Computer Audio Asylum

RE: Bulk conversion of oversize FLAC's

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Bulk conversion of oversize FLAC's posted by emailtim on March 19, 2018 at 14:14:00

Adding, removing, and adding meta data ONLY changes the meta data, not the audio data.
I know. I just said much the same thing.
If it did change the audio content, the software used is faulty.
Can you tell me where in the paper the authors suggest that audio data are altered?
What they claim is a bit more subtle than that. They argue that storing images in flac-format metadata degrades audio reproduction and that that degradation is compounded by the repeated flac > wav > flac conversions that inevitably occur in the data trail from studio to end user.
You can accept that, reject it or, like me, remain indifferent absent better experiments but that's what they say though you do need to read all of the paper to be clear.
In passing, the experimental design did address "placebo effects" with, for audio, unusual rigour. Audiophiles typically use "placebo" as a term of abuse when they don't understand something and don't much want to. I don't think it's a pertinent notion here.
IMHO, key faults with the study include:
* Using "height measurements" as a proxy for SQ on the basis that correlate within a very limited sample range (as I read it, ten seconds from one recording).
* Using JRMC as the only playback program and a sub-optimal (in audio terms) desktop PC as the music "server". The article dates from (I think) 2016. By then, JRMC on a vanilla WinTel box was hopelessly obsolete.
++++
Disclaimer: the paper interested me because, like PAR, I readily hear SQ differences between flac- and wav-format data. I use a DIY'd cMP2-based Network Audio Adapter. I have for years routinely deleted all but a minimum of text-only tags from audio files purely on the basis that less is typically more in audio and that doing so is free and trivial to do.
Others seem to like bloatware: si tibi placet, est fine by me.
D

Edits: 03/20/18

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