FLAC is better?

Justintoxicated said:
Theres the recording itself (amount of detail lost in compression may or may not be a lot), there the Codecs and decoding hardware (to convert to analog) and then theres the reproduction of sound, speakers headphones etc. And maybe an amplifier as well. Then there is also the listeners ears.

If anyone one of these has a weak point, then you may not get the full benefit of FLAC.

If your not clipping the music signal in the audiable spectrum then the compression does not matter, if your codec etc is not processing the FLAC correctly then you jsut lost your benefit. High end speakers should be able to better reproduce sound, but they may not excel is reproducing whatever was lost during compression. Then your ears might not be able to pickup the majority of material being clipped by all of the previous.

Most music I prefer 190 or above. If it's particularly details 320 and above. If it's my favorite Band I'll go FLAC, but one disadvantage (other than space) is that most devices still do not support FLAC. So you have to make an MP3 copy anyways...It's easy to say a 1TB hard drive is cheap but I don't have 1TB available on my phone or car or laptop etc.
Click to expand...

media monkey pro and I think also J River media center convert Flac to MP3 on the fly when syncing to mobile device.
 
Face said:
Is your Elite receiver one equipped with ICE modules? If not, you're probably under-powering those speakers as they dip to 2.5ohms.

As for comparing the CD in a CDP to your PC, then you would also be comparing the different DAC between the two units, bad comparison.

Are you using ASIO drivers?

How is your room, is there a lot of echo? How are the speakers set up? Do you have a large TV/Monitor and equipment directly between them?
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As long as you're outputting by digital from the CD player to the receiver and the PC to the receiver then wouldn't the conversion to Analog be done by the Receiver? In which case there is no difference between the two units as all the conversion is being done by the receiver.
 
Face said:
Is your Elite receiver one equipped with ICE modules? If not, you're probably under-powering those speakers as they dip to 2.5ohms.

As for comparing the CD in a CDP to your PC, then you would also be comparing the different DAC between the two units, bad comparison.

Are you using ASIO drivers?

How is your room, is there a lot of echo? How are the speakers set up? Do you have a large TV/Monitor and equipment directly between them?
Click to expand...

My elite is the VSX-72TXV but as for ICE modules I have no idea. I'm sure that I'm underpowering them because the receiver is set on 6ohms, and the speakers are 4ohms.

ASIO drivers, no idea what that is. I'm just running the drivers that came with the card.

The room is hard to explain, see here, scroll down.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1456496&page=2
No tv, but there is a component rack between the speakers but everything is below the speakers so nothing is directly between them. No echos, the room seems fairly dead.
 
bencorn said:
My elite is the VSX-72TXV but as for ICE modules I have no idea. I'm sure that I'm underpowering them because the receiver is set on 6ohms, and the speakers are 4ohms.

ASIO drivers, no idea what that is. I'm just running the drivers that came with the card.

The room is hard to explain, see here, scroll down.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1456496&page=2
No tv, but there is a component rack between the speakers but everything is below the speakers so nothing is directly between them. No echos, the room seems fairly dead.
Click to expand...

In windows 7, go to sounds and devices. Make sure SPDIF is selected rather than speakers.
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There are also some settings in there worth fiddling with depending on what the default is

Also try downloading J River media jukebox http://www.mediajukebox.com/ (free) and see if FLAC sounds different from that compared to whatever you have now.

I don't know if either of these things will help you put it helped me when I was ironing out the kinks in sound quality on my own system.
 
There is a little bit of gain to be had with FLAC but it is elusive to reproduce. I have only been able to hear the difference using a USB DAC -> Marantz 2220b receiver -> JBL Century speakers. If I run from my Audigy 2 ZS -> NAD 737 -> any speakers I can't tell the difference. It seems modern soundcards and mass market receivers tend to sterilize music, they lack wideband reproduction and the imaging required to hear the difference. I can mostly tell the difference as more clarity in the vocals and better lower and upper range. MP3's are much smaller and a widely supported codec, so its a tradeoff.
 
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