FUD, intellectual honesty, digital facts, and the TAS articles...

[adamdea]

TAS vol 3 contains the following quote:
"Once a CD or download is converted to FLAC, the only way you can achieve the superior sound of WAV files is to go back to the original CD or source for a new rip or WAV download"

It will be noted that this is not hedged about in qualified terms- there is no suggestion that there is any doubt about the testing methodology. It implies a belief that there exists an distinct property of bit-identical files depending on their origin but not represented in the information in the file.

It is not suggested that this in any way depends on the particular system used to pay back the data.

Why should anyone be angry about someone writing this? Because the author is either a fool or a liar.

[Soulkeeper]

Actually I deleted that bit, I will leave it to you to decide whether I thought I was being too mean or to fair.

A little bit of both, maybe? You've got to be cruel to be kind.

[EricBergan]

00110101011101
is the same as
0 01 1 0 101 0 1 1 1 01
to a printer, but not to a DAC.

Similarly, your amplifier will amplify voltage fluctuations a cash machine will ignore. Audio systems are inherently sensitive to timing and rail noise; IT systems less so - as a cursory look at a motherboard reveals.

You are using arguments about one part of the chain that do not apply to another part of the chain. Big animal pictures:

1) Digital file. The system is designed to exactly preserve this. RF noise, issues on the power rails, etc. can not change this, without a catastrophic failure. The bits don't change unnoticed.

2) DAC. As soon as the data is converted into an analog signal, it again becomes susceptiable to noise/etc.

3) The interconnect between the system and the DAC. There may or may not be possibilities for error here.

a) With well designed interconnects (computer circuits, networks, modern interconnects like DLink or HDMI with handshakes) again, error detection/correction is in place. What leaves one end arrives on the other end exactly the same, or not at all.

b) Unfortunately, digital coax and optical interconnects are not well designed, there is the possibility of jitter.

Trying to attribute problems of 2) or 3b) to the digital domains of 1) and 3a) are false. So while we can have great discussions about the attributes of various DACs, or just how much effect noise can have on 2) and 3b), we can not have real discussions on, for instance, the audible effects of WAV/FLAC conversions or RF noise changing the signal while on a network.

eric

[andy_c]

TAS vol 3 contains the following quote:
"Once a CD or download is converted to FLAC, the only way you can achieve the superior sound of WAV files is to go back to the original CD or source for a new rip or WAV download"

It will be noted that this is not hedged about in qualified terms- there is no suggestion that there is any doubt about the testing methodology. It implies a belief that there exists an distinct property of bit-identical files depending on their origin but not represented in the information in the file.

That's like the water memory claims of homeopathy advocates. The homeopathy people even claimed the effect could be transmitted over phone lines :-).

Sounds like a tweak from a well-known audiophile fraudster.

[adamdea]

That's like the water memory claims of homeopathy advocates. The homeopathy people even claimed the effect could be transmitted over phone lines :-).

Sounds like a tweak from a well-known audiophile fraudster.

yes or the Sheldrake "morphic resonance".

[Phil Leigh]

This rather misses the point: they weren't writing about the Squeezebox or even the streaming model in most cases. This is AUDIO with COMPUTING devices. Some of you forget this: anything you attach to a sensitive device influences it: you can't wave a wand and say that hideous power supply is now magically OK because it's a computer: the amplifier and DAC don't care about its ability to process numbers: they only care about getting a clean signal, without intermod distortion. Computers fail epically in this regard.

Where the data comes from, and how it is ripped, is absolutely irrelevant to the WAV v FLAC question: that's (once again) all about changes within the local playback environment. It's hard to know whether forum members are deliberately turning a blind eye to this stuff for rhetorical effect, or have genuinely been conditioned to believe it's unimportant.

How are you defining 'AUDIO'? Because (optical transmission aside) all I'm seeing are signals in wire and traces... all susceptible to the same stuff. The computer or Squeezebox makes it 'digital' by a process of conversion. The transceiver converts it into voltage; another transceiver converts it into digital; another series of D-A chipset(s) convert it into voltage; various amplification stages occur - everything is suspectible; everything matters.

The extreme position here - that even USB cables sound identical - is fortunately diminishing in the public mindset, simply falling before experience.

Let me try again.

"Audio" is anything DURING/AFTER the conversion from pure computer data to analogue. Therefore it explicitly excludes the transportation of the data from Router/PC/NAS/SD card/Jacquard Loom card to the place where either:

1) the data is converted to an analogue signal for playback by an amp+speakers by a DAC
or
2) the data is converted to an analogue signal with an embedded clock such as s/pdif or toslink for transmission to a DAC

... and please don't do me the disservice of explaining to me how a Squeezebox works!


What you need to understand is that - assuming no galvanic route for RFI/interference/noise between the two - the SB player is as likely to be influenced by what is happening on the file server as it is to be influenced by your neighbours fridge or sunspots.

[Phil Leigh]

TAS vol 3 contains the following quote:
"Once a CD or download is converted to FLAC, the only way you can achieve the superior sound of WAV files is to go back to the original CD or source for a new rip or WAV download"
...

This is pure and simple 100% solid gold bull. Whichever charlatan wrote that should be ashamed of themselves and whoever employed them should be equally ashamed for depriving a village of an idiot.

[totoro]

yeh I this is what I get hung-up on every time, all thier unknowledge hinge around this actually if they can't get why they are utterly and provable totally wrong and be good enough to admit that.

they are dishonest or complete tools, sadly I think they are dishonest :-/

I happens to notice that almost all operations a computer do requiring it to copy data between registers to and from disc to ram to a different place in ram to L2 cache to buffer in NIC to hither and either ad naseum the core of computer technology is to perfectly copy data all the time blindingly fast does it work or not eh ?

Likewise selling cryogenically treated hifi anything says all you need to know about a certain outfit.

If you follow the " logic " of this TAS find all other file operations would change the file's sound for example backup copies and "shudder" changing any tag which actually rewrites the file it migth have been moved or copied several times on that operation

They could be dishonest AND complete tools: there's no reason that or has to be an XOR .

The last paragraph of yours is the main point I've been trying to hammer home.

[chill]

I've just worked through that TAS article. Not only do they claim that WAV-FLAC-WAV degrades the sound, but they also claim that the effect is cumulative! Utter fruitcakes.

The final paragraph gives a clue to where they're coming from though. Dishonest, and complete tools, yes. But it's evidently all about their egos - heroic pioneers of computer audio!

In the final Part 4 of this series, we reveal how easily-made tweaks and optimizations to our computers can result in nothing short of vast improvements in sound quality. And lastly, we quantify the remarkable degree of improvement that anyone can achieve by applying our “best of” recommended software, tweaks, and computer playback refinements to his own computer- based audio system.

That's an article for SBGK surely.

[Phil Leigh]

I can hardly wait....