Flac v/s CD comparison

Cacophonix · « **on:** 21 Jul 2006, 07:08 am »

Hi All,

I recently bought an SB-3, and installed it a couple of hours back. I read through the thread
(http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=30959&st=0) so that i could convert CD audio into flac.

I hooked the CD player to one input of onix SP-3, and SB-3 was connected to the only other input. I played the same song through SlimServer, and CD player.
Now, for whatever reason, i was always under the impression that there should not be any difference between the two (as flac is supposed to be loseless format).
But even to my untrained ears, i could make out that the song through SB-3 didn't quite have the same amount of detail. It surely sounded a lot better than MP3,
but i was expecting flac to be identical to uncompressed audio.

Has this been the experience of others here or do i have to tweak EAC to rip better?

Thanks!

DSK · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 09:15 am »

If I understand you correctly, you compared a CD played on a CD player to the same CD (ripped & flac'd) played over the SB3? If so, you are comparing a whole lot more than software formats and it is not the least bit surprising you heard differences.

To compare formats, rip the CD to WAV then convert WAV to FLAC but do not delete the WAV afterwards. Play the WAV through the SB3 then the FLAC through the SB3 and see whether you hear a difference.

Papajin · « **Reply #2 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 09:18 am »

Quote

I hooked the CD player to one input of onix SP-3, and SB-3 was connected to the only other input. I played the same song through SlimServer, and CD player.
Now, for whatever reason, i was always under the impression that there should not be any difference between the two (as flac is supposed to be loseless format).
But even to my untrained ears, i could make out that the song through SB-3 didn't quite have the same amount of detail. It surely sounded a lot better than MP3,
but i was expecting flac to be identical to uncompressed audio.

One question... How do you know that the difference in the sound isn't coming from either the CD player itself, or the SB? Everything in the audio chain has a chance to change the signal being passed to one degree or another till it gets to your speakers. If you really want to compare apples to apples, you shouuld play a .WAV file (which is 100% uncompressed) and compare it against a .FLAC file and see if you can hear any differences. In this case at least you'd be playing the 2 through the same exact hardware. Or as an alternate, you could probably send the sound of both the CD Player and the SB through the same outboard DAC. There's still room for differences in the sound based on the hardware in this scenario, but probably to a much lesser degree.

Paul_Bui · « **Reply #3 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 09:49 am »

Hi Cacophonix,

How did you rip your CDs into WAV then FLAC? Only the secure mode EAC will give you the most accurate bit to bit ripping to WAV, and certain configuration in FLAC will similarly render the desirable result.

That said, there's nothing wrong to compare FLAC against CD, IMHO. But FLAC (or WAV) coming from a stock SB is not likely to compete with a decent CD player. On the other hand (and fortunately so), a modified SB playing properly ripped WAV or FLAC files usually beats a good to very good CD player, again IMHO. I sold my highly modded tube SACD player ($3,700 purchased new) after hearing the RWA modded SB2.

Therefore, you won't hear an SB in its best until you have it modded. And you need to rip CDs properly to get the best sounding WAV/FLAC. Last but not least, different firmware versions may sound different, as many SB fans/AC members have discussed.

Cacophonix · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 01:24 pm »

Thanks for all the responses.

I am using EAC to rip CD to WAV, and then use FLAC.exe to convert it to compress it to .flac files
Here's the command line that i'm using to convert WAV to FLAC

-6 -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" -T comment="%e" -T "comment=EAC (Secure Mode)" %s

Like all of you have suggested, i'll play WAV and FLAC files through SB-3 and compare the sound quality. My CD player is $150 DVD/SACD/CD player ... so its not
anything that you'd call a hi-end player. But even when i play CDs through this player, i can hear more detail. I guess reading all the glowing reviews about SB-3
got my expectations up a little too high.

Tirade · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 01:30 pm »

I think youre missing the point of the replies.

You SHOULD hear a difference between your CDP and the FLAC files. For better or worse, most people can tell the difference, HOWEVER an important question is do you hear a difference between WAV files and FLAC files?

Rip a CD to WAV and convert it to FLAC like you've been doing but this time dont delete the WAV files (or turn off the auto delete option).

Listen to both WAV and FLAC and let us know which sounds better. If you hear a difference between the 2 then something is very wrong. If you dont hear a difference then we are headed in the right direction.

Do you come out of your SB3 via the analog or digital outputs? Same question about your CDP.

Did you try swapping the inputs on the SP-3 around? Did you use the same cable for both or try switching cables?

We want to remove every equation possible and find the source of the problem.

tdangelo · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 01:56 pm »

Cacophonix: you also have the option with slimserver to stream a flac as a flac or as a wav and vise versa. You can find the options under Home / Server Settings / File Types - check to see what you have "checked". To my ears I can hear a difference between the two. The flac option utilizes the squeezebox to transcode - the wav option does it server side (if I remember correctly). I have a preference

Tony D.

Cacophonix · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Jul 2006, 02:14 pm »

Quote from: Tirade on 21 Jul 2006, 01:30 pm

Rip a CD to WAV and convert it to FLAC like you've been doing but this time dont delete the WAV files (or turn off the auto delete option).

Listen to both WAV and FLAC and let us know which sounds better. If you hear a difference between the 2 then something is very wrong. If you dont hear a difference then we are headed in the right direction.

Tirade, This is exactly what i plan on doing once i get back home.

Quote from: Tirade on 21 Jul 2006, 01:30 pm

Do you come out of your SB3 via the analog or digital outputs? Same question about your CDP.

Did you try swapping the inputs on the SP-3 around? Did you use the same cable for both or try switching cables?

We want to remove every equation possible and find the source of the problem.

I'm using analog outputs of both the players to connect to the integrated amp.
I've not tried swapping the inputs nor the cables, but i'll do so once i get back home.

tdangelo - Thanks for the information ... i'll try that one too.

Cacophonix · « **Reply #8 on:** 22 Jul 2006, 01:03 am »

I ripped Eva Cassidy's Songbird to WAV and converted it FLAC. I played both these on SB-3, and could not make out any difference.
Then I played the same CD through my CD player, and it definitely sounds better. I swapped cables, and inputs, but still it
didn't do anything to make me change my earlier impression.
I'm using a toshiba DVD-ROM to rip the CDs. Will this make any difference to the quality? Is there any tweaking that can be done to
make sure that I'm getting the best possible sound quality? I understand that whatever difference i'm hearing could be due to hardware
differences between the devices, but i'm just trying to exact the most out of my SB-3, before diving headlong into ripping my 400 odd CDs.

Loftprojection · « **Reply #9 on:** 24 Jul 2006, 03:53 pm »

Basically the conclusion you should reach is that your CDP hardware produces better sound quality then the stock Squeezebox. It has nothing to do with wav, flac or original CDs.

In my opinion, your options are only to "improve" the Squeezebox sound quality until it equals or surpasses what you get from your CDP. For doing this, you can send your SB to RedWineAudio or Bolder and have them modify it or you can buy an external DAC and feed the digital out of you SB into the DAC.

Cacophonix · « **Reply #10 on:** 24 Jul 2006, 11:20 pm »

Loftprojection,

That's the same conclusion that i came to finally. My $150 DVD player sounds better than the $299 SB3. It sounds weird at first , but if one considers that kinds of convenience that is offered, SB-3 is still a decent bargain.
I'll think about the "mods" ... SB-3 sounds fine for most parts. Its only when i sit down in front of my speakers will i notice the slight lack in air, and the soft bass. Mids seem spot-on though.

Btw, on a separate topic ... i notice that EAC doesn't seem to populate CD information from free-db correctly. But when i go to free-db website, i can pull out information about the disc just fine. Anybody face this problem? For now, I'm manually entering the information, but i don't want to be doing this for a majority of my CDs. Any work arounds?

Thanks!

Thump553 · « **Reply #11 on:** 25 Jul 2006, 01:39 pm »

Quote from: Cacophonix on 24 Jul 2006, 11:20 pm

* * *
Btw, on a separate topic ... i notice that EAC doesn't seem to populate CD information from free-db correctly. But when i go to free-db website, i can pull out information about the disc just fine. Anybody face this problem? For now, I'm manually entering the information, but i don't want to be doing this for a majority of my CDs. Any work arounds?

Thanks!

I use Mediamonkey

Code: [Select]

http://www.mediamonkey.com/ to tag my FLAC files, and to associate them with CD covers, after I have ripped them with EAC. Mediamonkey has an easy system to tag the files from Amazaon's listings. These tags aren't 100% perfect, but it is also very easy to manually correct the tags with Mediamonkey.

PS-how do you properly link to webpages under this new board setup? I can't figure it out.

avta · « **Reply #12 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 03:59 pm »

Cacophonix:
I've had good luck following the guidelines at http://users.pandora.be/satcp/ You can also get some good tips at the Exact Audio Copy site www.exactaudiocopy.de in the Forums section. I found the Hydrogen Audio guide a bit confusing for a novice. In my system ( SB2(not modded), Pass Aleph3 amp, Norh ACA 2b pre., Magnepan 1.6 speakers ) the SB sound is clearly better than my CD player a Toshiba sd4960. There are a number of different parameters that can be used in setting up EAC. Try different ones recommended in the EAC forum and in other places you may find. Good luck.
Guy

Cacophonix · « **Reply #13 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 07:12 pm »

Quote from: Thump553 on 25 Jul 2006, 01:39 pm

I use Mediamonkey
Code: [Select]
http://www.mediamonkey.com/ to tag my FLAC files, and to associate them with CD covers, after I have ripped them with EAC. Mediamonkey has an easy system to tag the files from Amazaon's listings. These tags aren't 100% perfect, but it is also very easy to manually correct the tags with Mediamonkey.

PS-how do you properly link to webpages under this new board setup? I can't figure it out.

Sweet!!!

Media Monkey is awesome! I am able to tag most of my files now! Thanks a bunch man!

Quote from: avta on 29 Jul 2006, 03:59 pm

Cacophonix:
I've had good luck following the guidelines at http://users.pandora.be/satcp/ You can also get some good tips at the Exact Audio Copy site www.exactaudiocopy.de in the Forums section.

Thanks, avta! I'll check that site out and see if there is anything more than i can do to extract the most out of SB-3 and flac.
Having my music on the PC has made my life a lot more easier and more fun. Instead of listening to the same CD over and over again, now i can just put everything in random, and enjoy a lot more of my CDs.

Tirade · « **Reply #14 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 07:59 pm »

Couple of things check.

REPLAY GAIN

Make sure its disabled, this can indeed kill your sound quality.

Can your print off your EAC settings or export your profile for us to take a look at?

Make sure EAC is configured correctly for your drive (i.e. correct values for read offset are set)

Ive slowly moved away from EAC in favor of the new plextools pro (I only use plaxtor premium drives) because its autosets the correct drives settings and values. Then again it costs a bit of money and EAC is free.

launche · « **Reply #15 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 08:21 pm »

Quote from: Tirade on 29 Jul 2006, 07:59 pm

Ive slowly moved away from EAC in favor of the new plextools pro (I only use plaxtor premium drives) because its autosets the correct drives settings and values. Then again it costs a bit of money and EAC is free.

Which Plaxtor drives are you using with good results?

Thanks

JDUBS · « **Reply #16 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 08:32 pm »

I can definitely recommend the use of the Plextor Premium drive. Its all I use (at the recommendation of others) and I've had excellent results.

I would use EAC over Plextools as AccurateRip can be used in conjunction with EAC. This program verifies your rips with rips done by other people, to ensure accuracy.

Here's a great guide to accomplish the above:

http://www.carltonbale.com/projects/cd_audio_extraction/

Its very easy to follow and takes only 15-20 minutes to setup. Good stuff.

-Jim

Cacophonix · « **Reply #17 on:** 29 Jul 2006, 10:11 pm »

Quote from: Tirade on 29 Jul 2006, 07:59 pm

Couple of things check.

REPLAY GAIN

Make sure its disabled, this can indeed kill your sound quality.

Can your print off your EAC settings or export your profile for us to take a look at?

Make sure EAC is configured correctly for your drive (i.e. correct values for read offset are set)

Ive slowly moved away from EAC in favor of the new plextools pro (I only use plaxtor premium drives) because its autosets the correct drives settings and values. Then again it costs a bit of money and EAC is free.

Where do i check to see if this "replay gain" is disabled? Is this the same as normalization? I have this disabled in the EAC options.
How do i export my profile for you all to look at? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to playing around with CD ripping options ... so
i just blindly followed whatever was in the hydrogen audio forum.

avta · « **Reply #18 on:** 30 Jul 2006, 02:44 pm »

Cacophonix:
I agree too.. it's best to disable Replay Gain. Open Slimserver and go to Player Settings. Find Audio then look for the drop down menu towards the bottom for Replay Gain. Then disable it.
Guy

Tirade · « **Reply #19 on:** 30 Jul 2006, 03:03 pm »

Quote from: Cacophonix on 29 Jul 2006, 10:11 pm

Quote from: Tirade on 29 Jul 2006, 07:59 pm
Couple of things check.

REPLAY GAIN

Make sure its disabled, this can indeed kill your sound quality.

Can your print off your EAC settings or export your profile for us to take a look at?

Make sure EAC is configured correctly for your drive (i.e. correct values for read offset are set)

Ive slowly moved away from EAC in favor of the new plextools pro (I only use plaxtor premium drives) because its autosets the correct drives settings and values. Then again it costs a bit of money and EAC is free.

Where do i check to see if this "replay gain" is disabled? Is this the same as normalization? I have this disabled in the EAC options.
How do i export my profile for you all to look at? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to playing around with CD ripping options ... so
i just blindly followed whatever was in the hydrogen audio forum.

Normilization is what its called in EAC, so yes make sure its disabled. Replay Gain itself can be found in the Slimserver settings as was mentioned in the post above mine.

The drive of choice for a lot of people is either the new BenQ DVD+RW or the Plextor Premium CD+RW, do a search for them, they are both fairly cheap.

Whether you use EAC or Plextools is a personal choice, just make sure you check some of your rips every now and then to make sure they are bit perfect.