MQA, Worse than FLAC?

audiobomber

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FLAC is bit-perfect, that is a simple statement of fact, not an opinion. Showing you thousands of references to back that claim would not change your mind, so I won't bother. Bit-perfect has nothing to do with how you think FLAC sounds compared to wave. Each recorded bit is reproduced in a FLAC file.
 
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FLAC is bit-perfect, that is a simple statement of fact, not an opinion. Showing you thousands of references to back that claim would not change your mind, so I won't bother. Bit-perfect has nothing to do with how you think FLAC sounds compared to wave. Each recorded bit is reproduced in a FLAC file.
Bit perfect can only happen if the file reaches your dac chip unaltered. Flac is a lossless alteration before being sent out digitally. All the bits were there, yes, congratulations on not being mp3, but a process inside a noisy device's most noisy part has to happen to play it back. I know you want it to be better, but ideally you could only get just as good. Processors are packed full of transistors, which sound less realistic than tubes. You have to let that spaz convert your flac file. You could just sit there hoping it sounds the same as wav's, if you like.
I admit you'd be able to get away with the 256gb memory card for the phone with flac, though. But at home, on the reference?
 

RCanelas

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Bit-perfect refers to the theoretical process of streaming from disc to dac, directly and unaltered. Flac has had a process done to it where it needs to be sent through a processor for the calculation of the bits it will send. I believe the problem is that the ones and zeroes that get sent to ram, which will be the same as the original wav would have been, only the ones and zeroes are stored in ram with some noise from having gone through the processor. Remember that tubes sounded better than transistors, and your cpu is designed to be packed full of non-audio transistors. Tons of them. There seems to be an irregularity sent out of my usb port after flac, the bits are no longer simple, some are more pronounced, as compared to wav.
If you want to hear the original higher res masters, Qobuz will do it for less money than Tidal, and you don't need an extra chip you hope you won't hear.

I don't know where to start man, what a mess. Digital audio is not subject to your intuitions about things. It is not intuitive. You either know, or you don't. You can always learn.

- Bit perfect has a precise definition, not open to your reinterpretation. It means no matter what happens between point A and point B (whatever those two might be, it doesn't matter), you always get back the exact information coming out of B as you placed in A. Not approximate, not sorta, exact, down to the last bit. Flac encoding/decoding is bit perfect, same as a number of other processes. You don't seem to know what a bit is though.
- Everything goes through the processor. A WAV streams through the processor, same as a FLAC. If it stops in the RAM on the way somewhere or just goes through the stack is something different. Also, information in a computer isn't bits + some noise, it is just bits. You can get noise by introducing jitter for example (you shuffle the timing of the bits, that is also encoded in bits), and that is why we have async processing and reconstruction of the signal by a clock at the receiving end, plus a million other strategies.
- A CPU being filled with tons of non-audio transistors. Well, the one on my laptop has a bit over 9 Billion transistors. None of them audio, certainly, but then again I've never seen an audio transistor. Don't even know what that is. It would be cool having a 9 billion valve CPU just to finally get you FLACs in conditions.
- Your USB port might be polluted with noise from another bus in your machine. Very common. Your USB drivers and chipset might be doing things you're unaware of.
- Bits are no longer simple, with some more pronounced. Damm. You're using a quantum computer for your streaming from Qobuz? Only non simple bit I know of is a qbit. What is a pronounced bit? Another concept I can't even parse.

BTW, Qobuz streams FLAC only AFAIK.
 
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I don't know where to start man, what a mess. Digital audio is not subject to your intuitions about things. It is not intuitive. You either know, or you don't. You can always learn.

- Bit perfect has a precise definition, not open to your reinterpretation. It means no matter what happens between point A and point B (whatever those two might be, it doesn't matter), you always get back the exact information coming out of B as you placed in A. Not approximate, not sorta, exact, down to the last bit. Flac encoding/decoding is bit perfect, same as a number of other processes. You don't seem to know what a bit is though.
- Everything goes through the processor. A WAV streams through the processor, same as a FLAC. If it stops in the RAM on the way somewhere or just goes through the stack is something different. Also, information in a computer isn't bits + some noise, it is just bits. You can get noise by introducing jitter for example (you shuffle the timing of the bits, that is also encoded in bits), and that is why we have async processing and reconstruction of the signal by a clock at the receiving end, plus a million other strategies.
- A CPU being filled with tons of non-audio transistors. Well, the one on my laptop has a bit over 9 Billion transistors. None of them audio, certainly, but then again I've never seen an audio transistor. Don't even know what that is. It would be cool having a 9 billion valve CPU just to finally get you FLACs in conditions.
- Your USB port might be polluted with noise from another bus in your machine. Very common. Your USB drivers and chipset might be doing things you're unaware of.
- Bits are no longer simple, with some more pronounced. Damm. You're using a quantum computer for your streaming from Qobuz? Only non simple bit I know of is a qbit. What is a pronounced bit? Another concept I can't even parse.

BTW, Qobuz streams FLAC only AFAIK.
Bit perfect can only be achieved if the dac chip receives the file directly. Good luck with getting that to happen.
Wav's will not go through your processor, they get read straight to ram, then get digitally sent out. A flac file does go through the processor, and then sends the output to ram after work has been done on it.
Yes, a tube cpu sounds like a great idea, but there would be thousands of them, and I think the switching thing is new to transistor cpu's.
Yes, my usb port will be a factor no matter how good of a fpga re-clock I get after that. But, that would make me able to hear it more easily, yet I already can. Actually, I listen to flac more often, so I find switching to wav's sounds like less noise, and is more reference.
I'm worried about how expensive quantum computers will sound, and having to convert my collection from digital. It will only ever sound like a dac chip.
Yes, Qobuz streams the Original Higher Res Master Files as flac only, without requiring an extra chip to make people say they can't hear the chip or shady process, if they like.
 

RCanelas

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Bit perfect can only be achieved if the dac chip receives the file directly. Good luck with getting that to happen.
The dac chip never receives a file, it receives a bitstream that has been abstracted from being a flac or a wav something else. What your recloker does with that is another question. What your chip does with that bitstream that's another question. What your analog stage does after that another one after that. That is where most of the differences are.
If you don't think we can send bit-perfect copies of things down an I/O interface and retreive them on the other end, you better not copy your files around. I would even question that the copies you get from a high-rez download are actually perfect. Heck, I'd be concerned my words in these forum posts would be different each time I visited due to caching.
Wav's will not go through your processor, they get read straight to ram, then get digitally sent out. A flac file does go through the processor, and then sends the output to ram after work has been done on it.
WAVs will go through the processor because that's how a computer works. When I wrote that everything goes through the processor I meant it. The section of the disk containing the WAV doesn't get up by itself and walks into the RAM with a monocle a monopoly hat and a pipe.
Yes, a tube cpu sounds like a great idea, but there would be thousands of them, and I think the switching thing is new to transistor cpu's.
I have no idea what you wrote, it makes no semantic sense. Technically, I don't think you understand what 9 billion tubes would be like. Nor the idiocy of using a tube as a binary logic gate in this context.
Yes, my usb port will be a factor no matter how good of a fpga re-clock I get after that. But, that would make me able to hear it more easily, yet I already can. Actually, I listen to flac more often, so I find switching to wav's sounds like less noise, and is more reference.
If you have a decent recloking strategy in place at your dac, you're mostly immune to the issues of usb. That's the idea. Any type of PLL, FIFO, what have you, will have a brutal jitter rejection rate.
I'm worried about how expensive quantum computers will sound, and having to convert my collection from digital. It will only ever sound like a dac chip.
You don't need to worry about that, they're not very useful for audio.
Yes, Qobuz streams the Original Higher Res Master Files as flac only, without requiring an extra chip to make people say they can't hear the chip or shady process, if they like.
As long as you know, I'm happy.
 
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The dac chip never receives a file, it receives a bitstream that has been abstracted from being a flac or a wav something else. What your recloker does with that is another question. What your chip does with that bitstream that's another question. What your analog stage does after that another one after that. That is where most of the differences are.
If you don't think we can send bit-perfect copies of things down an I/O interface and retreive them on the other end, you better not copy your files around. I would even question that the copies you get from a high-rez download are actually perfect. Heck, I'd be concerned my words in these forum posts would be different each time I visited due to caching.
The file cannot be sent to the dac directly, from a pc. The file is read to ram, if flac, gets processed into ram by the cpu, then played by the player software with it's output method selected, out the usb port to a cable. All those factors are chances for different types of degradation to the signal.

WAVs will go through the processor because that's how a computer works. When I wrote that everything goes through the processor I meant it. The section of the disk containing the WAV doesn't get up by itself and walks into the RAM with a monocle a monopoly hat and a pipe.
No, it reads a wav directly to ram. Only flac's need to go through the processor. Direct access.
I have no idea what you wrote, it makes no semantic sense. Technically, I don't think you understand what 9 billion tubes would be like. Nor the idiocy of using a tube as a binary logic gate in this context.

If you have a decent recloking strategy in place at your dac, you're mostly immune to the issues of usb. That's the idea. Any type of PLL, FIFO, what have you, will have a brutal jitter rejection rate.
I'm not talking about jitter. It would exist in both cases, anyhow.
You don't need to worry about that, they're not very useful for audio.

As long as you know, I'm happy.
 

RCanelas

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No, it reads a wav directly to ram. Only flac's need to go through the processor. Direct access.
Look mate, you're clearly talking with someone that has a least a functional understanding of these things right? Because for me it has been clear for a while that you don't. You're just plain wrong about basic things about how a computer operates and making up stuff as you go along, everyone can see it. Bit are no longer simple, some are more pronouced. Doubling down in such a situation just gives credence to my observation that most discussions about digital online are, ironically, not ok to have, to the notion from @audiobomber that talking to you is mostly a waste and, I'm hopping, to everyone else that listening to you is not a good idea.

Take care.
 
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Gregm

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The file cannot be sent to the dac directly, from a pc. The file is read to ram, if flac, gets processed into ram by the cpu, then played by the player software with it's output method selected, out the usb port to a cable. All those factors are chances for different types of degradation to the signal.
Just a small note: a file is loaded on RAM (or not, your choice in most players) and then proceeds onward. To simplify, I am now playing locally, i.e. from an external hard-disk directly connected to the streaming device; I have selected "play from RAM" (because I'm under the illusion it sounds better :)) and, thereby, the chosen file information is transferred ("loaded") onto RAM, from where it leaves, as necessary, to be processed. This happens regardless of whether the file's a flac, wav, dsf...
No, it reads a wav directly to ram. Only flac's need to go through the processor. Direct access.
It seems you are wary of the fact that flac is a codec (code-decode) and thereby would require an extra processing stage? That's not quite the way it works: it's an ordered stream of digital audio signals which are directly converted to analogue via the DAC chip. So, I wouldn't worry if I were you. By all means stick to wavs if you prefer; but you'll use up lots more space, lose out on higher resolution files (worth it sometimes), and AFAIK the format doesn't support the metadata we're used to with flacs. Regards
 

dminches

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dminches

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By all means stick to wavs if you prefer; but you'll use up lots more space, lose out on higher resolution files (worth it sometimes), and AFAIK the format doesn't support the metadata we're used to with flacs. Regards

Wav files can be any level of resolution. That isn’t limited to FLACs which are just compressed wav files. Also, wav files can hold a lot of metadata.
 

RCanelas

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So, if someone can hear a difference flac makes, they're wasting your time, and don't know what they're talking about?


Did you come to this thread to tell people that mqa sounds better than Original Higher Res Master Files?
I didn't question you hear differences and didn't argue anything about one being better or worse. Than was all you, and that's ok.

What I did was question your conclusions from what you report to hear. What you responded with is just more gibberish. That's the problem.

Cheers,
 
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Just a small note: a file is loaded on RAM (or not, your choice in most players) and then proceeds onward. To simplify, I am now playing locally, i.e. from an external hard-disk directly connected to the streaming device; I have selected "play from RAM" (because I'm under the illusion it sounds better :)) and, thereby, the chosen file information is transferred ("loaded") onto RAM, from where it leaves, as necessary, to be processed. This happens regardless of whether the file's a flac, wav, dsf...
The file is not sent straight to ram as a flac, it must first get worked on by the cpu. Noise.
It seems you are wary of the fact that flac is a codec (code-decode) and thereby would require an extra processing stage? That's not quite the way it works: it's an ordered stream of digital audio signals which are directly converted to analogue via the DAC chip. So, I wouldn't worry if I were you. By all means stick to wavs if you prefer; but you'll use up lots more space, lose out on higher resolution files (worth it sometimes), and AFAIK the format doesn't support the metadata we're used to with flacs. Regards
I would like the file to flow into my dac's input. Look at what comes first: If you add flac, it reads from disk to be worked on by cpu before getting into ram. Then, it gets played by your player, which all make a difference, and sent to the digital output, then across your data cable. Playing a wav file skips the cpu unpacking, I find the player sends cleaner quieter audio data out of my usb port.
I don't lose out on higher resolution, they work even better in wav than flac. A quiet 1tb usb stick doesn't cost too much. They sound better than my mechanical drive, too.
 

dminches

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The file is not sent straight to ram as a flac, it must first get worked on by the cpu. Noise.

I would like the file to flow into my dac's input. Look at what comes first: If you add flac, it reads from disk to be worked on by cpu before getting into ram. Then, it gets played by your player, which all make a difference, and sent to the digital output, then across your data cable. Playing a wav file skips the cpu unpacking, I find the player sends cleaner quieter audio data out of my usb port.
I don't lose out on higher resolution, they work even better in wav than flac. A quiet 1tb usb stick doesn't cost too much. They sound better than my mechanical drive, too.

There is only “noise” if the CPU is processing the FLAC file at the same time it is playing the wav file. If the pre-processing is done before any playing happens there is no noise. Emile at Taiko Audio is proving this with his XDMS playback software.
 
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There is only “noise” if the CPU is processing the FLAC file at the same time it is playing the wav file. If the pre-processing is done before any playing happens there is no noise. Emile at Taiko Audio is proving this with his XDMS playback software.
You can keep telling me I can't really hear it if you like, but decoding a flac into ram outputs more noise than wav to ram outputs.
 

dminches

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You can keep telling me I can't really hear it if you like, but decoding a flac into ram outputs more noise than wav to ram outputs.

What software are you using and does it pre-process the file before playing it?

I never commented on what you hear. I can just tell you what we are hearing with XDMS.
 
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What software are you using and does it pre-process the file before playing it?

I never commented on what you hear. I can just tell you what we are hearing with XDMS.
I usually use Audirvana Studio, it's using up to 4gb ram buffer. Kernel streaming, no other dsp's.
Why am I being dismissed as an opponent of flac? Isn't this the discussion forum for that? Are we all only supposed to be saying we can't hear a difference with flac? Then with mqa again with it's shady folding/unfolding technique on top of it too, right? Someone else has agreed he has heard a difference, it's not our problem. I don't need to keep answering, you can go ahead and use MQA instead of streaming the Original Higher Res Master Files from Qobuz or Amazon.
 

dminches

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I usually use Audirvana Studio, it's using up to 4gb ram buffer. Kernel streaming, no other dsp's.
Why am I being dismissed as an opponent of flac? Isn't this the discussion forum for that? Are we all only supposed to be saying we can't hear a difference with flac? Then with mqa again with it's shady folding/unfolding technique on top of it too, right? Someone else has agreed he has heard a difference, it's not our problem. I don't need to keep answering, you can go ahead and use MQA instead of streaming the Original Higher Res Master Files from Qobuz or Amazon.

No one is dismissing your preference for wav. Maybe people feel that that. However, some of your explanations as to why don't seem correct.

Does Audivana Studio pre-preprocess the files to wav before playing or does it do it on the fly?
 
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Audirvana decodes the flac to wav in the ram on the fly. No dsp's or anything, just kernel streaming. Wav is less fatiguing.
 

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