Sound quality comparison

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(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!

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