How to determine if the track is truly "Lossless" FLAC.

[tim81517lh]

To all the audiophiles out there,

How can you determine if your "lossless" FLAC is truly "lossless". Some tracks that I have gotten, such as Dark Knight Rises soundtrack, have really a great difference between the mp3 and the FLAC. It becomes very obvious when the bass kicks in, there is no distortion or sharp sounds of any kind. All is smooth and very detailed. But some songs such as typical pop or rock, or maybe even dubstep, it becomes very hard to tell because there are so many synthesized sounds going on at the same time, how do you determine if the track is truly lossless?

I googled this topic and came across this Spectro app. I analyzed a 320kbps and FLAC. Some FLACs are even worse than the 320kbps in terms of the frequency cut off. Not sure if this is a legitimate way of determining true lossless though.

What do you guys think?

[MayflowerElectronics]

If you right click the media file, and go to properties then look around for the file name (it will say MP3 or loseless) and also look for the bit rate under Audio Properties.

 

edit - Most dubstep/pop kind of music is recorded very badly, so there's really nothing you can do about it.

[ShearMe]

Well, the only real way to truly know would be if you did the conversion. Bit rates above 320 are probably lossless.

[brownninja97]

320 kbps seems fine, its very hard to tell quality above that. My family does a ton of musical events so its easier to see the difference at high volumes.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

320 kbps seems fine, its very hard to tell quality above that. My family does a ton of musical events so its easier to see the difference at high volumes.

 

That is a very false statement. It is much easier to hear the difference at a comfortable bedroom level.

 

As for the truly lossless format, a track obviously can't be more "lossless" than it was recorded, and these days a lot of music is recorded / produced at a quite low quality. This especially goes for dubstep and other electronic music.

[tim81517lh]

That is a very false statement. It is much easier to hear the difference at a comfortable bedroom level.

 

As for the truly lossless format, a track obviously can't be more "lossless" than it was recorded, and these days a lot of music is recorded / produced at a quite low quality. This especially goes for dubstep and other electronic music.

Yeah i know. Thing is, having a high bit rate does not mean great quality right? I mean you can transcode a mp3 to flac at 1000kbps but if the master was encoded terribly the flac file would be terrible as well. 1000kbps won't help.

This is what I came cross on another site:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/442888/how-to-tell-between-a-real-flac-and-a-fake-flac

Not sure if legitimate though.

Hey guys quick question why can't I cut/paste in this forum all of a sudden. Is it just me? for some reason I just couldn't paste in the URL so I had to type it out character by character -___-

 

[Hans Christian | Teri]

No need for such a program in my opinion.. I mean if you can't tell the difference yourself why care. I have no troubles at all determining between a lossless source and 320 kbps.

[ShearMe]

Yeah i know. Thing is, having a high bit rate does not mean great quality right? I mean you can transcode a mp3 to flac at 1000kbps but if the master was encoded terribly the flac file would be terrible as well. 1000kbps won't help.

This is what I came cross on another site:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/442888/how-to-tell-between-a-real-flac-and-a-fake-flac

Not sure if legitimate though.

Hey guys quick question why can't I cut/paste in this forum all of a sudden. Is it just me? for some reason I just couldn't paste in the URL so I had to type it out character by character -___-

 

 

If you turn an mp3 into a FLAC, the FLAC file will retain the kpbs of the mp3 file (ie max of 320). You don't add in kbps just by changing formats.

[tim81517lh]

No need for such a program in my opinion.. I mean if you can't tell the difference yourself why care. I have no troubles at all determining between a lossless source and 320 kbps.

I can tell. I got this album and immediately it sounded wrong. But I don't know any proven way to prove that this is a fake FLAC. 

[Hans Christian | Teri]

I can tell. I got this album and immediately it sounded wrong. But I don't know any proven way to prove that this is a fake FLAC. 

 

What's the album in question?

[tim81517lh]

What's the album in question?

Snow Patrol - Eyes Open

Since this is like stuff for casual listeners... and audiophiles won't typically listen to this, I kinda suspected that it wouldn't be really high quality. But I got it, listened to it, and the bitrate just seems unnecessarily high but the quality just isn't there. THe bitrate is like around 900kbps. File is around 20 mb

I know this album probably was never released in lossless, so I was questioning whether to keep this or get a 320 version. 320 is probably not even true 320, because this was released years ago. 8 to be precise.

I've been listening to a lot of soundtracks that are lossless: Star Trek, TDKR, TDK, Oblivion M83, Daft Punk Tron Legacy and Random Access Memory... and dropping down to a lower quality one, well I could immediately tell the difference. I just need to be proven with numbers and facts that this is not worth wasting space in my hard drive.

[h264]

I can tell. I got this album and immediately it sounded wrong. But I don't know any proven way to prove that this is a fake FLAC. 

 

cue log with the file hashes to prove they are the original FLACs ripped from a CD.  Other than that you'll know because it sounds awful.

[tim81517lh]

cue log with the file hashes to prove they are the original FLACs ripped from a CD.  Other than that you'll know because it sounds awful.

File hashes? could you be a little more specific? I was looking at the rip logs... not sure what i'm trying to look for...

[tim81517lh]

What is FLAC 23.96 btw... I got the Daft Punk Random Access Memory album. The entire album is over 1gb, and each file is like almost 100mb. The quality is absolutely superb though. Definitely lossless.

The other album that I got that is 23.96 is TDKR, superb audio as well.

The other FLACs are harder to tell apart from 320's. But there is still a minor diff, I guess.

[Hyydrah]

That is a very false statement. It is much easier to hear the difference at a comfortable bedroom level.

 

As for the truly lossless format, a track obviously can't be more "lossless" than it was recorded, and these days a lot of music is recorded / produced at a quite low quality. This especially goes for dubstep and other electronic music.

You may also need fairly good audio equipment to hear the difference, which they may not have and hence why no perceivable difference is found.

[Hyydrah]

I can tell. I got this album and immediately it sounded wrong. But I don't know any proven way to prove that this is a fake FLAC. 

There are some albums that are horribly mastered (The Strokes Room on Fire for example). It wasn't fake, it was just poorly recorded, lossily compressed or whatnot during its production.

[tim81517lh]

You may also need fairly good audio equipment to hear the difference, which they may not have and hence why no perceivable difference is found.

I have the Asus Xonar Essence STX for sound card. Uses Bose QC15 for headphones. Have the Harmon/Kardon Soundsticks 2 for stereo speakers. I think that is pretty decent gear. Plus QC15 really shows the difference between the high quality tracks and low quality tracks.

[Hyydrah]

I have the Asus Xonar Essence STX for sound card. Uses Bose QC15 for headphones. Have the Harmon/Kardon Soundsticks 2 for stereo speakers. I think that is pretty decent gear. Plus QC15 really shows the difference between the high quality tracks and low quality tracks.

That should be enough to hear a difference. The mastering of the track may have a lot to do with it too, which seems to be what you're referring to (lossless rips still sounding bad).

[h264]

File hashes? could you be a little more specific? I was looking at the rip logs... not sure what i'm trying to look for...

 

 

Track  3

     Filename E:\torrent\Oasis -Dig Out Your Soul  (FLAC)\03 - Waiting For The Rapture.wav

     Peak level 98.8 %

     Track quality 100.0 %

     Copy CRC 8273DCD3

     Copy OK

 

something like that.  You'll get this report in the folder when you make a proper EAC rip, though the new one looks different than this.

[ShearMe]

I can hear the distortion added to the bass line in Imagine Dragon's album Night Visions when using my good gear. Not sure if they did that on purpose or just thought nobody would listen to it at such a high quality.

[Blade of Grass]

If you turn an mp3 into a FLAC, the FLAC file will retain the kpbs of the mp3 file (ie max of 320). You don't add in kbps just by changing formats.

Ah, I think that he's talking about something like this:

 

Here is a conversion of my 128Kb/s song, made into a 637Kb/s FLAC

Of course, I didn't actually improve quality, but it says that its a higher bitrate

[ShearMe]

Ah, I think that he's talking about something like this:

 

Here is a conversion of my 128Kb/s song, made into a 637Kb/s FLAC

Of course, I didn't actually improve quality, but it says that its a higher bitrate

 

Yeah, but that's extra kbps of empty data

[Streamline]

If you right click the media file, and go to properties then look around for the file name (it will say MP3 or loseless) and also look for the bit rate under Audio Properties.

 

edit - Most dubstep/pop kind of music is recorded very badly, so there's really nothing you can do about it.

Not recorded very badly, but rather mastered very badly. Modern music wants to be as loud as possible on any device, so studios record their stuff and then opt for the loudest mastering possible because mainstream devices don't have high-end audio solutions and a quality, artistic mastering wouldn't mean much to most consumers because they won't hear the difference between artistic mastering and as-loud-as-possible-mastering. They'd prefer the as-loud-as-possible solution because it comes across as more impressive when you compare it directly to lower level mastered records even though in the mastering process a lot of details got lost which could've been preserved if the producers had opted for the more 'quiet' mastering. This would've given lower listening levels, but had preserved more details and a better frequency range.

 

Edit: Here's what regular vs. audiophile mastering looks like:

 

[Focux]

That's like at least 10% wider

[tim81517lh]

Yeah, but that's extra kbps of empty data

Exactly. So i'm just wondering if the stuff that I am getting are just wasting my hard drive space. My ears can hear the difference, but I kinda want a "data" verification. Rather than just wasting away gigabytes of my hard drive space.

Oh and http://www.amazon.com/Random-Access-Memories-Vinyl-LP/dp/B00C061HZY

I got the FLAC 23.96 version of this. The total album size is over a gigabyte, but the sound quality is absolutely stunning. This album and Dark Knight Rises ALSO in FLAC 23.96 are the highest quality albums in my music library. All the other FLACs I could find are not 23.96... and the file sizes are all under 500mb so I'm wondering if they are even legitimate or not...

 

When comparing the lossless versions I got side by side (320 vs lossless), these two albums are the ones that stood out.