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Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

notice, but not attribute until confirmed

"Hmmm ... said to "sound different?" I just round-tripped a 24-96 WAV file to/from FLAC and got back exactly the same file. (Verified by null test against the original.) What am I missing?"

1. Compare files with MD5 file checksum. (Software below.) You may find that the file contents are different even though the audio samples are the same. This can be due to different metadata or other header information in the file. While this "shouldn't" affect sound quality the altered bits are known to the player software and could do strange things.

2. If the two files coexist simultaneously, they must have different storage locations and file names. While this "shouldn't" affect sound quality it could.

3. Playing the same file (or equivalent files) on different occasions may sound different due to changes in physical environment, component aging, warmup, and most likely, one's different mental state. One may falsely attribute differences for these reasons to some other cause such as switching to an equivalent file.

4. Playback of files from hard drive may involve different electrical activity depending on how these were written, i.e. the timing of bits coming off the spinning rust, the operation of RS error correcting codes, etc. These could somehow affect the sound.

I expect the sound to vary each time I play the music, if only because I've heard it one more time. Before I consider the possibility that a digital copy has somehow become "different" I listen multiple times, even in the case of large differences such as "clicks" and "pops". I will notice, but not attribute until confirmed. If I repeatedly were to hear significant differences between files with identical audio samples I would get rid of my DAC and replace it with one that was more immune from extraneous differences on the input signal or electrical power. I am not concerned about minor differences, rather just those that might affect the realism or musical enjoyment of the playback. Given a choice of two DACs, one that provided consistently good sound or one that provided inconsistent sound that on average was slightly better, I would have absolutely no use for the latter DAC. For me, audio components are tools that are used to make recordings or enjoy music and have no intrinsic interest otherwise. I am not interested in "moody" or "flaky" components.

The only times that I listen hypercritically to music is when I am evaluating a recording that I am making or when I am evaluating or setting up my system. I try to spend as much time as possible just listening and enjoying the music and have no interest in swapping components to get a slightly different sound. If I want to revoice my system I have ample ways of doing so at low cost, including repositioning my listening chair, repositioning my speakers, or readjusting the crossover (11 adjustments total). Usually a simple volume adjustment or polarity reversal suffices to make a recording sound good, unless the recording "needs work" or is "hopeless". Along this line, in over 50 years I have purchased only three amplifiers for my main system. I am not so foolish as to replace components in the vain attempt to make poor recordings sound good. (I prefer to be foolish in other ways. :-) )





Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar


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  • notice, but not attribute until confirmed - Tony Lauck 06:19:19 03/16/12 (0)

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