I'd just like to see some commentary on the claim in this thread about someone who is claiming they can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC: http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?p=84975 (skip to page 3).

This individual seems to mistakenly think that FLAC utilizes some algorithm that interferes with the high frequencies (making them "better" to his ears). I obviously think he's imagining these differences or being deceived by a decoder as referenced in the thread (he ignores that suggestion, though).

Perhaps the FLAC developer can set him straight because he seems to think he's rather knowledgeable on the topic.

EDIT: Doh, I exceeded the limit of chars for a topic (no warning ;( )

Hes just an idiot. And those forums look pretty horrible, so maybe posting there isn't the best idea.

lol, I only post there since I'm a fan of Cowon and their players. It's a good place to discuss their hardware...you're just seeing a few bad apples in that thread...not everyone exhibits the same level of ignorance you see in said thread.

I just couldn't bear to see someone hide under the banner of knowledge because they're taking some course at school while they spout misinformation and utilized this opportunity to vent basically.

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

You can easily prove this using math on paper, or in a real-application by using a bit-for-bit comparison of the WAV data with the decoded FLAC data, and with the proper hardware, it is trivial to verify the exact same audio data is being sent to your DAC.

Any claims otherwise are pure nonsense. Lots of people think they are knowledgable and at least pretend to be, but are really just clueless. This seems especially true in this case where any difference is easily verifiable both in the computer and comparing data sent from the computer to an off-board DAC.

If the person who is making these claims refuses to provide you with results of simple tests that would easily and undeniably confirm (but more likely, deny) his findings, that is reason enough to be positive he is trolling or making it all up. It is also possible he has some kind of software misconfiguration or misimplementation and he's either too stupid or too embarassed to admit it. Anyone who claims to be in an "advanced study period of computer science in audio-visual systems" who uses meaningless terms such "rounder" and "more harmonic" sounding is obviously just a troll.

If the moderators of that forum don't have any problem with a user behaving in such a fasion, I'd suggest you find a new forums to frequent as quickly as possible.

Anyway, if someone is convinced they are immortal, or the world is flat, or even that 1+1 is 3, then I doubt correcting them will have any effect.

That is all too true. No amount of learning can cure stupidity. It never ceases to amaze me how such people live in a deterministic world, then ignore logic and reason when it suits them.

Of course, you're all right...that's why I frequent this forum as well. It serves as an antidote for forums like the one I referenced.

I would normally look the other way and not think twice but the claim plus the so-called superior knowledge he declares really don't add up and witnessing such a ridiculous claim, I couldn't just sit in silence.

Arguing with people on the internet is like being in the Special Olympics.
Even if you win, you're still retarded.

That was funny and cruel at the same time.

But I guess you are right

Topic title amended.

It's not often I get to belly laugh first thing in the morning. Thanks guys.

You know, not to defend the retard there, if you actually listen to FLAC against WAV on a PC, you might hear different... if you use AMD's Cool&Quiet technology. As WAVs are just dumped into Windows Mixer, it should (theoretically) use less CPU power and thus makes the fan go slower. FLACs need to be decoded and thus use more CPU power and makes the fan go faster, thus noisier.

But I don't have Cool&Quiet, so this is a hypothesis. Anyways, FLACs and WAVs will produce exact bit-by-bit match, and if you can totally isolate the effect of varying fan speed, there's no difference.

Thanks for the title fix, Synthetic Soul.

Otto, I have heard that cruel comparison made with the Special Olympics 100 times by now. I guess I just never learn...or disagree since the internet is very much about open communication and discussion. (yes, I'm guilty of flat out arguing as well because of my dogmatic tendencies...this is not one of those situations. )

There are only bit comparisons in lossless. There are no listening tests and how misled people are still doing them is just sad.

Sad that they get lossless data compression (winzip) and not audio compression.

...and what a wonderfully unrealistic one . CPU usage will probably be 1% when playing FLAC in realtime, and the CPU will certainly not "power up" to a higher clock rate for such an easy task, thus the fan speed will stay the same.

Ah, so much for my hypothesis

Psst... don't let any audiophile read this. They'll have a field day with this

The phenomenon is known to science as magical thinking.

Exactly. I use Cool 'n' Quiet on an AMD64 3000+ and the multiplier values I'm seeing are 5x, 9x and 10x. The only audio-related job that can push the multiplier above 5x and make the fan rev faster and be audible is, of course, encoding.

I can fairly imagine that a portable music player is decoding flac in a different way, thus it sounds differently than the wav
Similarly some eq enhancement could be done in computer decoding too causing the flac sound differently. (Or it is a buggy FLAC decoder) This is just an unlikely theory but can be POSSIBLE.

So if a FLAC sounds differently than the .wav it is certainly due to a decoding issue. Actually a double blind test here has some sense, but you need to compare the ORIGINAL FLAC file with the DECODED FLAC.

PSYCHOLOGICALLY FLAC files have much higher quality than the WAVE files, because i feel much better when i'm using an 'advanced' technology like flac instead of some stupid old-school wavs (in fact they are PSYCHOLOGICALLY 'better to my ears')
EDIT: i should have said: 'better to my mind'

(it is similar to the last.fm and foosic like services: knowing that other people can see what i'm listening to, i'm starting to like different kind of music than before )

No, there is no need for a double-blind test here. What good would not knowing which file is which when comparting files bit-by-bit do you? The results are identical or not identical, if you are using your computer to compare files.

And just what is an "original FLAC" file? How do you suggest you compare that to a "decoded FLAC" file, as that would involve decompressing your "original FLAC" at some point. I hope you meant something completely different here.

You are right. I meant something like this:
take a FLAC, decode it to wav with a reference decoder, play the FLAC with your original (buggy) player, the wav with a reference player. Hear a difference? Your player is buggy or introduces some unwanted equalizing on flac files

But obviously this is not a double-blind test anymore...

So i was suggesting NOT to compare the original wav file (from CDDA) with a wav file decoded from compressed source, as listening tests are done, but to compare a FLAC file (decoded internally, on-the-fly) with the previously decoded FLAC by a reference decoder

I agree that some people will hear some difference as a placebo effect, because they already know which file is which. Even if they're sure there can't be any

Hmmm, in this case, they may sound different, but the difference is because of the players used. The WAV and FLAC files should sound the same if you are using the same player without changing any settings in between.

I'm at work right now, and i wear a headset attached to a PC. When the automatic disk defragger comes on at night (when i'm working nights), I can hear it through the headset. RF interference or whatever, generated by CPU or disk activity. So I'd expect that any codec that requires extra CPU activity could very well generate tones in a poorly shielded audio cable, or possibly in a cheap soundcard.

In case of defrag, you are hearing the HDD activity and not the CPU. I had to remove the audio cable that connected my cd-rom and onboard soundcard because the spinning drive was creating heavy backround noise.
FLAC decoding may have heavier memory requirements ( ), so if hdd swapping is needed, interference could occur

FLAC doesn't really use any significant amount of RAM, but it will cause your HDD to read LESS, since it's smaller.

That's ferakin' priceless!

But "less" still means it could be different. So FLAC could arguably sound better than Wave



But "less" still means it could be different. So FLAC could arguably sound better than Wave

I guess HDD activity makes more sense than CPU activity, because we're talking about moving magnets. Id take this machine appart right now and check, but the boss might think i'm stealing RAM.

I had a similar dialog. The guy claimed he could hear the difference between the original audio and the losslessly compressed one. Pressed further, he has explained he could hear the difference between the original audio played on high-quality stereo and the losslessly compressed copy encoded and played on iPod.

It has never come into his mind that the difference are due to iPod, not to lossless compression. Still he was 100% confident it was due to lossless compression and I wasn't able to convince him otherwise.

Yea, Porky...sounds like an equally frustratingly equivalent experience.

I just made my first post on the musepack forum...and probably my last! It's no wonder that place is dead.

I'm having a fair amount of forum strife lately...may be time to take a vacation.

Jebus wrote:
>But "less" still means it could be different. So FLAC could arguably sound better than Wave

There is little point in playing the devil's advocate with such speculations; this way you could "prove" anything. Stick to common sense, and let the devil prove that FLAC sounds better than the source WAV.

A little more provocation: i don't think claiming that FLAC sounds better than WAV is negative in any way. The guy on that forum had convincing (altough worng) arguments. So what can be the result? People will prefer FLAC over WAV? Is that wrong? I don't think so.

I think Stalin said something like "The Goal sactifies the instruments"...

I never knew that Josh idolizes Stalin...

Just Kidding!

Beliefs like that don't have super bad consequences, except that they waste everybody's real time, CPU time and disk space, and can hide real issues.

There's a closely related belief, that I've actually had people tell me to my face, that decoding MP3s to WAVs makes them sound better. Now, strictly speaking, nobody's getting hurt quality-wise because of this. But it means people are wasting disk space on WAVs they don't need, and wasting the time needed to do the conversion, instead of performing more meaningful improvements. And this can blind them from improvements that would make more of a difference - ie, thinking that decoding to WAV is comparable to increasing your bitrate, or making trivial but costly improvements to sources/amplifiers at the expense of speakers and headphones.