CD vs FLAC. Which is better?

[sidvee]

FLAC is the ripped data of physical CD... How can you say flac format sound is similar or better?

By doing an actual comparison as I stated in my first post. When I had my ayon cd2s player, I used a cd, ripped a flac from the cd then used the player and compared the Flac using the digital input of the ayon cd. Did I hear a difference,
Not really so that is why I said it is similar, however on some flacs I felt bass was better So that is why I said better. Since then I have ripped majority of my cds and listen to only the files.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[sidvee]

Respectfully disagree here Sid. Any random laptop can't be converted into a high quality source. I have 3-4 laptops at home (new ones and old ones) and none of them are remotely close to an optimized music PC even when running off battery power - there is way too much digital noise that I end up hearing even when using an async USB DAC. Also laptops have fans which generate EMI interference.

The ideal machine should be fanless, diskless with a designed for audio USB card with accurate clocks, a linear power supply & a good USB cable. I have all of those other than a dedicated USB card. .

i agree ROC the reason I brought up laptops was in response to Arjs comment about Pc audio being complex and that a simple laptop will go a long way as a source.
Even I have a custom built machine for audio and am getting a second one with Linear psu, external powered pcie usb card etc. I also believe to get the best from computer audio one needs an external usb/spdif converter with its own clock and psu and complete the connection to their dac via spdif regardless of their dac being ready for usb. I have tried 3 usb cables from $60 to about $250. Honestly I could not tell too much difference but that is just me but these were used to connect from Pc to converter only. So imo yes one has to go through a bit of work for pc to work as a great source, but all this is not expensive. All this can be done for about $1200 - $1500 at most (plus cost of an usb spdif converter which range from $100 to $6000) for what a decent disc transport will cost ( I am guessing because I stopped looking them up once I got out of discs, I know some high end transports like cec, esoteric cost above $10k ). In a closing comment I would like to state something I read about recent revival of Dacs. It is has been stated that one the major reasons for the Dac revival and the plethora of dacs availble today from $100 to $50k is mainly due to the availability of File based music and the ease of connecting with usb. So whatever we feel about physical discs, the market is moving steadily ahead towards file based playback and that's a fact.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[sidvee]

And one more thing I wanted to add, I have been playing back music files since 2008, when the wadia 170i was released that allowed digital retrieval of ipod content and I have been using DAC's since about 2002 with a MSB dac. So though I really got into true computer based audio much later perhaps around 2012, I was convinced by that time that file based playback with external DAC was going to be the way to go.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[jls001]

I was convinced by that time that file based playback with external DAC was going to be the way to go.
Cheers,
Sid

Very very true.


On another note, I'm convinced that computer playback is another "turntable" setup because it takes so much tweaking to get good sound.

Also I'm totally convinced that the DAC is the most important thing in the chain, much more so than the computer transport itself, although the contribution of the computer itself is non trivial.

 

[sidvee]

Very very true.


On another note, I'm convinced that computer playback is another "turntable" setup because it takes so much tweaking to get good sound.

Yes agree, computer based audio does require a bit of tweaking undoubtedly. But in the offshore/ backoffice location of the globe, PC's do not hold too much complexity for our intrepid members, I feel. Indeed lot of what I have learnt that can be done with Pc's for music has been from our members like ROC, Rud3dawg etc.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[arj]

Yes I agree that getting the computer as a high end source working itself does take some effort and also it has not matured to the point where one can just buy an unit off the shelf like a cd transport. However that being said once the effort has been made, i.e getting the proper components then it cannot be equalled.
Another plus for computer audio is that it does not have to be expensive unlike a disc transport. One can get a decent laptop with an external usb/ spdif converter and reasonable priced DAC which will easily match many similary or higher priced cd players. So many swear by apple products which are also quite simple to adapt and claimed to be superior to windows based machines. So while it is tweaky computer audio is not that hard, especially now. Anyways ultimately it will boil down to personal preference but IMO sound quality is no longer the reason why one should choose one over the other.
cheers,
Sid

Not sure on that Sid. i think if you add the cost of a computer and setup the cost of th transport could be equivalent if not more.

I have Computer based setup which might be only slightly above entry level but much better than the laptop based setup
An iMac running Amarra or Audivana connected via Ethernet to a NAS (also tried USB).
Linked via an Audioquest Firewire cable to a M-Audio Audiophile Solo SPDIF converter going on to a Reimyo Dac via a Yamamura digital cable ot ASI Liveline.
(With Audirvana I turn off all other processes and make it dedicated)

My CD transport is much more enjoyable to listen to than the computer . i cannot find fault with soundstaging .imaging or depth. but with the CD you just enjoy it a bit more .

Again this is not to say computer Audio is not as good, the whole method is still evolving and too many variables which i dont want to go around investing in at this time
I am rather taken in by the Auralic Aries which can read a NAS directly and input SPDIF into the dac- no "computer" there although it is just that but customised but again no idea on sound quality

As prem mentioned it also depends on the content. There is some content which sounds best on Vinyl and most old hindi music come in there

 

[sidvee]

)
My CD transport is much more enjoyable to listen to than the computer . i cannot find fault with soundstaging .imaging or depth. but with the CD you just enjoy it a bit more .
Again this is not to say computer Audio is not as good, the whole method is still evolving and too many variables which i dont want to go around investing in at this time

That is fine Arj, I guess like I said it is what the listener finds best. As for me I have stopped investing in Cd's entirely both discs and players (I buy some blue note reissues very ocassionally to rip into Wav, last purchase was almost a year ago).
Cheers,
Sid

 

[Nikhil]

Great discussion going on here! Not really going to add anything to what's already said. But I was curious to know what are the options available today for someone who prefers CD playback and would like to purchase a quality CDP? I have always maintained that it takes a serious system to max out 16/44.1 CD Audio. The more I read about it the guys who devised the whole technology were nothing short of genius. For those interested you may find this an interesting read

Link: A FUNDAMENTAL INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPACT DISC PLAYER

The foundations for digital audio was laid out back then. Conversion of 16/44.1 PCM to 1 bit PDM (DSD as per Sony) at the dac chip incl. application of oversampling etc. was part and parcel of digital audio. Essentially what has changed now is where you choose to do the conversion. If you prefer a simple one box solution a good CDP is the answer but you are the mercy of the manufacturer for implementation of the transport, laser pickup, oversampling strategy, etc.

The problem for me is that CD players are being manufactured to ever lower price points and badged as hifi even though they use el cheapo parts. Unfortunately a quality CDP costs a small fortune these days.

 

[Dr.Bass]

After meeting Dr Bass the other day, I had a long listen later during the night and realized that the CD transport has become significantly better than the computer with burn in. My last point of comparison from a few months ago is no longer valid.

Exactly! And this is coming from someone who has been at computer audio for 10 years now, refining it at every stage, trying out all combinations possible. It was not at all a matter of preference when I heard it because the computer did not sound different, it just sounded more noisy/hazy, 2 dimensional and digital compared to the CD transport. The point here is, the CD transport was a good implementation of Philips CDpro2m. This is considered to be an elite class in the CD transport category. May be that was the reason the difference was so obvious.

 

[Dr.Bass]

Great discussion going on here! Not really going to add anything to what's already said. But I was curious to know what are the options available today for someone who prefers CD playback and would like to purchase a quality CDP? I have always maintained that it takes a serious system to max out 16/44.1 CD Audio. The more I read about it the guys who devised the whole technology were nothing short of genius. For those interested you may find this an interesting read

Link: A FUNDAMENTAL INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPACT DISC PLAYER

The foundations for digital audio was laid out back then. Conversion of 16/44.1 PCM to 1 bit PDM (DSD as per Sony) at the dac chip incl. application of oversampling etc. was part and parcel of digital audio. Essentially what has changed now is where you choose to do the conversion. If you prefer a simple one box solution a good CDP is the answer but you are the mercy of the manufacturer for implementation of the transport, laser pickup, oversampling strategy, etc.

The problem for me is that CD players are being manufactured to ever lower price points and badged as hifi even though they use el cheapo parts. Unfortunately a quality CDP costs a small fortune these days.

Nikhil, there is no doubt that CDs will steadily decline in production. At one point they may become irrelevant but they will remain in production because it is a media that has been high invested on and in any case there will be a good number of population in the world who do not like to handle computers, tablets hard-disk and servers. They will always need simpler way of playing music and CDs are an obvious choice. So, CDs will be available but only in select stores (online stores mostly and some dedicate retail stores). It is still a long way before the music industry knows how to sell music other than CDs through an authentic distribution channel. May be 5 years down the line it will be an easier choice to make as to whether one needs his CDs or not.

 

[Nikhil]

Nikhil, there is no doubt that CDs will steadily decline in production. At one point they may become irrelevant but they will remain in production because it is a media that has been high invested on and in any case there will be a good number of population in the world who do not like to handle ...

Good point. However my comments were more from the point of view of getting a good player/transport for quality audio.

p.s. The AP Transport is a complete freak instance - something like that transport would cost 5x if made outside India.

 

[Naturelover]

I have two questions here

1. Would a downloaded file burnt onto a disc and played on a CD player sound better than the downloaded file itself on, say, arj's or ROC's setups?

2. I have come across a pro gear DAC, Tascam DA-3000 which has a slot for SD and CF cards and also has facility of playback from USB flash drives. Would something like this be better than using a PC and DAC combination? For the time being, let's disregard the inconvenience of having several cards and such.

 

[Dr.Bass]

Good point. However my comments were more from the point of view of getting a good player/transport for quality audio.



p.s. The AP Transport is a complete freak instance - something like that transport would cost 5x if made outside India.

IMO, quality audio at the level we audiophiles seek would only happen with "purpose built" high performance equipments. In the computer audio world it will only happen after all the audio standards for digital file playback are defined. The computer industry would then follow suit and build custom components for audio. Motherboard, power supply, interface cards, internal cables, chasis, storage can all be specifically built for audio performance. Big audiophile companies will then build upon these "audio grade" components and that is when real "purpose built" machines will appear. That can/will result in a huge leap in audio performance rivalling or beating the best cd transports in the world even for basic 16/44.1 file playback. At the moment we all have our own home made recipes. In the computer audiophile forum every week a new recipe is proposed to play digital file. This is not the way I would personally like to adapt to any technology.

 

[Dr.Bass]

1. Would a downloaded file burnt onto a disc and played on a CD player sound better than the downloaded file itself on, say, arj's or ROC's setups?

ROC will be a better person to answer that. I have personally not done that. However, I do not think it will be any different because I have done other experiments with files ripped from CD. For example, some of us ordered very high quality CD-R discs (each costing Rs.300, 5 years back) and we copied a CD ripped file on to this CD-R and compared the CD-R to the original CD (from which the file was ripped). CD-R always sounded better. It gave us two different insights:

1. The quality of the disc definitely matters even if the data being stored is the same.

2. The ripped file cannot be too inferior (if at all) considering that it actually sounded better when recorded onto a better disc.

P.S: we followed all the best practices available at that time to rip the CD (Exact audio copy with all the right settings for best audio quality etc).

 

[ROBIN LANDANSON]

ROC will be a better person to answer that. I have personally not done that. However, I do not think it will be any different because I have done other experiments with files ripped from CD. For example, some of us ordered very high quality CD-R discs (each costing Rs.300, 5 years back) and we copied a CD ripped file on to this CD-R and compared the CD-R to the original CD (from which the file was ripped). CD-R always sounded better. It gave us two different insights:

1. The quality of the disc definitely matters even if the data being stored is the same.

2. The ripped file cannot be too inferior (if at all) considering that it actually sounded better when recorded onto a better disc.

P.S: we followed all the best practices available at that time to rip the CD (Exact audio copy with all the right settings for best audio quality etc).

Dr.Bass, How can you say ripped CD-R better than the Original CD? Original CD is the ultimate sound, please understand the reality...

 

[Dr.Bass]

Dr.Bass, How can you say ripped CD-R better than the Original CD?

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
I know what you mean, it was a surprise to all of us. There were 3 or 4 HFV members who bought that high quality CD-R (it was a bulk buy). All of them felt the same, a ripped file written on to a better quality disc sounds better than original CD. We could only infer that due to the quality of the disc, the pits created on it which represents digital data is accurate hence when it is read by a laser mechanism the read-errors are minimised hence error correction is lower, ultimately leading to more accurate sound. It was only our logical inference from the experiment. It was a repeatable experiment using variety of different PCs used for ripping and CD players for playing them back. An industry expert will probably explain it better why it so happens.

 

[Dr.Bass]

BTW, the difference between the CD and CD-R was not huge, but clearly audible.

 

[sidvee]

Dr.Bass, How can you say ripped CD-R better than the Original CD? Original CD is the ultimate sound, please understand the reality...

I have had the same experience burning to high quality CD-R's sounding better than original. I used something similar to these from mobilefidelity.
http://www.musicdirect.com/p-7289-m...-24k-gold-cd-r-5-pack-in-jewel-cases-cdr.aspx
Cheers,
Sid

 

[ROBIN LANDANSON]

I have had the same experience burning to high quality CD-R's sounding better than original. I used something similar to these from mobilefidelity.
Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc 24K Gold CD-R 5-Pack in Jewel Cases CDR at Music Direct
Cheers,
Sid

Original CD is the neutral recording sound, if you feel copy cd's sound much more better than original ''may be done coloring'' due to transformation process.

 

[sidvee]

Original CD is the neutral recording sound, if you feel copy cd's sound much more better than original ''may be done coloring'' due to transformation process.

I am certainly not an expert, Perhaps I am wrong. Please disregard my comments. Even my experience with computer audio is not much, so I may be wrong there as well.
Cheers,
Sid