Flac converting to WAV

Hi Ian,

From everything I've read, doing what you're doing (transcoding the flac to wav) does take care of the issue that many believe cause wav to sound better than flac.  That issue is having the flac 'decoded' in the player. 

I've never read that the conversion TO flac causes any issues; just the conversion FROM flac if it happens in the player.

I keep meaning to try what you're doing, and compare flac transcoded to wav vs. flac.  My UnitiServe will transcode flac to wav, and I can turn it on and off to compare.  I just haven't done it yet.

Hi Bart 

The main difference seems to be a more anolgue sounding, at first it sounds less dynamic but listening for longer it's a smoother sound.

This was very much like a demo sessions I had last week with the ndx vs nds, at first the nds seems very smooth sounding but then it's hits you it's more of refind sound " for want of a better saying" more anolgue.

Not sure what I like better to be honest, think I will need tospend more time listening ; ).

ATB Ian 

I did some testing a while back to see if I could see and difference in the network traffic from a direct WAV compared to a transcoded WAV using Asset - absolutely none. As I could not hear any difference either I concluded that transcoded WAV is good enough for me.

It's the extra work the player has to do to decode FLAC that causes any audible impact in my opinion - do this on a far more powerful processor at the other end of 10 meters of CAT6 and the problem is solved.

Is transcoded WAV as good as WAV? I am a sceptic on there being a gain in all situations from FLAC to WAV let alone transcoded WAV to WAV but happy to test further and learn more.

Naim have offered a recommendation re use of WAV. However, they do this as a high-end audio manufacturer that has its systems touch all kinds of other consumer products in all kind of domestic set-ups. Clearly they have not tested all these combinations and nor can they ever do so.

Hence the best they can do is offer some guidance and hopefully avoid any situations whereby their product is unfairly tarnished by shortcomings elsewhere - be they caused by any deficiencies which may exist in other manufacturer's products or consumers' challenges with home networking etc.

If you're on all Naim and this is what they recommend for your setup then fair enough but when I hear of people re-ripping thousands of CD's and spending fortunes based on the general guidance I sometimes wonder whether they ultimately get what they're hoping for. Let's be clear that the transcoding load is very, very small indeed. There are probably some digital watches that could do it these days. What a processor may or may not add is clearly processor specific and there are tens of thousand of processors out there.

Just another point of view.

I can hear that WAV sounds slightly better than FLAC when both are served to my SU. When I set the server to transcode FLAC to WAV it sounds the same as "native" WAV. So no problem really if you have a server that can transcode and lots of them do. 

Thankfully my Mac Mini sends PCM to the buffer in the Naim DAC irrespective of the original format of the file ..... I cannot hear any difference between PCM extracted from ALAC, FLAC, WAV or AIFF ... perhaps my system is not up to it or I'm going deaf ... 

Well after quite after a lot of listening I've gone back to FLAC from converting FLAC to WAV in asset.

WAV sounded smoother but also flatter and less involving, at one stage my system was sounding almost broken with WAV.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why this the case, I know a lot people prefer WAV but this certainly  was not the case in the context of my system.

Still can't believe the difference between formats.

Hi Ian,

I was also toying with the idea of changing the settings of my zoneripper max to transcode to WAV from FLAC as I had also read about WAV being better. I did not know how to do this as I have a mac at home.I was planning to take my zoneripper to my dealer to make the change. I am glad I did not go down that route judging by your experience.

Regards

APT

Ian... It is what you are used to. As you might have seen me say before the process of decoding on the streamer creates an audio signature. This occurs for WAV or FLAC or any other format. It is essentially a distortion. This signature is more pronounced with FLAC because the additional RFI/EMI energy that is created within a specific sample time.

These signatures give a player a particular sound. You perhaps prefer the signature of the FLAC decode, and when you play back WAV you feel something is missing.. Well it is..

Hifi is a compromise ultimately and you chose which compromises you want

Simon

Before I started ripping my entire CD collection last year I tried both FLAC and WAV and much prefrerred the latter.

Many of the hi-res music files on line are not available in WAV so I chose to download in FLAC format. Last week I decided to transcode a number of these FLAC files to WAV files with dbpoweramp and save them on the NAS. I expected these WAV files to sound better than FLAC because no "unzipping" will be needed during playback. But to my surprise the opposite is true. The WAV files sound flat and uninvolving by comparison.

I don't think you're going deaf. The load on the processor and memory of a Mini is absolutely trivial regardless of what file format is being de-coded and converted to PCM. There is no way (that I can see) that there can really be any appreciable difference in SQ. I sometimes play music whilst ripping and converting video, using a huge whack of processor and memory....and the music sounds just the same to me. I can convert audio files using XLD in much less than 10 seconds per album. As I said, the Mini can do audio stuff in its sleep.

@ Peter 

This was my feeling with WAV very flat and recessed soundstage, I'm starting to wonder if it's the transcoding in asset thats the problem or as Simon says I just prefer FLAC. 

I am going to download some WAV music that I already have as FLAC just to see if it's the transcoding.

@ Simon in your experience could transcoding on the fly cause any issues?

Ian

Ian

The weird thing is that for ripped CDs I found WAV more enjoyable than FLAC.

For comparison sake I think I will try to rip a few CDs in FLAC, then convert to WAV with dbpoweramp and save on NAS. Let's see if these WAV files converted from ripped FLAC will sound flat like those WAV files converted from downloaded FLAC.

Perhaps dbpoweramp's conversion process is to blame? I will try Audacity too.

Asset's on-the-fly transcoding works perfectly.  See DaveBk's thread:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/19729071279292798

Hook

Ian be very interesting to see what you find.

I found that i too prefer WAV to FLAC, just sounds more natural to me. However i had ripped everything to FLAC, so use the transcode function on my Synlolgy NAS so that the NDX receives WAV.

I ripped, using dbpoweramp, a few albums to WAV directly but could hear no difference between this and transcoded FLAC's, so be interesting to see your findings. Although i have to say your system is considerably more revealing than mine.

I have not found an issue with downloaded FLAC's either

Err hold on people..... Think I've found a problem with the settings on my zoneripper, the ripping quality is set at 4 , 8 being the best quality.

This was supposed to set to max quality from the shop I brought it at, not very happy as this means re ripping a huge amount of CDs.

This could be having some effect on transcoding in asset FLAC to WAV " may be Simon would know the answer to this".

Anyway will do some tests runs to see what I prefer before reripping my collection " could slap the shop I brought the ripper from, not my normal dealer,shows the value of a good trust worthy dealer".

Ian

all rippers are set at default 4/5   you should be able to select no compression

The Flac level setting is not about the quality of the rip (which is always lossless = bit perfect). It determins the compression level. The higher the compression, the more processing power needs to go into the encoding of the file. Please note, this again says nothing about the processing power required to decode files of different compression levels. This is almost equal for all levels.

BTW, level 8 stands for "highest compression", while 0 is "lowest compression", which I understand is what you are targeting.

If you have ripped your CDs at setting 5, but what them at 0, there is no need to rerip. Simply convert the files with the encoder set to 0. The result will be 100% the same as if you had ripped to level 0 right away.

@ pink hamster 

Every days a school day, how would I go about batch converting them as I can't seem to find how to do this on db poweramp.

Cheers ian

Ian,

I don't use dbpoweramp, so i'm afraid, I cannot help you on this specific question. But dbpoweramp is so widely spread and popular, that I am sure it won't be long until someone else on this forum will answer your question.

Cheers anyway

Easy, when you install dBPoweramp there is also a Batch Converter program installed . You should see it in your start menu, or otherwise right clicking on a directory allows ou to select batch convert.

Cheers aleg, will try that as soon as can prise the laptop away from my youngest son.

Hi PinkHamster,

I also have a zoneripper max . If the compression is set at 4/5 , does it mean that the data received by the streamer is also compressed ? I have been downloading hi resolution tracks from Linn, Naim- would these tracks also be compressed ? Using the n stream app it shows the files have the same bit rate as when they were downloaded, ripped CDs also shows the standard bitrate. I am unable to check the compression settings on my zone ripper as I have a mac .

Regards

APT

All flac are lossless regardless of compression level.

the compression level is only an indication of how small the file will become, but there will never be any audio data lost In this compression.

p