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has anybody else noticed this about flac audio?

o.k are you ready for some truth friends ? flac has compression levels from 0 to 8 with the official flac default level being 5. now flac is lossless compression so there should be no sound loss from the original source no matter what compression level you use however if you encode the same song using every different flac compression level even though they will all be lossless there absolutely is a difference in the overall sound including tone and sound stage from level to level and doing your own test will only prove me right. now here’s where it gets strange? 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.i find it odd that the only flac compression level not recommended as a default no matter what software you use is flac compression level 4 ? it just so happens that re-encoding digital audio to flac with compression level 4 converts digital mono depth perception back into digital stereo depth perception (3d sound stage) just like vintage vinyl! and i don’t think this is by mistake friends ? do your own test and get ready to have your mind blown. here is an audio sample: level 5 http://pc.cd/pCcrtalK level 4 http://pc.cd/iVWrtalK
guitarsam
guitarsam OP
179 posts
 
guitarsam here and i am not an audiophile and i realize that it makes no sense that flac with compression level 4 should sound any different than any other level.
i can accept that i’m fooling myself and my ears maybe fooling me.

she by gram parsons ripped from cd with jriver media center 23 to flac (0) and flac (4)
what i believe i hear is a more open soundstage with more stereoness to the music on flac (4)

flac (0) http://pc.cd/QzzotalK flac (4) http://pc.cd/XBS

guitarsam OP
179 posts
 
sam here as misstl pointed out if he does a vinyl to digital transfer it sounds the same however when the record company does the same thing with the master source the sound is not there? and to suggest the finest producers in the world are not aware of this is pure crap! they don't get to play the stupid card 
ap1
17 posts
 
It is very easy to test this hypothesis - take WAV audio file, compress into FLAC, decompress back to WAV and then compare two WAV files. Other than metadata header, they should match bit to bit.

danvignau's avatar
danvignau
935 posts
 
For my ears, all streamed audio sounds compressed.  Calling it "Lossless" means that it is streamed with all the compression put into the server where it is stored.   "Lossless" means that after the recording was mixed to save space through compression, what is left is broadcast, even if the stream loses no info.  This reminds me of food labels that proclaim, "Made with 100%" whatever.  Sure,  it might have a tenth of a percent of 100 percent something, but that tenth of a percent was made with 100% whatever.
porscheracer
132 posts
 
If you read up on FLAC, you will discover that all the hard work is done on the compression side. Decompressing the FLAC file doesn’t really change the CPU load much even comparing level 0 to level 8. Yes, even FLAC level 0 is compressed. There is uncompressed FLAC but it appears you that has not been tried here based on what I have read. 
The DAC never sees the compressed music data. The CPU load is not all that different at any level of compression so what is asserted by the OP here is really far out there. I have never heard any difference in sound quality in FLAC compression levels. 
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