[Pompilius]

Hi,
I am downloading High rez. and CD quality music and converting it to flac compression level 5 via dbPoweramp.
During playback the MPoD indicats not 1411 Kb/sec for CD quality downloads but about half that rate only.
Is there any loss of quality via BDP 1?

Thanks

[James Tanner]

Hi,
I am downloading High rez. and CD quality music and converting it to flac compression level 5 via dbPoweramp.
During playback the MPoD indicats not 1411 Kb/sec for CD quality downloads but about half that rate only.
Is there any loss of quality via BDP 1?

Thanks

Hi - no the BDP-1 will do Native rates all the way to 192/24

james

[Pompilius]

Thank you James,
This is good to know but I think that the bitrate during playback for CD quality should be 1411Kb/sec 44.1 Khz. I am getting the reading of about 700 Kb/sec and 44.1 Khz on my MPod  after I rip the CD with dbPoweramp and convert it to flac.
Why is that in your opinion?

Thanks

[ted_b]

Pompilius, you have compressed your music using FLAC level 5.  The bitrate is only lower because of the compression.  Nothing to worry about.  Birate is not the same as sample rate or bit depth.

[BrysTony]

Pompilius, you have compressed your music using FLAC level 5.  The bitrate is only lower because of the compression.  Nothing to worry about.  Birate is not the same as sample rate or bit depth.

I have a question about the compression scale in dbPoweramp.  As I recall level 5 is the default level.  Level 8 is marked (Best).  Does than mean level 8 does more or less compression?  Anyone know?

Tony

[ted_b]

Level 8 does the most compression, Level 0 the least.  Conversely, level 8 takes the longest time to compress/decompress.  Then there is the new "uncompressed" option, available in the newest DBPoweramp versions.

[BrysTony]

Thanks, Ted.

Tony

[Pompilius]

Thank you Ted,
I was concerned when I saw the bitrate drop during playback since I intend to rip my entire CD collection in flac at compression 5 in order to save space, is that a good idea?

If there is no degradation of sound at various compression levels (in spite of bitrate change), why is there the option of uncompressed flac?

Am I correct to assume that the bitrate shown on MPoD pertains to the compressed stream but the BDP 1 somehow decompresses it during playback and adds more bits per second?

If the BDP 1 decompresses and it takes more time to decompress higher compression level how does that manifest itself during playback?

Sorry for too many questions but we audiphiles are sometimes very obsessive.

[sfraser]

Thank you Ted,
I was concerned when I saw the bitrate drop during playback since I intend to rip my entire CD collection in flac at compression 5 in order to save space, is that a good idea?

If there is no degradation of sound at various compression levels (in spite of bitrate change), why is there the option of uncompressed flac?

Am I correct to assume that the bitrate shown on MPoD pertains to the compressed stream but the BDP 1 somehow decompresses it during playback and adds more bits per second?

If the BDP 1 decompresses and it takes more time to decompress higher compression level how does that manifest itself during playback?

Sorry for too many questions but we audiphiles are sometimes very obsessive.

FLAC is similar to a zip file. It is considered "lossless",  ie. when you un-compress you have the original file again. Therefore you "should" ( notice i but should in brackets..watch for the comments below) not be able to hear a difference between FLAC and the original. However some people believe they do hear a difference. I am guessing that is why DB gives you the option. I did not realize that FLAC had a uncompressed option, unless they leave it in WAV format?

Scott

[ted_b]

Yes, some hear a difference.  And uncompressed FLAC is nice because it allows for FLAC's exemplary metadata (tag) support, unlike wav.