MQA, Worse than FLAC?

[MaxwellsEq]

Nobody disputes that you believe you can hear a difference between WAV and FLAC. You clearly are convinced.

But you are trying to explain your belief as a fact. To do that - you have to prove FLAC sounds worse than WAV. That might be possible. After all you are not trying to prove a negative. But the proof has to be reproducible by other people, otherwise, it's just a belief that only you have.

Worse - the approach you are adopting is wrong. You are jumping from what you believe you've heard into assigning your perceived degradation on greater processor noise. The problem with this is - It's clear to me that i know 10x maybe 100x more about computers than you apparently do. I'm not the only one. Others have also tried to help you research the knowledge gaps you have - the advice they have given you is correct. Basically, virtually every statement you've posted about why FLAC is poorer than WAV is total nonsense. You need to spend a few months or years studying this so you are in a better position to prove your belief about FLACs sounding worse than WAVs as a fact and not something you believe you have heard.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

What do I need to know about decoding vs simply playing? I don't need to know 100x more about computers, decoding flac is an extra step.

 

[dminches]

What do I need to know about decoding vs simply playing? I don't need to know 100x more about computers, decoding flac is an extra step.

but it ends up as the same file as the wav file. The issue is that the software is making the CPU decide the FLAC file while it is playing another file. If the deciding was done before the file was playing the sound would be much closer, if not identical, to the sound from the wav file.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

The data stored in the ram for digital out is the same data, but with flac, was decoded to that point by the processor.
I'm listening to 24/96 on Qobuz right now, it's the flac version of the Original Higher Res Master File. It sounds good, only slightly higher res than 44.1, but it's what Tidal hasn't been giving me with mqa.

 

[InfigoAudio]

The data stored in the ram for digital out is the same data, but with flac, was decoded to that point by the processor.
I'm listening to 24/96 on Qobuz right now, it's the flac version of the Original Higher Res Master File. It sounds good, only slightly higher res than 44.1, but it's what Tidal hasn't been giving me with mqa.

I'm glad to see you accept that it is the same data for flac and wav. What I've been trying to say before is that the noisy edges you hear are not inherent to the flac format, but are something that happen in your system by the way your player treats these types of files.

Others that reacted to this discussion have also been pointing out that there are many different ways to play these flac files in such a way that you will not have these decoding noises enter the final sound produced by the DAC chipset, ergo no audible difference anymore in that case. Hopefully that puts this flac vs wav discussion to bed...

Cheers, Hans.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

I'm glad to see you accept that it is the same data for flac and wav. What I've been trying to say before is that the noisy edges you hear are not inherent to the flac format, but are something that happen in your system by the way your player treats these types of files.

I can hear the difference in foobar, also. It's not the player.

Others that reacted to this discussion have also been pointing out that there are many different ways to play these flac files in such a way that you will not have these decoding noises enter the final sound produced by the DAC chipset, ergo no audible difference anymore in that case. Hopefully that puts this flac vs wav discussion to bed...

Cheers, Hans.

Then why are you in this thread? Isn't mqa perfect?