are outside our auditable range ,which they are, but they do not only present there they distort all the frequencies right down to the other end of the spectrum the sub sonic tones. In preparation for my next upgrade I bought an expensive linear power supply and while waiting to get an up market streamer I currently have my Wiim pro powered through it. To my surprise it is the biggest single step in my sound quality yet. (though obviously "chance" of my previos choices will have affected the new synergy) Honestly buying a faster streamer at this point is more about curiosity, about matching my DAC's capability than it is about sound as I already love mine.
Death metal recordings that I've heard since the late 1980s often use (artificial?) reverb - some even use reverb that is surprisingly natural sounding.
FLAC uses more processor power to encode than decode, it was designed that way for a reason. If a person's processor is struggling to decode a FLAC file enough to cause an impact on the sound quality, that processor is not fit for purpose. In any case, a CPU does not work harder on a FLAC file than a WAV one because the WAV is bigger and there's more in outs to consider. "On my PC, using Sysinternals Process Explorer (the benchmark tool for CPU usage analysis), playing a WAV file in Foobar required a scant 0.327 seconds of total CPU time from a single core of my multicore processor. This works out to about 0.2% CPU usage. Playing the exact same file in FLAC format, required 0.312 seconds of total CPU time-also about 0.2% CPU usage. These numbers are essentially the same, and the FLAC number is even slightly lower. Why? It’s likely because the CPU has to read half as much data with FLAC compared to WAV. But these numbers are so small, they really don’t matter." thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htm
I work with big data, so the time it takes to complete a process is important. The test in your quote is a fail because the overhead for operations not directly involved in decoding are also captured. The test needs to be run either as a Monte Carlo (a million or so repeats) or the file needs to be concatenated repeatedly up to a reasonable percentage of the RAM (like 5Gb in a 16Gb system). By doing both methods, one can actually discover what the overhead is for both file types.
Plus you can't mesure in % cpu usage for such things you mesure in cycles else you will never be able to see any difference in any small processing. Keep in mind that your pc cpu is huge compare to on-board cpu from players
When you take a continuous signal, try to break it up into millions and millions of zero and one levels (whatever that means) and then try to re-produce what you have now converted to the digital domain back into a continuous or analog signal how can this task ever be easy. This was a really good question and an even better answer.
Well, that is why analog-digital and digital-analog converters are costly and have some variability in performance. However, this discussion is about lossless codecs.
I took the test between lossless and lossy 320 Kbps and could not tell the difference or actually liked the 320 Kbps version better at times, depending on the type of music.
I have some low bit rate videos that sound surprisingly excellent. I need to place myself mentally in a seat further away from the performance and it all makes sense. Lossless theoretically allows you to replicate the actual band's sound in your room....That is, if you want to disturb the neighborhood. Lossless can sound like an actual band is playing in your house if your speakers and equipment are up to the task. My absolutely favorite live performance was heard sitting in the balcony at the Fillmore East in 1968. Some of my most disappointing were when I was right up close. All excellent musicians. A great DAC on a good system can make a lower bit audio sound very satisfying... at a desk top. Now? If you want to hear real bass and drums in your home? I would imagine that lossless would be essential... Theoretically, lossless makes that possible. Which better suits you is the question.
@@DetroitRockCitizen I believe the only apple product I use is iTunes from time to time. I have been unable to tell a difference between most of my current ALAC files as compared to my FLAC ones.
@@brunoch95 I think there's a lot of reason to dislike ALAC, None of them have to do with the filetype per se. I have dabbled in the Apple ecosystem as needed. Although they open sourced it ALAC used to be a closed source file type and I still believe you have to goo through gigantic hoops to play FLAC files on any Apple Music product. ALAC works or sounds no better or worse than FLAC. This was a power trip move by Apple. No Thanks
I had a DEC Multia (released in 1994) that struggled a bit with MP3 files but worked well with some compiler optimizations... So if you have hardware that's more than 25 years old you may have some issues.
If I've understood correctly, Aurender digital players first uncompress and then copy uncompressed audio files to their second internal SSD disc, and play music from there. So files can be stored on their primary (large) hard drive in compressed format, but they are always played back uncompressed from the smaller SSD drive.
So it depends where you are decoding the FLAC into PCM for the DAC (which converts digital PCM to analogue sound). You need to "Galvanically Isolate", as Paul says, your decoder from your converter. Then it shouldn't matter.
exactly but what he says abıut transmitting digital data affected by noise is bullshit. the difference (if there is) how the wav or flac files is coverted to analog not on the way. if it is right he can simply solve his problem by using s/pdif
@@burakdemircan_ This is true. A double blind test will confirm. Many things only seem to sound better due to the person wanting to believe it sounds better. The mind is great at confirmation bias, especially if you pay a lot of money. Put another way, if many of these claims were true... a double blind test would confirm it almost every time. If you want better sound that is easily demonstrable, focus on speakers and amplifier.
He is beeing very vague about what noise he Means. After all keep in mind that hes trying to sell you sth. He is trying to fuel debate. Not inherently wrong but i often picture this man laughing maniacally offcamera.
i also heard that the highest compression level 12 for FLAC(comparing to the default 5) will cause some low-end decoder board with a weak CPU to output inconsistent rattling sound..
@Lloyd Stout In never mentioned PC's. DAC's and transports use various ECC algols. in their firmware and buffers. Read carefully..you might just learn something. Maybe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2%80%93Solomon_error_correction
That was the best explanation of why digital music with the same bits sound different from various sources and file types I have ever heard. You should let Darko Audio know, he struggles to explain the popular miss-comprehension of this ‘phenomenon‘ to his listeners! Love these daily videos.
Personally...MP3 audio for example, sometimes when converting CD quality to basic MP3, you can get "sound-drop"...i.e. the melody might start off loud/clear...but when the percussion/beat kicks in...it suddenly goes quieter and you have to turn it up to get the same effect. However...If I want practically "CD Quality"...and I go CD-to-WAV, its as nigh-on CD-quality as I can get...as the audio-data isn't as compressed. However...when saving to external hard-drives it uses more space compared to a compressed audio file of say an MP3 version. Its all down to the quality of the equipment used and personal choice....
I can tell you for sure that since I installed Audirvana in my MacBook and started using a Mytek DAC rather than the Mac alone everything I listen to , including TH-cam music sounds much better than before. Even MP3’s sound much better.
This has more to do with the low fi and low cost audio electronics on the Mac's logic board than any CODEC or DAC. The analog stage is not protected from what is essentially a digital broadcasting station inside any computer chassis. If you are old enough to recall Soundblaster cards....the high end ones were encased in steel cases on their daughter boards. This was to shield the audio outputs. Even so, it rarely got better than 70dB of signal to noise ratio.
Lossless is a myth bits are not bits they’re wave signals and the shape of the waves makes a difference. Noise is a major issue in this day and age with our homes full of RFI… that draw power to reproduce as they contaminate the music signal. I wonder how many here still think that electrons flow? 💫
What does this galvanic isolation mentioned in the video have anything to do with digital audio cables? Does anybody realize that ethernet is galvanic isolated by design? The differential pairs offer common mode rejection and go through both inductive isolation through the transformer and capacitive isolation. The DC coupling is done at the PHY. A cable has NO SOUND. A cable has RLC, period, end of story. If you do the math the amount of RLC has to be GROSS to impact the low frequency of 20kHz. If your cable is magically changing the sound either 1. Confirmation bias or 2. Fundamentally flawed audio gear in build or design.
usually the burden of updating the screen is offloaded to a processor on the screen itself, and all you have to send it is fresh numerical data. Takes essentially zero power to send along a piece of data that you wanted to collect anyway for house keeping purposes.
@@joshua43214 These days they are integrated general purpose CPUs. But even if it was a separate processor, where would that processor get it's power from? Paul's claim is that the additional processing burden of decompressing the FLAC data is loading down the power supply and therefore changing the sound. Im calling that out as a very weak argument - especially when you have a graphical display on the unit which consumes 1000s of times more processing cycles. In reality on these units both the CPU and display are likely run on a separate transformer. So the decompression of the FLAC isn't even happening on the same power rail as the amp & DACs, which even further undermines the argument.
@@bobtuiliga8691 Displays are pretty much always managed by a separate processor, that is almost always integrated into the display itself. Doing so allows the display to run off an I2s bus, and hugely reducing the IO demands on the CPU. Displays also typically have an onboard power supply, and receives power from the main power supply for the whole unit. The current demand of a display is both minimal and constant. The display will have 0 effect on the performance of hardware from an electrical and computational point. The data displayed is mostly data the CPU would collect for housekeeping, so the only overhead added is transmission (I2S is very efficient) Displays can have a very large effect because of EFI from the LED backlighting (LEDs are the bane of audio). All that said, I agree about calling bulshit on flac demanding enough more power to affect sound than wav unless we are talking about a CPU like an Arduino or maybe even an RPi. Any Celeron or better can handle the decoding effortlessly.
Can we get AudioScienceReview to measure jitter and noise from a DAC when playing back a WAV and FLAC file of the same pure 1khz tone, both using all-in-one streamer/DAC and a streamer connected to a DAC over SPDIF or AES/EBU cable?
Differences between digital codecs can only be assessed by actual listening tests - probably the very issue why a growing number of audiophiles are resorting to the "simplicity of vinyl".
I thought the difference in audio quality was a result of the decoder and not the encoder itself (digital). Back when I used to do some blind tests (excuse me a decade ago) it was more than apparent the differences between FLAC and Monkey's Audio, but... oh no wait it wasn't a blind test... there was an manual equalizer involved, hmm...
You mean the simplicity of self delusion. In no way is the medium of vinyl even comparable. Its a medium that should have died completely in the birth of digital.
As someone who solely listens to music on my iPhone, using the earbuds that come with the phone (with lightning connector), I've used AIFF for years. Am I missing out on "finer sounds", or would it be negligible by switching to Apple Lossless or WAV?
A FLAC and a WAV rip of the same track nulls 100% perfectly. At least on a computer - I can confidently say it makes no difference. You might as well rip to FLAC and save your disk space IMO. The CPU cycles contributing to noise is really splitting hairs at this point.
I actually think this matter isn't entirely settled. But I am personally unable to contribute to the discussion. But what Paul is saying sounds pretty convincing.
Is it really true that ripping on a loud, hard working pc will result in worse sound? That sounds like bullshit to me... can anybody confirm if it's true?
There is a lot of horse sh!t in the audiophile community. It is amazing what people will believe and need to believe. I have a BS in electrical engineering. Treat audio as a hobby is fine, treat it as science, that is a different matter. A lot of it is just marketing in pursuit of profit.
For ripping music the load of the PC won't make a difference even in theory. Compared to music playback it's not a realtime process, it decodes and encodes the data without any time pressure. Anyone who claims this is an issue probably has no idea how often processors reliably switch between tasks all the time. And while I don't have the expertise of the guy in the video, I kind of doubt his claims about digital cables where he doesn't even explain how he thinks it would make a difference - if you have enough electromagnetic interference to flip bits in digital cables the real problem is probably not the cable. If you're paranoid about it get the slightly better cables with some shielding, but no need to overdo it. What is correct is that electronic devices can influence each other (or even themselves) and this is mostly relevant when they work with high frequencies or analog signals. So it's not bullshit to have certain devices not run from the same power supply, for example it's the reason external DACs tend to be less noisy than soundcards built right into the computer. To decide how far you wanna take this use your own judgement and hearing. A ton of the marketing bullshit is in that area.
I can only attest to my experience. I find a big difference betweem MP3 or WAV vs FLAC. But, in attempting an A/B test betweem a CD and the same FLAC encoded cut, via my streamer, the FLAC doesn't hold up. Good but, as the say 'no cigar'. BTW. love the 'Fruedian slip'!
They shouldn't sound different IF and this is a big if, the lossless file was created using the exact same wav or aiff you are comparing to. In most cases there is no way to know how that lossless file was made nor can you get your hands on the uncompressed file they stated with. The reason why I want to go with apple lossless is to get all the tags and album art on the phone and in the car. I can't do that with .wav files. My collection is archived in .wav (remastered by me) so I will be able to compare them because I'm making the lossless files, not downloading them. Before I start that project I will need one of the new iPhones with 512gig of storage but as soon as I get one I'll try it.
Does this mean flac files require more processing than a wav file, hence sound quality could be worsened? With that being said, would taking a flac file and converting it into wav solve the issue?
If there is a difference after loading the track into memory, it's incredibly minute, and with more and more devices supporting it there's not much reason to use uncompressed formats. Plus, with lossless formats you can always transcode if you need to. Let's say you want some music on your smart watch for a workout but it doesn't support FLAC. Just load up a DAW or dedicated transcoding program to convert it into a support format.
I had a lot of noise on my PC when playing FLAC or MP3 files through headphones, or even when not playing any audio when the CPU was busy. I put a ferrite on each side of my headphone cable and now the noise is gone.
True Lossless in any format is an exact copy of the original. Just like how you can copy a word document and make a zillion identical copies of it without any degradation. Lossless is Lossless. Only "lossy" file systems differ. Heck, you can rip a CD using different settings which will create MP3 files of vastly different qualities. But FLAC, ALAC etc are identical except for the proprietary crap which deliberately breaks some formats from certain devices. DRM etc. Noise comes into picture immediately AFTER your DAC converts the digital format into analog.
power supply noise affecting sound quality based on codec format? oh come on thats just nonsense; blame that on the faulty processor (of whatever system) or the dac, not the file itself
Is the digital signal coming from the transport perfect or is the transport processing a perfect signal before its processed to analog via dac, I’m confused. If the signal is coming from the transport is perfect and not proceed, why would I pay thousands for a music transport. Can any body explain.
I use sometimes a DAP player and have various music files and to be frank, I cannot hear any difference (not using MP3) the chip in DAP players is designed to handle any files without loss of quality and so are most modern chips used today in Audio equipment. Use Roon as a library in my home set up and come to the same conclusion. However, music recorded average to bad one can hear on most music files used and play. The quality of the recording is the key.
Lossless is lossless and as long as the DAC gets the exact bits from the master there is no difference. And lossy can sound any level of worse depending on the degree of loss. MP3 files can be compressed to different level of degree and more compression means smaller files but also more audio fidelity losses, for example.
lossless is lossless but if the processor has to do more operations in order to process one type of file over another, there is a difference in the output of the processor. It doesn't have anything to do with being lossless, its just about how hard the codec pushes the DAC. What i mean is that its not the difference in files but in DACs.
@@mleczor The output of the processor, that is a PCM stream with a given bit resolution and sample rate, is not depending on the amount of operations done by the CPU, if the format is lossless. CPUs generate EMI noise and electrical noise that can carry through e.g. a USB cable to a DAC and interfere with the analog signals, but that noise is a different topic and to avoid it is not a matter of what codec you use but a matter of noise isolation between your gear components.
@@ThinkingBetter Sorry if you didn't understand but im refering to just the fact that different codecs and resolutions obviously require different tasks to be completed in order to get the analog output. Im just talking about the EMI and noise and not actually the music itself that are different
@@mleczor As I explained, the EMI and noise coming from your computer is a different subject entirely. The noise patterns generated by the billions of transistors and many bus lanes in modern computers running giga Hertz of clock speeds exist due to numerous things going on including running the operating system itself with all the drivers, graphics, internet connection etc. etc. When digital computer noise is a problem, the change of codec is not your solution!
Bang on. Great explanation. I use galvanic isolation after the server. The only processing after the isolation concerns FIFO buffer and master clock. With that in place I can hear no difference in FLAC vs WAVE. My isolation is not perfect. There is still an improvement in running as lite a software build as possible in the MPD processor, but it is becoming less of an issue as the isolation improves. If PS Audio has built a streamer with complete isolation, congrats.. it must sound good.
Hello Paul, does the PS Audio Company has any intention of making a cassette player? It seems the old manufacturers do not offer anything of comparable quality to their standards from way back when and simultaneously it seems that with the knowledge you have ensembled it would be very well worth the effort. Maybe some background information: As you probably know the cassette market is rising again significantly since ~ 2016, there is even a company that makes new tape in France and many studios have adapted or dusted off their old tape recording machines. However most decks have seen some thirty years of usage, the new ones lack in audio quality and are mechanically cheap. I am not sure if you have time to answer this with a video (even though i would be very interested in your thoughts on the topic, this specific or more general) maybe you have time to reply with a comment. My best regards
IMO if PS Audio were to go towards the analog tape they would go for a reel-to-reel not cassette. that same company in France is also producing some very reel tape as well. I agree with you, I'd love to see a brand new cassette deck that is of high quality. All you get nowadays is the same module made by one Chinese company (forgot the name), that companies rebrand in their own product. VWestlife (th-cam.com/users/vwestlife) has quite a few in-depth videos on the subject.
@@brunohebert1351 Yes, i have seen these videos. and now that i have done some binge watching of this channel (which i only found yesterday) i understand your assessment. however with the knowledge they have under one roof they would likely be capable of machining everything from mechanism to tape head by themselves and from what i gather reading all the cassette forums, it would be a small part of music history that right now is just up for grabs. so while a new r2r makes sense considering their likely market niche (somewhere at high end, pro users) in terms of brand recognition the idea of a durable, high end cassette player would likely increase their consumer base considerably.
Why in the world would you buy a reel to reel today, when there are Solid State Recorders available for much less money and better sound quality . You can even buy SSR 's that records with the DSD format.
@@captainwin6333 I think that is 100% correct. Lossless doesn't mean "nearly the same", it means, "THE SAME". Lossless compression has been in use for years, and now people don't trust it? Have people forgotten about zip files? That is lossless compression. It has to be.
Apparently ok, but how, for example, will I record an mp3 CD, but converting to an audio CD in nero and then going to the flac format? Won't flac be a scam file then?
So you'll start with a lossy file, then go to an uncompressed file (still lossy) and then go to a lossless file which will still be lossy because that's the file you started with. Don't do that.
@Nuke to be honest i bet most people that claim to tell difference between good quality 320kbps file vs 16/44 CD file wouldn't pass blind test. Including myself probabbly :D
@@turtleneck369 if you're older than 25 and listen to music regularly as most audiophiles do, I would bet almost no one could pass a 320 mp3 vs redbook abx test
I always consider backwards comparability. You can always convert a HiRes file to a very lossy MP3 (for your iPod or email to a friend) but you can't do it the other way around. Imagine the nightmare of having a massive library of lossy files then upgrading to a very high resolution system......
I have my main music library (used for my primary listening system) all high rez - either FLAC or DSD. I have second library which is my main library converted to 320kbps MP3's. My second MP3 library is used to create flash drives for the car audio systems and for portable devices. None of my cars audio systems can decode FLAC files :(
What a great answer. No BS-Talking here! Thank you for that. As it says, lossless is...lossless, so its sounds absolutely the same! This is, what i am hearing too. And it absolutely makes sense, that the higher processing to decode the compressed files can produce some noise. If you you decent systems, you won't hear that at all, there a soooo many other things that will affect the sound more, BUT: If you had a Notebook (or a PC) with some crappy onboard sound, you can clearly hear what Paul mentioned in the video. If the processor works hard because you are rendering video or whatever, or if you copy stuff and write/read from the disks, you can hear that in your headphones. The worst computer i got (its a decade ago or so) even created noise in the headphones, while moving the mouse. Because it was not well enough electrically isolated. So, thanks for the answer! As mentioned before, i think you are right, but i think even on decent mid-end-systems you won't hear that at all.
Thanks Paul, but what if it's a bit perfect transfer to a galvanically isolated external DAC? There should not be any difference what lossless file type is played back at all.
@@utubie24 It would be interesting to take a wav file, convert to flac and back to wav with various converters. The end wav file and source should be bit for bit identical -- sans any difference in metadata. If there are differences than I would subscribe to the idea that different converters impart a different sound, if not, then I can't buy it. My initial take is that lossless is lossless and you end with a bit perfect result at the end of the chain -- otherwise it's just less losey and not lossless. Maybe someone with the time and means can pull off that test :)
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 I did not do a blind test. But since you can easily switch tracks in an instance it was much easier to tell the difference between tracks. I used DBpoweramp, AIMP and EAC software to convert.
@@utubie24 umm........no. Every time you play a flac, it is basically uncompressed first, to something roughly equivalent to a wave file. But, since it is lossless, the data cannot change depending on what software you are using.
I admire Paul for having built such a renowned company in this crazy industry but the funniest/saddest thing is that he needs our endless disputes to create a kind of magical halo to stand out and survive.
You are clearly unaware that not all digital cables (such as USB, coaxial, and optical digital) are made alike and can affect the final sound. Sending a digital tape/disc signal or data file from a source/computer/transport to a DAC is not as simple as pushing a stream of ones and zeroes that is either _perfect_ or _completely inaudible._ - Can you not fathom that a poorly-constructed or lesser-quality cable could fail to conduct all of the tens-of-thousands of samples per second _perfectly_ in all cases? - Did you know that coaxial cables are susceptible to noise and have to be specifically Ohm-rated in order to reliably carry a digital signal? - Because USB uses a varying voltage to send audio, did you know that poorly-implemented USB controllers/connections and poorly-constructed USB cables can result in audible errors? If you didn't know any of those scientifically-proven *FACTS,* you might want to get educated before making additional condescending comments towards a respected, knowledgeable, audio professional.
@@mattrismatt Thank you for your lesson in digital audio. You are exactly the kind of expert I am looking for to try my latest audiophile product. I can offer you, at a discount price, a packet of my Audio Tuned Magic Beans. Place one bean on top of each loudspeaker and be amazed. Only $399 for a packet of ten beans.
@@mattrismatt I do hope you are not dismissing my excellent Magic Beans without personally testing them. That would be a bit hypocritical don’t you think?
@@geoff37s38 Bean - magic or otherwise - have _absolutely no basis_ in digital or analog electronics, troll. *Facts* don't care about your ignorance and lack of experience.
Paul, here's an important question for you. When I was 18-19 my hearing beat out our university's lab equipment, I could hear 19khz on their equipment, and traffic sensors and "ultrasonic" alarm detectors were annoying loud sounds. But now, decades later, my hearing craps out around 13-14khz. So ultrafine sound (I'm a 95% audiophile) is simply imperceptible to me. This problem is normal with aging. Do you find it has affected your standards as well? And I can't quite tell if MP3 VBR-2 is the same as -4 to my ears, but the -2 sounds the same as lossless formats to me. And my degraded ears.
Very good. Many people use crap formats such as ALAC or FLAC just because it handles meta data better. That's so stupid because the sound is now impure.
Outside world sound better than equipment... And the noise floor is huge! Why live guitar sounds amazing? Becouse we didn't chop the noise and process with filters... - So why we need AC filtration?? xD
I can tell the difference on my bose computer speakers. Night and day, been doing side by side on Spotify and cd quality, CD is trampling. Can't trust anything on the internet.
Only the specific recording’s engineer can have a legitimate word about how a music system can reproduce that specific material. Everything else from the “hifi industry & community “ are purely empty words and wasted time.
Paul carefully avoided the obvious answer: if you need to ask it doesn’t matter! If your system, audio education and hearing are good enough to hear the differences, you don’t need to ask the question because you already know the answer. On the other hand if, like most of us, your system, audio education and hearing aren’t good enough to hear the differences, you also know the answer!
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People should pay less attention on the format and more on the mastering.
Very true.
This is absolutely one of my biggest pet peeves in audio discourse.
Yes, yes and yes.
Listen to say Michael Jackson (Quincy Jones production) or an Alan Parsons track on an ordinary system through the CD and it could sound better than an audiophile system with an average recording.
Quite right Cheng. And at any rate, one wonders, given human ear ageing, whether the question is moot. All due respect to Paul, but he, like others in his age group, probably can't hear anything above 10kHz anyway. Cables? C'mon.
Seriously taken blind tests with professional musicians and audio journalists have shown that there is no statistical discernment between higher resolution mp3s and cds. Good recording, good mastering, good streamer, good dac and good other electronics (and cables 😉 ) does the job. I forgot to mention good room and good speaker placement.
That can depend on the equipment used. One may have such a comparison on equipment and location that does not reveal the difference.
The problem is that it never is that simple or done as you say to the best specification.
This is the most perfect answer I’ve come across. I’m amazed at how Paul in his age still gets all the acronyms and technical details spot on!!!
I'd dearly love to see the graphic noise levels for that SACD transport WITH or WITHOUT the galvanic isolation ...
🙄
Recording and Mixing tenths or hundreds of channels in a daw with processing plugging effects while almost maxing out my cpu is ok. The moment my music hits your dac there is some heavy lifting to be done and all hell brakes loose!
Nah that's your CPU not being able go keep up.
John Swenson made the point about processing noise or load affecting sound quality on Audiostream about 10 years ago. Very important to reiterate that digital decoding is not a process that happens in isolation as if by magic.
Does lossless sound different?
The answer is lost in the question ...
It's not a great question.
The question is lossy
@@roeland1205 I guess Paul's quirky reply should be 'GET LOST'
@@johncourneil7826 MEEToo
Your video has gotten me to thinking about sound quality and CDs. I think the amount of error correction actually going on during playback has an effect. When I was selling audio in my younger days, the place where I was working had two copies of the same CD that we used on the sales floor. One of them got quite scratched up, so badly we doubted it could play. We tried it - and it played with no skips or obvious errors in the output. Then we played the one what was "perfect." It sounded much more open, much better imaging, like an upgrade. These were the same CD, from the same source (it was a demo disc from one of our manufacturers). We concluded that it must have had something to do with how much error correcting the CD player had to do with the scratched CD. What do you think?
The reason it would sound different is that the scratched disc has uncorrectable errors. The CD player tries to hide this by interpolating the missing samples. If there are too many missing samples, it will skip, but if only a few are missing, it will play smoothly but at a reduced quality due to the interpolation.
My format of choice is 24 96 Flac, I bought many years ago I box set a five CD by the band Rush I ripped the albums in wav to my Apple mMac mini played back through Audirvana It sounded Ok, I noticed on a site that same item but in 24 96 and costing just 20 pounds.
I bought it and downloaded it from High Rez audio, my go to site, for many years, the difference was night and day whereas the Cd;s sounded sharp and top these downloads had a analog quality to them and sounded great.
To my ears 24 96 Flac sound better, than other formats aside from blu ray audio, I don't need some geek to show me reams of graphs to show me otherwise, the sound is sweet powerful detailed and for 5 albums very cheap.
I absolutely loooove these kind of questions!
Realistically you can convert 100 times FLAC to WAV to ALAC to AIFF to FLAC and the first and the last files will be absolutely identical (bit berfect), this is why it's called loseless.
@PomstaZLesa Interesting because for me checksum 100% matches (just as file size) as long as you convert back to the same format
@PomstaZLesa You have to compare the file data only. The metadata can change, but it does not affect the sound. I have done byte by byte comparisons: no difference!
Haha, not true at all. Oh boy. The know it alls have arrived with their theories.
Where's your theory?@@380stroker
After decades of downloading music, I have found that SHN-Shorten and FLAC-Free Lossless Audio Codec are the best sounding formats for compressing .WAV giving about 50% compression and can be played directly without decompressing the file first.
Paul gave a palpable answer on this topic, not the gobbledygook I expected.
"You were under the impression
That when you were walking forwards
That you'd end up further onward
But things ain't quite that simple"
-- Pete Townshend (1973)
"I've Had Enough"
Quadrophenia
The odds of being able to actually hear a difference in noise between playing back uncompressed and losslessly compressed audio, even in the lowliest of low-end systems, are probably no better than simple chance-especially because most of the noise generated by a CPU or other microprocessors will be far outside the audible range. But if one were *really* concerned, there's a dead-simple solution: uncompress your audio files before playback.
even if its above our range it still affects everything in the system, for example your speakers are more affected then anything else cause of noise! the DAC as well, but the speaker the tweeter for example is affected by stuff above 20khz if its in the tweeters range it could excite the brake up frequency of the dome or membrane and distort everything bellow 20khz as well and is well in your audible range why? cause the dome or membrane wont have a posttonic motion anymore, there are some tweeters that are better then others especially planar tweeters and obviously better speakers will have less break up also noise even if is above 20khz will make that speaker work harder as well
Great idea. Destroy the quality even more.
Here's the secret: you gotta train your ears on high fidelity equipment.
Heres a thing, humans are biased
I half expected to disagree with you until you said "Chance" and no doubt an element of placebo after all we are all watching a Hify channel.
It is wrong to say they are outside our auditable range ,which they are, but they do not only present there they distort all the frequencies right down to the other end of the spectrum the sub sonic tones.
In preparation for my next upgrade I bought an expensive linear power supply and while waiting to get an up market streamer I currently have my Wiim pro powered through it. To my surprise it is the biggest single step in my sound quality yet. (though obviously "chance" of my previos choices will have affected the new synergy)
Honestly buying a faster streamer at this point is more about curiosity, about matching my DAC's capability than it is about sound as I already love mine.
I can't hear a difference. Then again, I mostly listen to death metal recorded in caves.
you are both blessed.......and cursed
Death metal recordings that I've heard since the late 1980s often use (artificial?) reverb - some even use reverb that is surprisingly natural sounding.
FLAC uses more processor power to encode than decode, it was designed that way for a reason. If a person's processor is struggling to decode a FLAC file enough to cause an impact on the sound quality, that processor is not fit for purpose.
In any case, a CPU does not work harder on a FLAC file than a WAV one because the WAV is bigger and there's more in outs to consider.
"On my PC, using Sysinternals Process Explorer (the benchmark tool for CPU usage analysis), playing a WAV file in Foobar required a scant 0.327 seconds of total CPU time from a single core of my multicore processor. This works out to about 0.2% CPU usage. Playing the exact same file in FLAC format, required 0.312 seconds of total CPU time-also about 0.2% CPU usage. These numbers are essentially the same, and the FLAC number is even slightly lower. Why? It’s likely because the CPU has to read half as much data with FLAC compared to WAV. But these numbers are so small, they really don’t matter."
thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htm
I work with big data, so the time it takes to complete a process is important.
The test in your quote is a fail because the overhead for operations not directly involved in decoding are also captured.
The test needs to be run either as a Monte Carlo (a million or so repeats) or the file needs to be concatenated repeatedly up to a reasonable percentage of the RAM (like 5Gb in a 16Gb system).
By doing both methods, one can actually discover what the overhead is for both file types.
Plus you can't mesure in % cpu usage for such things you mesure in cycles else you will never be able to see any difference in any small processing.
Keep in mind that your pc cpu is huge compare to on-board cpu from players
When you take a continuous signal, try to break it up into millions and millions of zero and one levels (whatever that means) and then try to re-produce what you have now converted to the digital domain back into a continuous or analog signal how can this task ever be easy. This was a really good question and an even better answer.
Well, that is why analog-digital and digital-analog converters are costly and have some variability in performance. However, this discussion is about lossless codecs.
I took the test between lossless and lossy 320 Kbps and could not tell the difference or actually liked the 320 Kbps version better at times, depending on the type of music.
I have some low bit rate videos that sound surprisingly excellent. I need to place myself mentally in a seat further away from the performance and it all makes sense. Lossless theoretically allows you to replicate the actual band's sound in your room....That is, if you want to disturb the neighborhood. Lossless can sound like an actual band is playing in your house if your speakers and equipment are up to the task. My absolutely favorite live performance was heard sitting in the balcony at the Fillmore East in 1968. Some of my most disappointing were when I was right up close. All excellent musicians. A great DAC on a good system can make a lower bit audio sound very satisfying... at a desk top. Now? If you want to hear real bass and drums in your home? I would imagine that lossless would be essential... Theoretically, lossless makes that possible. Which better suits you is the question.
You forgot to say that flacs and alacs can easily be converted to aiff or wav if that does improve the sound quality in anyone’s system
Thanks for the clear explanation. Can you go into more detail why you don't like ALAC?
ALAC (Advanced listening audio cables) - a German manufacturer- makes excellent high end power cables btw
He didn't say he disliked it. He got tongue tied and said awful instead of apple and then corrected himself
@@brunoch95 a Freudean Slip perhaps? I'm not a big fan of the Apple ecosystem myself.
@@DetroitRockCitizen I believe the only apple product I use is iTunes from time to time. I have been unable to tell a difference between most of my current ALAC files as compared to my FLAC ones.
@@brunoch95 I think there's a lot of reason to dislike ALAC, None of them have to do with the filetype per se. I have dabbled in the Apple ecosystem as needed. Although they open sourced it ALAC used to be a closed source file type and I still believe you have to goo through gigantic hoops to play FLAC files on any Apple Music product. ALAC works or sounds no better or worse than FLAC. This was a power trip move by Apple. No Thanks
Playing audio files is CPU straining? WHAT YEAR IS THAT?!!!
I had a DEC Multia (released in 1994) that struggled a bit with MP3 files but worked well with some compiler optimizations... So if you have hardware that's more than 25 years old you may have some issues.
Yes, the talk after 3 minutes into the video sounds more like the era of PCs before Windows XP...
@@ThinkingBetter Well that's the kind of CPU power you have in a streamer, they are all integrated ARM or other low power cores.
To him 1994 probably doesn't seem like that long ago.
Hahaha! Good one!
If I've understood correctly, Aurender digital players first uncompress and then copy uncompressed audio files to their second internal SSD disc, and play music from there. So files can be stored on their primary (large) hard drive in compressed format, but they are always played back uncompressed from the smaller SSD drive.
i love that paul asks the question first to the point so i can skip the essay questions most people send in and get straight to the response
@Evan Hodge you’d be amazed mate. I’ve seen worse people that managed to raise children. I’m still amazed. Not sure how they did that.
So it depends where you are decoding the FLAC into PCM for the DAC (which converts digital PCM to analogue sound). You need to "Galvanically Isolate", as Paul says, your decoder from your converter. Then it shouldn't matter.
exactly but what he says abıut transmitting digital data affected by noise is bullshit. the difference (if there is) how the wav or flac files is coverted to analog not on the way. if it is right he can simply solve his problem by using s/pdif
@@burakdemircan_ This is true. A double blind test will confirm. Many things only seem to sound better due to the person wanting to believe it sounds better. The mind is great at confirmation bias, especially if you pay a lot of money. Put another way, if many of these claims were true... a double blind test would confirm it almost every time. If you want better sound that is easily demonstrable, focus on speakers and amplifier.
I can’t imagine a modern chip would break into a sweat decompressing FLAC or ALAC on the fly.
He is beeing very vague about what noise he Means. After all keep in mind that hes trying to sell you sth. He is trying to fuel debate. Not inherently wrong but i often picture this man laughing maniacally offcamera.
I'll answer this for you Jim: if it sounds different, it wasn't lossless.
There might be some issue with old hardware that shits itself when ithas to decode sth
i also heard that the highest compression level 12 for FLAC(comparing to the default 5) will cause some low-end decoder board with a weak CPU to output inconsistent rattling sound..
Noise is generated from the media (aluminum) substrate and the D-to-A conversion process. Enough jitter and ECC will result in more noise.
@Lloyd Stout In never mentioned PC's. DAC's and transports use various ECC algols. in their firmware and buffers. Read carefully..you might just learn something. Maybe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2%80%93Solomon_error_correction
Does the decompression of flac files, the actual reconstructive math processes, aside from noise issues, cause jitter?
Seems like it does according to some tests I've done.
That was the best explanation of why digital music with the same bits sound different from various sources and file types I have ever heard. You should let Darko Audio know, he struggles to explain the popular miss-comprehension of this ‘phenomenon‘ to his listeners! Love these daily videos.
Personally...MP3 audio for example, sometimes when converting CD quality to basic MP3, you can get "sound-drop"...i.e. the melody might start off loud/clear...but when the percussion/beat kicks in...it suddenly goes quieter and you have to turn it up to get the same effect. However...If I want practically "CD Quality"...and I go CD-to-WAV, its as nigh-on CD-quality as I can get...as the audio-data isn't as compressed. However...when saving to external hard-drives it uses more space compared to a compressed audio file of say an MP3 version. Its all down to the quality of the equipment used and personal choice....
I can tell you for sure that since I installed Audirvana in my MacBook and started using a Mytek DAC rather than the Mac alone everything I listen to , including TH-cam music sounds much better than before. Even MP3’s sound much better.
This has more to do with the low fi and low cost audio electronics on the Mac's logic board than any CODEC or DAC. The analog stage is not protected from what is essentially a digital broadcasting station inside any computer chassis. If you are old enough to recall Soundblaster cards....the high end ones were encased in steel cases on their daughter boards. This was to shield the audio outputs. Even so, it rarely got better than 70dB of signal to noise ratio.
Excellent explanation.
Lossless is a myth bits are not bits they’re wave signals and the shape of the waves makes a difference. Noise is a major issue in this day and age with our homes full of RFI… that draw power to reproduce as they contaminate the music signal. I wonder how many here still think that electrons flow? 💫
What does this galvanic isolation mentioned in the video have anything to do with digital audio cables? Does anybody realize that ethernet is galvanic isolated by design? The differential pairs offer common mode rejection and go through both inductive isolation through the transformer and capacitive isolation. The DC coupling is done at the PHY. A cable has NO SOUND. A cable has RLC, period, end of story. If you do the math the amount of RLC has to be GROSS to impact the low frequency of 20kHz. If your cable is magically changing the sound either 1. Confirmation bias or 2. Fundamentally flawed audio gear in build or design.
I use galvanic isolation on my stereo system. I crank up the volume to max and go next door to listen.
The amount of processing power required to update the UI on those display screens is orders of magnitude greater than decompressing a segment of FLAC.
usually the burden of updating the screen is offloaded to a processor on the screen itself, and all you have to send it is fresh numerical data.
Takes essentially zero power to send along a piece of data that you wanted to collect anyway for house keeping purposes.
@@joshua43214 These days they are integrated general purpose CPUs. But even if it was a separate processor, where would that processor get it's power from? Paul's claim is that the additional processing burden of decompressing the FLAC data is loading down the power supply and therefore changing the sound. Im calling that out as a very weak argument - especially when you have a graphical display on the unit which consumes 1000s of times more processing cycles. In reality on these units both the CPU and display are likely run on a separate transformer. So the decompression of the FLAC isn't even happening on the same power rail as the amp & DACs, which even further undermines the argument.
@@bobtuiliga8691 Displays are pretty much always managed by a separate processor, that is almost always integrated into the display itself. Doing so allows the display to run off an I2s bus, and hugely reducing the IO demands on the CPU. Displays also typically have an onboard power supply, and receives power from the main power supply for the whole unit.
The current demand of a display is both minimal and constant. The display will have 0 effect on the performance of hardware from an electrical and computational point. The data displayed is mostly data the CPU would collect for housekeeping, so the only overhead added is transmission (I2S is very efficient) Displays can have a very large effect because of EFI from the LED backlighting (LEDs are the bane of audio).
All that said, I agree about calling bulshit on flac demanding enough more power to affect sound than wav unless we are talking about a CPU like an Arduino or maybe even an RPi.
Any Celeron or better can handle the decoding effortlessly.
Thank you for your honesty
LOL! I needed a laugh today! No, there is no difference. You will not hear a difference. You will not measure a difference.
Awesome explanation
Can we get AudioScienceReview to measure jitter and noise from a DAC when playing back a WAV and FLAC file of the same pure 1khz tone, both using all-in-one streamer/DAC and a streamer connected to a DAC over SPDIF or AES/EBU cable?
Why would you ask that on the PS Audio TH-cam channel? I bet you'd be better off asking the owner of ASR on his TH-cam channel...🤣
@@Mark-lq3sb 🤣 I know, fuck me, right?
Differences between digital codecs can only be assessed by actual listening tests - probably the very issue why a growing number of audiophiles are resorting to the "simplicity of vinyl".
I thought the difference in audio quality was a result of the decoder and not the encoder itself (digital). Back when I used to do some blind tests (excuse me a decade ago) it was more than apparent the differences between FLAC and Monkey's Audio, but... oh no wait it wasn't a blind test... there was an manual equalizer involved, hmm...
True. Actual double-blind listening tests show no difference between high-bitrate MP3, AAC, and CD. Let alone FLAC and ALAC.
@@travis1240 "Actual double-blind listening tests" specifically with what equipment and in what environment?
@E. O. What is phase inversion, please?
You mean the simplicity of self delusion. In no way is the medium of vinyl even comparable. Its a medium that should have died completely in the birth of digital.
As someone who solely listens to music on my iPhone, using the earbuds that come with the phone (with lightning connector), I've used AIFF for years. Am I missing out on "finer sounds", or would it be negligible by switching to Apple Lossless or WAV?
bigger difference would be getting full size headphones, even the bluetooth ones
Look into Chinese iem
Cool retro armchairs!
sadly, they resemble the 'feet' on the eventually available FR30
A FLAC and a WAV rip of the same track nulls 100% perfectly. At least on a computer - I can confidently say it makes no difference. You might as well rip to FLAC and save your disk space IMO. The CPU cycles contributing to noise is really splitting hairs at this point.
I guess my questions are lost less too!
I actually think this matter isn't entirely settled. But I am personally unable to contribute to the discussion. But what Paul is saying sounds pretty convincing.
This is the problem when listening to a smooth talking salesman who has no technical expertise.
Everything has it's own sound. And the better conditions you can create the more you can hear them.
Is it really true that ripping on a loud, hard working pc will result in worse sound? That sounds like bullshit to me... can anybody confirm if it's true?
There is a lot of horse sh!t in the audiophile community. It is amazing what people will believe and need to believe. I have a BS in electrical engineering. Treat audio as a hobby is fine, treat it as science, that is a different matter. A lot of it is just marketing in pursuit of profit.
For ripping music the load of the PC won't make a difference even in theory. Compared to music playback it's not a realtime process, it decodes and encodes the data without any time pressure. Anyone who claims this is an issue probably has no idea how often processors reliably switch between tasks all the time.
And while I don't have the expertise of the guy in the video, I kind of doubt his claims about digital cables where he doesn't even explain how he thinks it would make a difference - if you have enough electromagnetic interference to flip bits in digital cables the real problem is probably not the cable. If you're paranoid about it get the slightly better cables with some shielding, but no need to overdo it.
What is correct is that electronic devices can influence each other (or even themselves) and this is mostly relevant when they work with high frequencies or analog signals. So it's not bullshit to have certain devices not run from the same power supply, for example it's the reason external DACs tend to be less noisy than soundcards built right into the computer. To decide how far you wanna take this use your own judgement and hearing. A ton of the marketing bullshit is in that area.
If you can hear the difference, your problem is that you have too much money.
If you can hear the difference, you have a good imagination.
Can you explain how a digital cable makes any difference in a competently implemented system?
The answer is in your question: "competently implemented."
No, he can’t answer the question. He is a salesman, not an engineer. P.s. the correct answer is there is no audible difference.
@@geoff37s38 Just realized that PS Audio sell cables as well... great... another snake oil merchant, just what the industry needs
@@bobdylan6237 I have never bought any PS Audio equipment and never will. I will not support a company that relies on dishonest advertising.
@@geoff37s38 Do you have proof that PS Audio creates dishonest advertising?
great explanation Thank You .
I can only attest to my experience. I find a big difference betweem MP3 or WAV vs FLAC. But, in attempting an A/B test betweem a CD and the same FLAC encoded cut, via my streamer, the FLAC doesn't hold up. Good but, as the say 'no cigar'.
BTW. love the 'Fruedian slip'!
They shouldn't sound different IF and this is a big if, the lossless file was created using the exact same wav or aiff you are comparing to. In most cases there is no way to know how that lossless file was made nor can you get your hands on the uncompressed file they stated with. The reason why I want to go with apple lossless is to get all the tags and album art on the phone and in the car. I can't do that with .wav files. My collection is archived in .wav (remastered by me) so I will be able to compare them because I'm making the lossless files, not downloading them. Before I start that project I will need one of the new iPhones with 512gig of storage but as soon as I get one I'll try it.
Does this mean flac files require more processing than a wav file, hence sound quality could be worsened?
With that being said, would taking a flac file and converting it into wav solve the issue?
Doubt it. Just use wav. Storage is cheap now. A non issue.
If there is a difference after loading the track into memory, it's incredibly minute, and with more and more devices supporting it there's not much reason to use uncompressed formats. Plus, with lossless formats you can always transcode if you need to. Let's say you want some music on your smart watch for a workout but it doesn't support FLAC. Just load up a DAW or dedicated transcoding program to convert it into a support format.
Bull..
I had a lot of noise on my PC when playing FLAC or MP3 files through headphones, or even when not playing any audio when the CPU was busy. I put a ferrite on each side of my headphone cable and now the noise is gone.
IF there is a problem, convert the compressed audio files to the native format prior to listening. No more lossless compressed quality question. :)
lmao. Yeah, ok
True Lossless in any format is an exact copy of the original. Just like how you can copy a word document and make a zillion identical copies of it without any degradation.
Lossless is Lossless.
Only "lossy" file systems differ. Heck, you can rip a CD using different settings which will create MP3 files of vastly different qualities. But FLAC, ALAC etc are identical except for the proprietary crap which deliberately breaks some formats from certain devices. DRM etc.
Noise comes into picture immediately AFTER your DAC converts the digital format into analog.
power supply noise affecting sound quality based on codec format? oh come on thats just nonsense; blame that on the faulty processor (of whatever system) or the dac, not the file itself
Mp3 for life.
Is the digital signal coming from the transport perfect or is the transport processing a perfect signal before its processed to analog via dac, I’m confused. If the signal is coming from the transport is perfect and not proceed, why would I pay thousands for a music transport. Can any body explain.
I use sometimes a DAP player and have various music files and to be frank, I cannot hear any difference (not using MP3) the chip in DAP players is designed to handle any files without loss of quality and so are most modern chips used today in Audio equipment. Use Roon as a library in my home set up and come to the same conclusion. However, music recorded average to bad one can hear on most music files used and play. The quality of the recording is the key.
do you hear differences in sound for digital cables during A/B tests? Or just the rest of the time.
No
Spot on Paul manufacturers are realizing that that noise in digital systems is a bigger problem than analogue record and playback
A secret that was hidden in marketing from Sony and Phillips when cds were released
If audio devices get better in isolating noise is there still a function for power plants?
Lossless is lossless and as long as the DAC gets the exact bits from the master there is no difference. And lossy can sound any level of worse depending on the degree of loss. MP3 files can be compressed to different level of degree and more compression means smaller files but also more audio fidelity losses, for example.
lossless is lossless but if the processor has to do more operations in order to process one type of file over another, there is a difference in the output of the processor.
It doesn't have anything to do with being lossless, its just about how hard the codec pushes the DAC.
What i mean is that its not the difference in files but in DACs.
@@mleczor The output of the processor, that is a PCM stream with a given bit resolution and sample rate, is not depending on the amount of operations done by the CPU, if the format is lossless. CPUs generate EMI noise and electrical noise that can carry through e.g. a USB cable to a DAC and interfere with the analog signals, but that noise is a different topic and to avoid it is not a matter of what codec you use but a matter of noise isolation between your gear components.
@@ThinkingBetter Sorry if you didn't understand but im refering to just the fact that different codecs and resolutions obviously require different tasks to be completed in order to get the analog output. Im just talking about the EMI and noise and not actually the music itself that are different
@@mleczor As I explained, the EMI and noise coming from your computer is a different subject entirely. The noise patterns generated by the billions of transistors and many bus lanes in modern computers running giga Hertz of clock speeds exist due to numerous things going on including running the operating system itself with all the drivers, graphics, internet connection etc. etc. When digital computer noise is a problem, the change of codec is not your solution!
@@ThinkingBetter yeah, i guess i could be wrong about emi. thanks for explaining!
I think the difference in noise is even hard to "measure" before you can hear it.
So you're admitting it exists?
My entire music library is stored in non-compressed FLAC files. Why compress any file if you don’t have to?
Flac is a compressed format. What are you on? If you want uncompressed its AIF, WAV or DSD. Thats it.
And the old man looks so neat. How do appearances sometimes deceive ...
Who thinks this gentleman tells rubbish?
Who are you talking about ????????????
Bang on. Great explanation. I use galvanic isolation after the server. The only processing after the isolation concerns FIFO buffer and master clock. With that in place I can hear no difference in FLAC vs WAVE. My isolation is not perfect. There is still an improvement in running as lite a software build as possible in the MPD processor, but it is becoming less of an issue as the isolation improves. If PS Audio has built a streamer with complete isolation, congrats.. it must sound good.
Hello Paul, does the PS Audio Company has any intention of making a cassette player? It seems the old manufacturers do not offer anything of comparable quality to their standards from way back when and simultaneously it seems that with the knowledge you have ensembled it would be very well worth the effort.
Maybe some background information: As you probably know the cassette market is rising again significantly since ~ 2016, there is even a company that makes new tape in France and many studios have adapted or dusted off their old tape recording machines. However most decks have seen some thirty years of usage, the new ones lack in audio quality and are mechanically cheap.
I am not sure if you have time to answer this with a video (even though i would be very interested in your thoughts on the topic, this specific or more general) maybe you have time to reply with a comment. My best regards
IMO if PS Audio were to go towards the analog tape they would go for a reel-to-reel not cassette.
that same company in France is also producing some very reel tape as well.
I agree with you, I'd love to see a brand new cassette deck that is of high quality. All you get nowadays is the same module made by one Chinese company (forgot the name), that companies rebrand in their own product. VWestlife (th-cam.com/users/vwestlife) has quite a few in-depth videos on the subject.
@@brunohebert1351 Yes, i have seen these videos. and now that i have done some binge watching of this channel (which i only found yesterday) i understand your assessment. however with the knowledge they have under one roof they would likely be capable of machining everything from mechanism to tape head by themselves and from what i gather reading all the cassette forums, it would be a small part of music history that right now is just up for grabs.
so while a new r2r makes sense considering their likely market niche (somewhere at high end, pro users) in terms of brand recognition the idea of a durable, high end cassette player would likely increase their consumer base considerably.
Why in the world would you buy a reel to reel today, when there are Solid State Recorders available for much less money and better sound quality . You can even buy SSR 's that records with the DSD format.
I always keeps important files as WAV. HD space is cheap. Why compress?
Because it takes up less room and doesn't impact the sound quality. So why not compress?
@@captainwin6333 I think that is 100% correct. Lossless doesn't mean "nearly the same", it means, "THE SAME". Lossless compression has been in use for years, and now people don't trust it? Have people forgotten about zip files? That is lossless compression. It has to be.
I used to think the same way. But WAV files don't allow for metadata. Metadata makes organizing and searching digital files soooo much easier.
Apparently ok, but how, for example, will I record an mp3 CD, but converting to an audio CD in nero and then going to the flac format? Won't flac be a scam file then?
So you'll start with a lossy file, then go to an uncompressed file (still lossy) and then go to a lossless file which will still be lossy because that's the file you started with. Don't do that.
If you could have lossless why would you want lossy?
@Nuke to be honest i bet most people that claim to tell difference between good quality 320kbps file vs 16/44 CD file wouldn't pass blind test. Including myself probabbly :D
@@turtleneck369 if you're older than 25 and listen to music regularly as most audiophiles do, I would bet almost no one could pass a 320 mp3 vs redbook abx test
on really good recordings i can hear a slight differrence, but with 95% of all records sure not
I always consider backwards comparability. You can always convert a HiRes file to a very lossy MP3 (for your iPod or email to a friend) but you can't do it the other way around. Imagine the nightmare of having a massive library of lossy files then upgrading to a very high resolution system......
I have my main music library (used for my primary listening system) all high rez - either FLAC or DSD. I have second library which is my main library converted to 320kbps MP3's. My second MP3 library is used to create flash drives for the car audio systems and for portable devices. None of my cars audio systems can decode FLAC files :(
What a great answer. No BS-Talking here! Thank you for that. As it says, lossless is...lossless, so its sounds absolutely the same! This is, what i am hearing too. And it absolutely makes sense, that the higher processing to decode the compressed files can produce some noise. If you you decent systems, you won't hear that at all, there a soooo many other things that will affect the sound more, BUT: If you had a Notebook (or a PC) with some crappy onboard sound, you can clearly hear what Paul mentioned in the video. If the processor works hard because you are rendering video or whatever, or if you copy stuff and write/read from the disks, you can hear that in your headphones. The worst computer i got (its a decade ago or so) even created noise in the headphones, while moving the mouse. Because it was not well enough electrically isolated. So, thanks for the answer! As mentioned before, i think you are right, but i think even on decent mid-end-systems you won't hear that at all.
Even a dog or cat would never be able to tell the difference between FLAC/ALAC and WAV/AIFF.
Thanks Paul, but what if it's a bit perfect transfer to a galvanically isolated external DAC? There should not be any difference what lossless file type is played back at all.
That is basically what he is saying right?
huh.. can you just side step the whole question by converting a flac to wav and end up with the source wav prior to listening with something like vlc?
Yes you can but for some reason in my experience each converter software sounds different.
@@utubie24 It would be interesting to take a wav file, convert to flac and back to wav with various converters. The end wav file and source should be bit for bit identical -- sans any difference in metadata. If there are differences than I would subscribe to the idea that different converters impart a different sound, if not, then I can't buy it. My initial take is that lossless is lossless and you end with a bit perfect result at the end of the chain -- otherwise it's just less losey and not lossless. Maybe someone with the time and means can pull off that test :)
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 I did not do a blind test. But since you can easily switch tracks in an instance it was much easier to tell the difference between tracks. I used DBpoweramp, AIMP and EAC software to convert.
@@utubie24 are you sure you retained the same sample rate and bit depth during conversion?
@@utubie24 umm........no. Every time you play a flac, it is basically uncompressed first, to something roughly equivalent to a wave file. But, since it is lossless, the data cannot change depending on what software you are using.
Source: nowhere
after 3min of this, i wandered off.
unless you've got superman hearing, no difference
I admire Paul for having built such a renowned company in this crazy industry but the funniest/saddest thing is that he needs our endless disputes to create a kind of magical halo to stand out and survive.
I have some of those WAF files (@0:57). The wife can't stand them.
LOL! I nearly spit my tea all over the monitor.
Wow Paul. Your ability to hear differences in data cables is truly amazing. Can I interest you in some audiophile paint?
You are clearly unaware that not all digital cables (such as USB, coaxial, and optical digital) are made alike and can affect the final sound. Sending a digital tape/disc signal or data file from a source/computer/transport to a DAC is not as simple as pushing a stream of ones and zeroes that is either _perfect_ or _completely inaudible._
- Can you not fathom that a poorly-constructed or lesser-quality cable could fail to conduct all of the tens-of-thousands of samples per second _perfectly_ in all cases?
- Did you know that coaxial cables are susceptible to noise and have to be specifically Ohm-rated in order to reliably carry a digital signal?
- Because USB uses a varying voltage to send audio, did you know that poorly-implemented USB controllers/connections and poorly-constructed USB cables can result in audible errors?
If you didn't know any of those scientifically-proven *FACTS,* you might want to get educated before making additional condescending comments towards a respected, knowledgeable, audio professional.
@@mattrismatt Thank you for your lesson in digital audio. You are exactly the kind of expert I am looking for to try my latest audiophile product. I can offer you, at a discount price, a packet of my Audio Tuned Magic Beans. Place one bean on top of each loudspeaker and be amazed. Only $399 for a packet of ten beans.
@@geoff37s38 Pathetic.
@@mattrismatt I do hope you are not dismissing my excellent Magic Beans without personally testing them. That would be a bit hypocritical don’t you think?
@@geoff37s38 Bean - magic or otherwise - have _absolutely no basis_ in digital or analog electronics, troll. *Facts* don't care about your ignorance and lack of experience.
Paul, here's an important question for you. When I was 18-19 my hearing beat out our university's lab equipment, I could hear 19khz on their equipment, and traffic sensors and "ultrasonic" alarm detectors were annoying loud sounds. But now, decades later, my hearing craps out around 13-14khz. So ultrafine sound (I'm a 95% audiophile) is simply imperceptible to me.
This problem is normal with aging. Do you find it has affected your standards as well?
And I can't quite tell if MP3 VBR-2 is the same as -4 to my ears, but the -2 sounds the same as lossless formats to me. And my degraded ears.
I have all my digital must as AIFF hard drives have plenty of capacity these days so their is no need to compress your music files anymore.
Very good. Many people use crap formats such as ALAC or FLAC just because it handles meta data better. That's so stupid because the sound is now impure.
Outside world sound better than equipment... And the noise floor is huge! Why live guitar sounds amazing? Becouse we didn't chop the noise and process with filters... - So why we need AC filtration?? xD
I can tell the difference on my bose computer speakers. Night and day, been doing side by side on Spotify and cd quality, CD is trampling.
Can't trust anything on the internet.
im in for lossy hifi....
Do an A B test and realize the truth...
Nobody in this world can hear the difference between a WAV and a FLAC encoded from the WAV source, on any system.
Only the specific recording’s engineer can have a legitimate word about how a music system can reproduce that specific material. Everything else from the “hifi industry & community “ are purely empty words and wasted time.
As are yours.
Personal i could find the difference. However I think the player I use have good code for flac than alac. Flac sounds good to me in this player.
💪👍👍👍🙏
Paul carefully avoided the obvious answer: if you need to ask it doesn’t matter! If your system, audio education and hearing are good enough to hear the differences, you don’t need to ask the question because you already know the answer. On the other hand if, like most of us, your system, audio education and hearing aren’t good enough to hear the differences, you also know the answer!
Great reply! I agree.
Digital data transport sound different ?? !! Same old snake oil argument.
Du that s all folks
Dont know what the hell your talking about but , sounds good! Hahahaha