rhizomaticon;290526 Wrote: 
> I respect your opions -- you guys have far more experience with computer
> audio than I.  You want to believe in digital, and that all this
> manipulation of bytes will have no effect on the final sound-- it's
> just information after all, which can be "lossless."  Theoretically
> perhaps it is, but that is not what I've found listening carefully. 
> You want to believe that FLAC is FLAC, whether created by EAC's
> algorhythms or the SB3's.  Are you certain? 
> 
Sure it's possible that some app produces broken FLAC files, but it's
trivial to test. Simply take a WAV file, encode it to FLAC, decode it
back to WAV, and compare. If they're identical the implementation is
sound. The reference FLAC impl (which is used in 99% of apps I believe)
has a huge suite of tests which is run against every new version to
prove it's working properly. If there's a track which you think FLAC
does a bad job of compressing, let's see it. Josh (who designed FLAC)
hangs around here sometimes, I'm sure he'd be interested :)

> 
> There are a lot of uncontrolled variables here, despite all the claims
> to "science" being thrown around (including by me).  I think one of the
> biggest which has not been mentioned is the DACs in the SB3 vs. an SACD
> player.  I love Burr-Brown and I think the SB3 is a phenomenally
> well-designed box, but you would have to agree that even if you have
> identical source material (e.g. a CD ripped as wav into the server
> playing through the SB3 vs. the CD on the 555es) that these will
> inevitably lead to different reproduced sounds. 
> 
Of course they will, but I don't agree that DACs are "not mentioned" -
they're probably discussed in 80% of the threads in this forum. But
whether you have Burr-Brown or whatever else down the chain, whether
the original file was WAV or FLAC won't make any difference. There are
many parts in these systems, all of which contribute to the final
result. Change one and you pretty much always change the end result, to
some degree (audible or not). But assuming you use properly lossless
formats, anything prior to the first DAC should be irrelevant. 

> 
> As a new member here it really makes me wonder about the value of
> voicing a minority opinion on these forums, or posting at all for that
> matter.
> 
The audiophile forum is a lion's den, and most people seem to like it
that way as strict moderation has been rejected. Everyone's free to
voice an opinion (or should be) but don't expect others to not voice
their own right back at you, new member or old timer. The rest of the
board is generally a lot friendlier :)


-- 
radish
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radish's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=77
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=45839

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