Converting Flac to Wav & Upconversion

DOB,
I do hear a difference. WAV does sound better than Flac in a direct comparison. Especially if the FLAC file is heavily compressed. Flac files at zero compression sound much closer to WAV.
It has been suggested that it is decoding the envelope around the Flac file might cause software jitter that is sent to your DAC. Many have found that the newest i7 processors have much less trouble (if any at all) decoding Flac files This is all conjecture at this point as few know for sure.
Apparently there is more difference between the two depending on if you use Ethernet via DNLA vs USB. Most have reported less differences if the Ethernet via DNLA which is what I use. In most if these systems one can enable transcoding the Flac to WAV on the fly. I use this also.
So until you have tried streaming the files via both methods maybe you should be a little more open when deciding what I can hear.
I do hear the differences between Flac and WAV and they are much larger via USB than DNLA Ethernet. I have spent lots of money and improving my Ethernet system to minimize these differences.
In my system the difference though detectable have become smaller and smaller until I don't really care. Yes WAV still sounds a bit better as described above. I'm hoping that like others, upgrading my transcoding PC will finally make the differences between Flac and WAV undetectable.
At this point, WAV still sounds to just a little bit better. So close that I'd rather take a little hit in SQ rather than having lost tags and retagging again and again.
Hopefully you have learned some things about Flac and WAV playback systems. I'm always ready to learn a new trick. In audio, I have learned to never say never. Little things can make a big difference to the sound and all things have the potential to affect the sound of your system.

Would you believe treating the cd before it is ripped and using footers under your ripping drive during ripping could effect the SQ? Or that the quality and type of Ethernet cable can be heard? Many would say not, but my ears and system have been proven to be right by those who have kept an open mind and listened for themselves.

So long and farewell for now and someday I'll learn to keep my deaf ears to myself.
Sincerely,
Steven

Hello Steven,

Sorry if I have offended you. You do things right. First you report what you hear and then you try to explain it - and its fine and how it suppose to be, first observatio(s) and then speculation/discussions and this is how we learn.

Simply, Mihaitaa with his "mere mortal" approach tempted me too much. As you can see many so called audiophies are trying to apply their ignorance of reality and "calculate" music instead of listinging to it. Just above Lupin the 3d described to us that zeros are zeros indeed and shared with us description of his thought process, or as he put it "bowel movement". He will never guess, that "1" is actually electrical pulse, say 1 v amplitude for illustation and could be a) mispaced in time due to the jitter and b) greatly distorted (say reduced to 0.499v) due to noisy power supply, non linear DC:DC convertors etc and be mischaracterized as a "zero"

To comment further, I am trying not to diminish huge difference betweet two formats but improve AQ and make it as close to analogue front end as possible. There are number of factors involved and I am sure I don;t know even half of them. Many extremely useful suggestions are from Musica Pristina people ("Spectron").

At any rate, my apologies again and all the best ! This hobby (addiction for me, actually) is fantastic for life!

Thanks DOB
No offense.
I'll check out Musica Pristina
It is a great hobby and trying to get the most from digital is quite an undertaking. We are pioneers. And there seems to be more than one way to get there.
Steven

Dob wrote:
"He will never guess, that "1" is actually electrical pulse, say 1 v amplitude for illustation and could be a) mispaced in time due to the jitter and b) greatly distorted (say reduced to 0.499v) due to noisy power supply, non linear DC:DC convertors etc and be mischaracterized as a "zero""

Well, this is certainly possible, although not very probable. Most of the effects in digital audio are not due to bit-errors, but rather from jitter.

This is why it is critically important to address the jitter of the source deviceand master clock as a higher priority than the format, computer, software or even the DAC quality. All of these things are second-order effects compared to jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

When FLAC and wav sound different, its probably more due to the different software in play for each and how that is written, designed, and performs more so than the format. Decompressing FLAC files will probably require more CPU processing, but should not be a problem if done right. Of course, things are not always done right, and many factors can come into play when playing digital music files, so differences in performance between the two in any particular case would not surprise me and reasons why may not be apparent.