has anybody else noticed this about flac audio?

I can’t say this in a nice way, but this statement is made up. There is no basis for making it and absolutely no way to justify it. I have to assume it comes from a lack of understanding of digitized and reconstructed analog signals, and a belief in the perfection of vinyl (which it most certainly is not).

vintage vinyl has stereo + stereo depth perception (3d sound stage).digital audio has stereo + mono depth perception (2d sound stage) and this includes all new remastered vinyl cut from the digital master. this is why digital audio does not sound like vintage vinyl along with brick wall compression.

Unless someone has screwed up the code, which is possible, but unlikely, or you are using software that does loudness levelling or something like that, then there should be no difference in the files, and it is relatively easy to see if they are bit-perfect. I have not delved deep into the algorithms for playback, but it is my understanding that compression level can impact the amount of processing required to decompress, and if you are playing on a noisy computer, the added processor load and added memory usage, especially if you have other things running, could result in "noisier" playback, but that is unlikely to happen on any dedicated hardware, or a computer not overly burdened.

This might be a published fake FLAC file generation.  Really, the only way for you to personally validate this FLAC compression difference is to buy your own audio file converter (such as Aul Converter 48x44) and compress some WAV files YOURSELF.  Then test them and see if you can hear any difference.  Not saying this phenomenon is untrue, just difficult to prove.

I know that there are some older media player software that just do not playback FLAC files with good quality.  This has to do with having to uncompress the FLAC data on the fly.  I think it was Monkey Media Player that really sounded crappy with FLAC files.  I have had no problems with Jriver playing back FLAC and quality, soundstage, stereo imaging and depth has always been excellent.  I know JRiver uncompresses "ahead" and caches data before it's clocked and sent to the DAC.

1) You are making absolute statements about sound quality based solely on your personal experience which may or may not be limited. That is a mistake.

2) digital sound stage is not 2-D. If that is what you are experiencing see 1).

3) Compressed file formats be they lossy or in this case lossless do require additional processing on the streamer to decompress before streaming. That might produce different noise levels with some devices. So I can see where more compressed lossless flac might be at a disadvantage but results will still depend on how well the streamer is able to do its job.

heaudio123"I can’t say this in a nice way, but this statement is made up. There is no basis for making it and absolutely no way to justify it."


There is every reasonable, practical, and justifiable basis for this person to have made his statements and that is that he is reporting what he hears. No one hear has to "justify" making they’re listening results here, except perhaps to the group’s moderators but in this example there is nothing objectionable, offensive, or inappropriate about this post except you happen to not like it. Just because you do not agree with a statement or are unable to understand the statement or it’s background does not mean that the statement is "made up."

"I have to assume it comes from a lack of understanding of digitized and reconstructed analog signals, and a belief in the perfection of vinyl (which it most certainly is not)."
That is a remarkable, notable, and "impressive" set of assumptions and "leaps of faith" in reasoning but I guess that is something you are allowed to do. So I will assume that you make this statement because you are unable to process the information offered in a way other than to reject, attack, or dismiss it without reasonable explanation.

No never noticed that about FLAC.