I discovered something very interesting about digital vs vinyl.

[MakeMineVinyl]

It’s a fairly widespread practice in the music production world, in fact.

I actually do that occasionally too bouncing to two track analog tape and then back to digital. In the context of this thread though it seems kind of hairbrained.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I actually do that occasionally too bouncing to two track analog tape and then back to digital. In the context of this thread though it seems kind of hairbrained.

Not at all IMHO.

Music production straddles the creative process. You are using distortion to create an effect, exactly the same way digital EQ or compressors distort the recorded signal to create an (aesthetically desired) effect.

In this case it just happens to involve an analogue component.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Also the vintage analogue effects consoles are rare collectibles, reassuringly expensive and wonderfully fashionable

 

[guitar sam]

guitar sam here and let me explain i coined 2 phrases stereo depth perception & mono depth perception as a way to describe what i was hearing. if you compare vinyl cut directly from the master reel to reel tape the sound stage sounds 3d like and i call that stereo depth perception. new remastered vinyl cut from a digital source does not have that 3d sound stage and i call that mono depth perception which sounds like a vinyl cd. if you take digital audio and re-encode it to flac with compression level (4) it now has that very distinct 3d soundstage and if you A-B test it against the original flac version with mono depth perception you can discern the difference every time. i'm not trying to make digital sound like vinyl however when you convert digital to have that 3d soundstage people recognise it as the sound of vinyl that they love.
here is a comercial audio sample at flac 16/44 with (0) compression http://u.pc.cd/qkHctalK and the same audio re-encoded to flac compression level (4) http://u.pc.cd/XoOrtalK

 

[RayDunzl]

The FLAC 4 version is louder.

Along with whatever else is different.

Flac 0

Flac 4

Something looks broken to me.

I don't think it is on my end.

---

Downloads:

The FLAC4 file should be smaller than the FLAC0 file if they are the same source file.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

The FLAC 4 version is louder.

View attachment 95515

Along with whatever else is different.

Flac 0

View attachment 95518

Flac 4

View attachment 95519

View attachment 95520 View attachment 95521


Something looks broken to me.

brave man... no way was I clicking on those links...

 

[guitar sam]

flac with compression level 4 has more dynamic range not louder volume

 

[RayDunzl]

flac with compression level 4 has more dynamic range not louder volume

FLAC (any number) should uncompress to the same data.

These files did not.

Something is wrong.

 

[Staki]

Precisely. A perfect analogy is gzip, it has options from -1 (fast) to -9 (best), but that is simply a tradeoff between CPU power needed to compress the file and compressed file size. Once the compression done, you can pass around the .gz file and anybody can gunzip without any knowledge about which level was used to compress the file. You always end up with the file identical to the original. Just like gzip, flac -whatever number is lossless.

 

[RayDunzl]

I see two choices:

1. The source files for the two compressed files are not the same

2. Something is corrupt in the FLAC process at @guitar sam 's end

Maybe there is a third choice, but it obvious to me.

---

Some strange oscillation appears throughout the Level 4 file:

 

[Staki]

I just did the test with flac -0, -4 and -8. Files are identical, cmp would output something if they were different.

$ ls -l example.wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example.wav
$ flac -0 -o example0.flac example.wav

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example.wav: wrote 56362488 bytes, ratio=0.760
$ flac -4 -o example4.flac example.wav

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example.wav: wrote 53513572 bytes, ratio=0.722
$ flac -8 -o example8.flac example.wav

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example.wav: wrote 53335206 bytes, ratio=0.719
$ ls -l example*
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example.wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  56362488 Oct  7  2019 example0.flac
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  53513572 Oct  7  2019 example4.flac
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  53335206 Oct  7  2019 example8.flac
$ flac -d -o example0.wav example0.flac

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example0.flac: done
$ flac -d -o example4.wav example4.flac

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example4.flac: done
$ flac -d -o example8.wav example8.flac

flac 1.3.3
Copyright (C) 2000-2009  Josh Coalson, 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

example8.flac: done
$ ls -l example*wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example.wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example0.wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example4.wav
-rw-r--r--  1 smarkovi  staff  74137460 Oct  7  2019 example8.wav
$ cmp example.wav example0.wav
$ cmp example4.wav example8.wav
$ cmp example.wav example8.wav
$

 

[RayDunzl]

here is a comercial audio sample at flac 16/44 with (0) compression http://u.pc.cd/qkHctalK and the same audio re-encoded to flac compression level (4) http://u.pc.cd/XoOrtalK

Are these your files, or just something you ran across that somebody else was promoting?

---

In this foreign thread I see something about you using a commercial encoder or sample rate converter(?):

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/has-anybody-else-noticed-this-about-flac-audio

The tool:

https://samplerateconverter.com/

---

Hmmm.

Ok, I'm done.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I think I've discovered something. People who believe FLAC files at different settings differ from each other or from the WAV file are always mistaken.

 

[FooYatChong]

I just did the test with flac -0, -4 and -8. Files are identical, cmp would output something if they were different.

Who would use flac if that wasn't the case?

 

[Sukie]

fact vinyl sounds better than digital the reason for this is vinyl has stereo + stereo depth perception and digital has stereo + mono depth perception. to convert digital audio to sound like vinyl you must convert the digital mono depth perception back into stereo depth perception. to do this you must re-encode your digital audio to flac with compression level (4) this will convert digital mono to stereo depth perception and your digital audio will now sound like vinyl. and you can do it for FREE so run your own test and prove it to yourself friends.

As others have said, not the easiest post to decipher!

If you prefer vinyl to digital - that's great. I've no problem at all with that. Please don't feel the need to justify your subjective preferences with BS "evidence". If you like it then just enjoy it. You don't need external verification for your subjective preferences.

 

[voodooless]

Some strange oscillation appears throughout the Level 4 file:

Sure, that was quite visible in your first plots already:

 

[Blumlein 88]

Looks to me the files differ due to some aliasing/imaging problem. If they were converted by a faulty rate converter or someone used some odd filter on one file that would explain it. Notice how the spectrogram of the messed up file looks like the upper 4 khz are mirrored around the base frequencies.

 

[Soniclife]

Some strange oscillation appears throughout the Level 4 file:

Play it backwards, I'm sure it's the devil telling you to get a more revealing system.

 

[M00ndancer]

fact vinyl sounds better than digital the reason for this is vinyl has stereo + stereo depth perception and digital has stereo + mono depth perception. to convert digital audio to sound like vinyl you must convert the digital mono depth perception back into stereo depth perception. to do this you must re-encode your digital audio to flac with compression level (4) this will convert digital mono to stereo depth perception and your digital audio will now sound like vinyl. and you can do it for FREE so run your own test and prove it to yourself friends.

Troll...

 

[Veri]

At first I thought he might have converted to FLAC(4) with replay gain added to the final file (peak level 0.00dB)... but there might be more fuckery shown above that can be explained for, @guitar sam have you done post-processing just to fuck with the people here? -.-