Questions regarding FLAC

[Irish_M8]

Hi guys!

I just got into the world of FLAC and lossless audio. I started converting some of my CD's and was extremely pumped to try FLAC for the first time.

Well, i got dissappointed. When comparing the songs in mp3 and FLAC-format back to back, i found that FLAC brought in some unwanted sounds, espacially in the higher spectrum.

Btw: I'm using ATH-M50x

Did i setup my converting software wrong? I used freac.

Any ideas?

Maybe it's just me listening to songs I've known for a long time and being so used to them that i dont like how they sound now? I honestly have no idea.

[You_are_a_cunt]

Ripping CDs to FLAC doesn't result in actual FLAC quality files. You'll want the studio-quality FLACs.

 

Ripping vinyl has pretty good results, though (if the vinyl is in excellent shape)

[Bananasplit_00]

ripping CDs to Flac wont get you Flac quality, because the source isnt good enough mainly. ripping Vinyl is good, ripping older analog formats can give good results but not CDs

[Irish_M8]

So the ideal way to get FLAC quality is to buy them online?
I see. 

My brother told me that ripping CD's would be the way to go. Guess I should double check next time.
Thanks for the quick feedback! Thats my first post ever on LTT forum, even though I subscribed on YT like 4 years ago. Awesome community!

[AshleyAshes]

17 minutes ago, Irish_M8 said:

Hi guys!

I just got into the world of FLAC and lossless audio. I started converting some of my CD's and was extremely pumped to try FLAC for the first time.

Well, i got dissappointed. When comparing the songs in mp3 and FLAC-format back to back, i found that FLAC brought in some unwanted sounds, espacially in the higher spectrum.

Btw: I'm using ATH-M50x

Did i setup my converting software wrong? I used freac.

Any ideas?

Maybe it's just me listening to songs I've known for a long time and being so used to them that i dont like how they sound now? I honestly have no idea.

Erm... FLAC makes a lossless copy of the CD's data.  Your FLAC track would sound no different from the CD.  If you don't like the sound of the FLAC file then you also don't like the sound of the CD, as they are bit for bit identical upon decode.

[spwath]

1 hour ago, Irish_M8 said:

So the ideal way to get FLAC quality is to buy them online?
I see. 

My brother told me that ripping CD's would be the way to go. Guess I should double check next time.
Thanks for the quick feedback! Thats my first post ever on LTT forum, even though I subscribed on YT like 4 years ago. Awesome community!

no. They are wrong. Cd's are fine, they are lossless wav, so ripping them to flac is fine.

[Dackzy]

wtf is going on here?

 

CD's are fine, if you guys didn't know it, then CD's are WAV

[SilicateWielder]

2 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Ripping CDs to FLAC doesn't result in actual FLAC quality files. You'll want the studio-quality FLACs.

 

Ripping vinyl has pretty good results, though (if the vinyl is in excellent shape)

Yep, converting an MP3 to FLAC format will not yield improved audio quality, What you want are Studio quality FLACs like revsilverspine said.

 

EDIT: Apparently CDs use lossless WAV now? If that's the case, then it's a matter of knowing what the bitrate/quality of the WAV files is.

[Mira Yurizaki]

There's no such thing as "FLAC quality".

 

If you went by the typical standards, you're going to be ranging from CD audio quality (16-bit, 44.1KHz) to the top end DVD audio quality (24-bit, 192KHz). Though most things master in 32-bit.

[AshleyAshes]

17 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

wtf is going on here?

 

CD's are fine, if you guys didn't know it, then CD's are WAV

Well, no, 'WAV' is a container format called 'Waveform Audio File' and it can actually contain all kinds of different audio formats, you can even put MP3 audio inside a WAV container.  WAV is not a format.

 

CD's use an audio format called 'LPCM' or 'Linear Pulse Code Modulation'.  CDs are LPCM, they are not WAV.  Though LPCM is the most commonly seen format within a WAV container and people mistakenly believe that WAV is LPCM, when WAV is a container format.

[Dackzy]

10 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well, no, 'WAV' is a container format called 'Waveform Audio File' and it can actually contain all kinds of different audio formats, you can even put MP3 audio inside a WAV container.  WAV is not a format.

 

CD's use an audio format called 'LPCM' or 'Linear Pulse Code Modulation'.  CDs are LPCM, they are not WAV.  Though LPCM is the most commonly seen format within a WAV container and people mistakenly believe that WAV is LPCM, when WAV is a container format.

a CD can have 16bit FLAC, heck some have higher, I just ripped some old simple plan CD's, when I formatted the file to FLAC 16bit/44.1kHz every song went down with about 4MB-5MB.

 

WAV is a file format and can be uncompressed and lossless.

 

It is 100% okay ripping from CD's

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, Dackzy said:

a CD can have 16bit FLAC, heck some have higher, I just ripped some old simple plan CD's, when I formatted the file to FLAC 16bit/44.1kHz every song went down with about 4MB-5MB.

*sighs*

 

You did not just extract a FLAC file from a CD.  You extracted the uncompressed 16bit 44.1khz LPCM audio from the CD and recompressed it from LPCM, an uncompressed format, to FLAC, a lossless compression format and you achieved a significantly smaller file, which can be losslessly decoded to be identical to the uncompressed original LPCM, because that's exactly what FLAC is supposed to do.  Redbook Compact Disc Digital Audio discs do not contain FLAC, the standard has not changed since 1980, there is no FLAC on a compact disc.

[Dackzy]

11 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

*sighs*

 

You did not just extract a FLAC file from a CD.  You extracted the uncompressed 16bit 44.1khz LPCM audio from the CD and recompressed it from LPCM, an uncompressed format, to FLAC, a lossless compression format and you achieved a significantly smaller file, which can be losslessly decoded to be identical to the uncompressed original LPCM, because that's exactly what FLAC is supposed to do.  Redbook Compact Disc Digital Audio discs do not contain FLAC, the standard has not changed since 1980, there is no FLAC on a compact disc.

I am saying they have WAV... When I said flac I mean the quality in bit rate, not the format. You can with no problem rip off a CD and get flac quality.

 

But who the fuck really cares, the master is much more important.

[AshleyAshes]

8 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

I am saying they have WAV... When I said flac I mean the quality in bit rate, not the format. You can with no problem rip off a CD and get flac quality.

1) Again, it's not WAV, it's LPCM.  WAV is a container format that can contain different audio formats, including and most commonly containing LPCM.  WAV is not an audio format.  CD's do not contain WAV files.

 

2) 'FLAC Quality' is not a thing.  FLAC is a lossless audio compression format that has no 'quality' standard of it's own, it just lossless stores the audio that was fed into the encoder and upon decoding allows the output to be bit-for-bit identical to what was put into it.  A CD ripped to FLAC and then played back is not 'FLAC Quality' it is 'CD Quality'.  Think of FLAC as being kinda like a ZIP or RAR file, these use lossless compression to remove data redundancies and use less storage for that data while allowing the data to be reconstructed identically to the original.   If I take a text document, compress it in a ZIP file, and uncompressed it, I do not have a 'ZIP Quality' text document.  FLAC Is, very simply, a data compression format made specifically for audio and it has no unique 'quality traits' of it's own.

 

Also, a FLAC file has a lower bitrate than a CD.  You seem to believe that 'Bitrate' is universally a metric of quality, but it is not.  FLAC files, being losslessly encoded, have a lower bitrate than a CD, because it's entire reason to exist is to store the same information with less data, it has a lower bitrate while maintaining identical output to the higher bitrate of a CD.

[Dackzy]

3 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

1) Again, it's not WAV, it's LPCM.  WAV is a container format that can contain different audio formats, including and most commonly containing LPCM.  WAV is not an audio format.  CD's do not contain WAV files.

 

2) 'FLAC Quality' is not a thing.  FLAC is a lossless audio compression format that has no 'quality' standard of it's own, it just lossless stores the audio that was fed into the encoder and upon decoding allows the output to be bit-for-bit identical to what was put into it.  A CD ripped to FLAC and then played back is not 'FLAC Quality' it is 'CD Quality'.  Think of FLAC as being kinda like a ZIP or RAR file, these use lossless compression to remove data redundancies and use less storage for that data while allowing the data to be reconstructed identically to the original.   If I take a text document, compress it in a ZIP file, and uncompressed it, I do not have a 'ZIP Quality' text document.  FLAC Is, very simply, a data compression format made specifically for audio and it has no unique 'quality traits' of it's own.

 

Also, a FLAC file has a lower bitrate than a CD.  You seem to believe that 'Bitrate' is universally a metric of quality, but it is not.  FLAC files, being losslessly encoded, have a lower bitrate than a CD, because it's entire reason to exist is to store the same information with less data, it has a lower bitrate while maintaining identical output to the higher bitrate of a CD.

1. It is still corret to say WAV, I even said "WAV is a file format and can be uncompressed and lossless."

 

2. Never ever said FLAC quality, I have said "quality in bit rate" aka the bitrate, I should have been more clea and said x high bit rate, but I don't know how you didn't get that FLAC quality from. I think you are mixing up comments here, some other guy said something about "you don't actually get FLAC quality files, by ripping CD" or something like that. Yes a FLAC is like a zip file I know that, I have done zero things that has said anything else...

 

did you even read the last comment I made? "But who the fuck really cares, the master is much more important." A FLAC file from a bad master can sound worse than a MP3 file from a good master....

[AshleyAshes]

3 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

1. It is still corret to say WAV, 

No, not it is not 'corret' to say WAV.  CD's are not WAV.  It is incorrect, the thing that is the opposite of correct.

 

Quote

I have said "quality in bit rate" aka the bitrate,

A FLAC file has a lower bitrate than a CD while keeping the audio data identical.   'Bitrate' is not a metric of quality in this situation.

[Dackzy]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

No, not it is not 'corret' to say WAV.  It's not WAV.  It is incorrect, the thing that is the opposite of correct.

 

A FLAC file has a lower bitrate than a CD while keeping the audio data identical.   'Bitrate' is not a metric of quality in this situation.

I have never used bitrate as a quality metric, if you even cared to read then I have said two times now that the master is what really matters, a CD can have a bad master...

 

A CD is what 1411kbps and a FLAC can go up to 1184kbps or something like that. Hence the reason why there should not be any problem with ripping CDs to FLAC.

 

If the CD has a shit master, then the FLAC will sound like shit, if the CD has a good master, then the FLAC will sound good (unless you somehow fuck something up)

 

Yes it is still correct to say WAV, because that is basically what all ripping programs can as a max, I have yet to find a program that don't make a WAV file and then compresses that, you see I am talking about what you actually get as a format when you rip with no compression.

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, Dackzy said:

A CD is what 1411kbps and a FLAC can go up to 1184kbps or something like that. Hence the reason why there should not be any problem with ripping CDs to FLAC.

You clearly still do not seem to comprehend what FLAC is or how it basically functions and you keep making these non-nonsensical statements where you are now trying to compare the nitrate of a CD and FLAC, I've repeatedly explained it in very simple language as to why this doesn't matter... I think that you're just beyond hope at this point...

[Dackzy]

21 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

You clearly still do not seem to comprehend what FLAC is or how it basically functions and you keep making these non-nonsensical statements where you are now trying to compare the nitrate of a CD and FLAC, I've repeatedly explained it in very simple language as to why this doesn't matter... I think that you're just beyond hope at this point...

dude we are most likely just misunderstanding each other

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Irish_M8 said:

Well, i got dissappointed. When comparing the songs in mp3 and FLAC-format back to back, i found that FLAC brought in some unwanted sounds, espacially in the higher spectrum.

 

Those "unwanted sounds" you are hearing is detail that was lost when you first did the conversion to mp3. Chances are your headphones and/or the rest of your audio chain is not good enough to produce those frequencies nicely. Or, you are just used to the mushy, lo-fi sound of lossy compression.

 

5 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Ripping CDs to FLAC doesn't result in actual FLAC quality files. You'll want the studio-quality FLACs.

 

Ripping vinyl has pretty good results, though (if the vinyl is in excellent shape)

 

5 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

ripping CDs to Flac wont get you Flac quality, because the source isnt good enough mainly. ripping Vinyl is good, ripping older analog formats can give good results but not CDs

 

Please go directly to jail. Do not collect $200. There is no such thing as an "X-quality" FLAC file. FLAC is a lossless PCM audio container.

 

2 hours ago, UnbrokenMotion said:

Apparently CDs use lossless WAV now? If that's the case, then it's a matter of knowing what the bitrate/quality of the WAV files is.

 

CDs are 16-bit 44.1 kHz PCM. CDs have never been and never will be "mp3". Again, like FLAC, mp3 is an encoding, you cannot burn an mp3-encoded audio stream to an audio CD. Same for "WAV". CDs do not "use" WAV.

 

MFW this is a "tech" forum and this many people don't know how digital audio works but still post about it anyway.

 

BTW this is why we need a dislike button

[spwath]

17 minutes ago, SSL said:

 

.

 

 

 

BTW this is why we need a dislike button

Yes. But no, we have to maintain the facade of niceness while hate slowly grows in the shadows.

[SilicateWielder]

24 minutes ago, SSL said:

CDs are 16-bit 44.1 kHz PCM. CDs have never been and never will be "mp3". Again, like FLAC, mp3 is an encoding, you cannot burn an mp3-encoded audio stream to an audio CD. Same for "WAV". CDs do not "use" WAV.

Well, if CD's never used MP3 to begin with, then apparently I have a really oddball stereo. It plays MP3s just fine when I burn them directly to CD (No, not with software, just burning them straight to CD in Windows Explorer)

[AshleyAshes]

13 minutes ago, UnbrokenMotion said:

Well, if CD's never used MP3 to begin with, then apparently I have a really oddball stereo. It plays MP3s just fine when I burn them directly to CD (No, not with software, just burning them straight to CD in Windows Explorer)

Again, people are not understanding.

 

A CD player can have additional features beyond playback of the Red book CDDA Audio CD.  They can have the ability to read OTHER kinds of discs, in this case your CD player has the additional feature of being able to playback Yellow book Data CDs that contain MP3 files using the CDFS file system.  This does not make it an 'Audio CD With MP3s', it's an entirely different kind of disc that your player has additional support for.  In the later years of CD players this was a not uncommon feature added to CD players.

[SilicateWielder]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

Again, people are not understanding.

 

A CD player can have additional features beyond playback of the Red book CDDA Audio CD.  They can have the ability to read OTHER kinds of discs, in this case your CD player has the additional feature of being able to playback Yellow book Data CDs that contain MP3 files using the CDFS file system.  This does not make it an 'Audio CD With MP3s', it's an entirely different kind of disc that your player has additional support for.  In the later years of CD players this was a not uncommon feature added to CD players.

Ah, I see now. Thank you for putting up with my ignorance.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, UnbrokenMotion said:

Well, if CD's never used MP3 to begin with, then apparently I have a really oddball stereo. It plays MP3s just fine when I burn them directly to CD (No, not with software, just burning them straight to CD in Windows Explorer)

 

That's why I said "audio" CD.