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I'm guilty: can't stop peeking at HydrogenAudio - it's really THAT good.

129.33.19.254
Posted on August 24, 2009 at 13:37:10
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 2634
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 This time, it's impossibility of audible differences between playback of WAV and losslessly compressed files (FLAC etc.).

Majority of the posters there can't even understand what's being discussed - as hard to imagine that would be...

RE: I'm guilty: can't stop peeking at HydrogenAudio - it's really THAT good., posted on August 24, 2009 at 19:52:33
Daverz
Audiophile

Posts: 846
Location: So. California
Joined: September 24, 2002
 Well, I can only think of 3 reasons that playback of losslessly compressed files might fail to produce the same analog output as WAV playback:

1. The decoder is producing incorrect output.
2. The decoder can't produce output fast enough.
3. The computer is producing more mechanical noise.

(OK, I wasn't brilliant enough to come up with reason #3.)

My own tests show 1-3 not to be a problem for flac and my audio server (which will get exiled to a closet if it ever does becomes a problem).

What am I missing?
The power of Dogma to close the human mind., posted on August 24, 2009 at 14:25:04
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3060
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 There are days when I am ashamed to consider myself an Engineer. Today is one of them :-(

And how about these this post I surfed into:

"I went back and checked again, I made a little mistake!
The process that was happening is the following:
1) Play starts. The player I use completely decodes the FLAC file, at 100% CPU usage, while playing.
2) FLAC decoding finishes fairly quickly, but the CPU fan continues to spin for 30 seconds or so.
This is a very silly experiment, but it does show it's conceivable, with a dodgy enough setup, than an uninformed person could think they can hear the difference between FLAC and WAV. Of course, such people should hopefully quickly accept the flaw in their methodology."

Here the poster discovers a difference between FLAC and WAV playback that he can both measure and hear and he still discounts it. But he subscribes to the true dogma and so knows better.

BTW, on my system cPlay uses enough CPU when reloading that I can see an increase in fan speed using SpeedFan. I don't consider this significant in casual listening, because the speed increase is slight and the speed falls back quickly. But if I were obsessive or if I were conducting careful comparison tests I would take this into account, e.g. use WAV files. I do not consider cPlay to be a "dodgy setup".



Tony Lauck

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

RE: The power of Dogma to close the human mind., posted on August 25, 2009 at 08:08:15
soundchekk
Audiophile

Posts: 539
Location: DUS
Joined: July 11, 2007
Afaik CPLAY decodes flacs prior to playback. Data is stored in cache (RAM).
Cics decouples the two processes (decoding and playback).
In the end comparing flacs and wavs with CPLAY makes no sense.
RE: The power of Dogma to close the human mind., posted on August 24, 2009 at 20:54:05
Todd Krieger
Audiophile

Posts: 22053
Location: SW United States
Joined: November 2, 2000
 "There are days when I am ashamed to consider myself an Engineer. Today is one of them :-( "

I'm ashamed that I am an engineer, period..... Feel embarrassed to even mention it...... One day is no better or worse than another.........


more forum spam... zzzzzzzzzzzzz., posted on August 24, 2009 at 14:06:22
mäç
Audiophile

Posts: 131
Joined: August 18, 2009
 n/t

So, you're registered troll now?, posted on August 24, 2009 at 14:19:58
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 2634
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 Does it make you less or more retarded?

RE: So, you're registered troll now?, posted on August 24, 2009 at 14:24:19
mäç
Audiophile

Posts: 131
Joined: August 18, 2009
 Your mommy should not allow you to use the internet w/o supervision.

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