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Sound quality comparison - best - 22-08-2014 09:14
Hi all
Has anyone on this forum done a comparison of sound quality
between a flac file transcoded to wav24 versus a file originally ripped as is in wav16?
Been going back and forth on some cds that i have ripped in flac and the original wav file. Not been able to come to a definite conclusion.
Any thoughts out there?
best
RE: Sound quality comparison - DavidHB - 22-08-2014 11:28
(22-08-2014 09:14)best Wrote: Hi all
Has anyone on this forum done a comparison of sound quality
between a flac file transcoded to wav24 versus a file originally ripped as is in wav16?
Been going back and forth on some cds that i have ripped in flac and the original wav file. Not been able to come to a definite conclusion.
Any thoughts out there?
best
I suspect that, even when all the difficulties associated with subjective assessment of SQ are allowed for, the results are quite system-dependent. In other words, there is no definitive answer.
I transcode from flac to wav24. Subjectively (and entirely non-scientifically), I think there is an improvement over playing the flac 'as is', which is more noticeable on the more expensive of my two (Linn) systems. It's a no-cost option, so I'm happy to continue to use transcoding.
David
RE: Sound quality comparison - tarnkappe - 24-08-2014 16:36
I, too, think that it depends on the client hardware if it makes a difference to play wav or flac. Theoretically there should be no difference as the result is bit/byte identical. But on my naim uniti 1 the wav format does sound better. I have checked this together with my 13 year old son, and not only his younger ears found that the uncompressed format sound smoother somehow. The difference is not very big, but even in blind tests we heared correctly with most of the tracks we did check.
IMHO the only reason for this can be that the uniti has less to compute with wav. The flac format needs to be uncompressed and maybe this results in more electronic noisfe maybe because of less interrupts and jitters or something. As I have read the difference should be smaller with the new uniti 2, because it has a faster CPU or DSP.
Maybe you can find hardware that works better with flac or at least does not make a difference at all.
RE: Sound quality comparison - simoncn - 24-08-2014 19:21
(24-08-2014 16:36)tarnkappe Wrote: I, too, think that it depends on the client hardware if it makes a difference to play wav or flac. Theoretically there should be no difference as the result is bit/byte identical. But on my naim uniti 1 the wav format does sound better. I have checked this together with my 13 year old son, and not only his younger ears found that the uncompressed format sound smoother somehow. The difference is not very big, but even in blind tests we heared correctly with most of the tracks we did check.
IMHO the only reason for this can be that the uniti has less to compute with wav. The flac format needs to be uncompressed and maybe this results in more electronic noisfe maybe because of less interrupts and jitters or something. As I have read the difference should be smaller with the new uniti 2, because it has a faster CPU or DSP.
Maybe you can find hardware that works better with flac or at least does not make a difference at all.
I thought the original question was whether it sounds better to play a file ripped as WAV or a file transcoded to WAV. I have not heard any difference between these.
The discussion seems to have moved on to whether it sounds better to play a FLAC file without transcoding or with WAV transcoding. With my renderer (a Linn DS), it sounds better with WAV transcoding and better still with WAV24 transcoding.
RE: Sound quality comparison - DavidHB - 24-08-2014 22:25
(24-08-2014 19:21)simoncn Wrote: I thought the original question was whether it sounds better to play a file ripped as WAV or a file transcoded to WAV. I have not heard any difference between these.
The discussion seems to have moved on to whether it sounds better to play a FLAC file without transcoding or with WAV transcoding. With my renderer (a Linn DS), it sounds better with WAV transcoding and better still with WAV24 transcoding.
Fair point, Simon. I was trying to generalise based on my own experience of transcoding rather than to move the discussion to another point; apologies to the OP if I started a red herring.
It seems reasonable to surmise that there is unlikely to be much if any difference in SQ between a 'ready ripped' WAV file and its transcoded counterpart, as the player will surely see them as the same thing and deal with them in the same way. Your experience would bear this out.
It is possible to imagine that, because the server presumably has to do more work with the transcoded version, there might be timing differences between the versions as the respective streams arrive at the player. But players typically use buffering to deal with such differences (which can arise from a number of causes), and also (at least in the case of the Linn models you and I use) the player 'locks' the incoming network stream to the clock in its own DAC. These player processes should remove any difference between identically formatted streams.
The differences we both hear between differently formatted streams would then, on this logic, be a function of the format rather than of transcoding as such. Sadly, I cannot think of any means by which we could objectively validate this interesting speculation ...
David
RE: Sound quality comparison - krutsch - 24-08-2014 22:26
(24-08-2014 19:21)simoncn Wrote: The discussion seems to have moved on to whether it sounds better to play a FLAC file without transcoding or with WAV transcoding. With my renderer (a Linn DS), it sounds better with WAV transcoding and better still with WAV24 transcoding.
+1 ... I have a Denon DNP-720AE and I have experienced the same result.
The last F/W update for the Denon player introduced a defect in their FLAC decoder (hissing sound between tracks), which is what brought me to MinimServer in the first place - transcoding to WAV, which fixed the playback issues for my system. I am quite surprised how much better sounding WAV24 is over the original files.
BTW, how do I also transcode AAC or MP3 tracks? I've tried adding aac:wav24 or mp3:wav24, but to no effect.
RE: Sound quality comparison - simoncn - 25-08-2014 08:14
(24-08-2014 22:26)krutsch Wrote: +1 ... I have a Denon DNP-720AE and I have experienced the same result.
The last F/W update for the Denon player introduced a defect in their FLAC decoder (hissing sound between tracks), which is what brought me to MinimServer in the first place - transcoding to WAV, which fixed the playback issues for my system. I am quite surprised how much better sounding WAV24 is over the original files.
BTW, how do I also transcode AAC or MP3 tracks? I've tried adding aac:wav24 or mp3:wav24, but to no effect.
This should work. In the latest version of MinimStreamer, the settings are:
aac:wav24 to transcode ADTS files (.aac)
mp4:wav24 to transcode MPEG/AAC files (.mp4 and .m4a)
mp3:wav24 to transcode MP3 files (.mp3)
For all these, the stream.converter property must be set. If it isn't set, MinimStreamer will report an error when you add the transcoding setting.
After changing transcoding settings, you might need to restart MinimServer and/or the control point to clear previously cached information in the control point.
I have found that transcoding 320 kbps AAC improves sound quality and transcoding MP3 makes sound quality slightly worse.
RE: Sound quality comparison - best - 25-08-2014 09:08
(24-08-2014 19:21)simoncn Wrote: [quote='tarnkappe' pid='10549' dateline='1408894606']
I, too, think that it depends on the client hardware if it makes a difference to play wav or flac. Theoretically there should be no difference as the result is bit/byte identical. But on my naim uniti 1 the wav format does sound better. I have checked this together with my 13 year old son, and not only his younger ears found that the uncompressed format sound smoother somehow. The difference is not very big, but even in blind tests we heared correctly with most of the tracks we did check.
IMHO the only reason for this can be that the uniti has less to compute with wav. The flac format needs to be uncompressed and maybe this results in more electronic noisfe maybe because of less interrupts and jitters or something. As I have read the difference should be smaller with the new uniti 2, because it has a faster CPU or DSP.
I thought the original question was whether it sounds better to play a file ripped as WAV or a file transcoded to WAV. I have not heard any difference between these.
The discussion seems to have moved on to whether it sounds better to play a FLAC file without transcoding or with WAV transcoding. With my renderer (a Linn DS), it sounds better with WAV transcoding and better still with WAV24 transcoding.
Yes my question was whether a file ripped as an original wav file (16 bit) sounds better vs a flac file transcoded to wav24 in minim. The main difference being ofcourse that a flac file takes up a lot less space on the hard drive than a wav file would. Therefore I would like to come to a definite conclusion, but so far my listening tests are not conclusive as to which one is better. But what I do find is that they do sound different!
These days when I get a new disc I am in two minds : flac or wav? I then go with wav, my logic being it should sound better, as there is less 'manipulation' of the original that way. Ofcourse the advantage of flac being a smaller size.
Please do try and make this comparison and lets hear your feedback!
best
RE: Sound quality comparison - JimR - 25-08-2014 12:09
I fancy trying this, but I use MinimServer to serve music to multiple devices, some of which can render wav24, whist others cannot. Is there any way to tell MinimStreamer to transcode for certain renderers but not for others?
Jim.
RE: Sound quality comparison - krutsch - 25-08-2014 14:05
(25-08-2014 08:14)simoncn Wrote: This should work. In the latest version of MinimStreamer, the settings are:
aac:wav24 to transcode ADTS files (.aac)
mp4:wav24 to transcode MPEG/AAC files (.mp4 and .m4a)
mp3:wav24 to transcode MP3 files (.mp3)
For all these, the stream.converter property must be set. If it isn't set, MinimStreamer will report an error when you add the transcoding setting.
After changing transcoding settings, you might need to restart MinimServer and/or the control point to clear previously cached information in the control point.
I have found that transcoding 320 kbps AAC improves sound quality and transcoding MP3 makes sound quality slightly worse.
OK, I was using just aac:wav24 before, but with m4a files, so that should explain what I was doing wrong. However, when I try to add mp4:wav24, I see this:
Incorrect source value 'mp4'; correct highlighted value and retry
When I remove the mp4 entry, leaving only alac and flac, the error clears and all is well. I am also able to add mp3:wav24 and aac:wav24 just fine.
I've verified that I am running the latest version (update-35/0.8.1). I am also running the latest FFmpeg (2.3.3 for Mac OS).
BTW, I can see how you get your interesting result of AAC better / MP3 worse. What I've learned with my Denon player is that there is wide variation with the quality of decoders in the embedded software and it's possible that your Linn DS is doing additional processing on MP3s that is skipped with AAC and WAV equivalents.