NAB2 - those discussions never reach a conclusion. There are people who insist that two bit for bit identical files sound different. There are people that think that flac always sounds worse than wav. There are people that think that a wav file that has been converted to flac and back to wav will sound different. There was even a controversial 4 part article in the Absolute Sound that found sound differences in pretty much every conceivable way to produce bit for bit identical files.
Who knows what is going on, buy there is a small group of people who are absolutely convinced of these differences, but most people cannot hear the differences on their systems. Its kind of like expensive power cables, little silver cups, myrtle wood blocks, etc. You can spend your life looking for these differences or you can listen to the music. Just depends on which part of the hobby most interests you.
You might want to spend some time experimenting. Most of us have. I must say getting a new Chord Hugo DAC swamped any possible improvements in wav versus flac, etc.
