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Is LDAC lossy or bit-perfect for 44.1kHz/16bit (Red Book CD) files?

jerryfreak

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Looking over my collection, I have quite a few 16/44 FLAC files that are over 990Kbps.

3 Doors Down "The Better Life":

Duck and Run: 1050Kbps
Better Life: 1032Kbps
Down Poison: 1015Kbps
Smack: 1067Kbps
So I Need You: 1000Kbps

That's 5 on just one album.

Out of curiosity I tried to 7Zip them to see if stacking another random lossless algorithm could get them any smaller, but the compressed size was 99.9984% of the original.
thats pretty expected.

try decoding it to wav and re-encoding at flac level 8
 
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przemnet

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Thank you very much for all the comments in the discussion.

Based on SONY marketing materials I was hoping that transmission of 44.1/16 files with LDAC is really bit-perfect, however it looks we need to wait for next codec with 1.5Mbps throughput to achieve it...

It seems we are getting closer and closer since latest codec developed by HiBy called UAT (Ultra Audio Transmission) has a bitrate of 1.2Mbps.

And in the meantime, as @Tks wrote, I'm enjoying the benefits of wireless freedom by sending music from my phone to the DAC via Bluetooth which is extremely convenient ;-)

Cheers Guys!
 
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przemnet

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And one more question!

When streaming 44.1/16 files with LDAC, is it better to:

1/ Leave default settings:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Best effect (Adaptive bit rate) ***
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 96kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 32bit

2/ Or to play with Developer Options and change to:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Optimized for audio quality (990kbps/909kbps)
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 16bit

What is your opinion? And why ;-)?

Cheers,
Przemek

*** By default, LDAC is set to Best Effort, which switches between 330/660/990 kbps depending on connection strength.
 

Jimbob54

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And one more question!

When streaming 44.1/16 files with LDAC, is it better to:

1/ Leave default settings:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Best effect (Adaptive bit rate) ***
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 96kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 32bit

2/ Or to play with Developer Options and change to:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Optimized for audio quality (990kbps/909kbps)
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 16bit

What is your opinion? And why ;-)?

Cheers,
Przemek

*** By default, LDAC is set to Best Effort, which switches between 330/660/990 kbps depending on connection strength.

I think it depends on what the receiver is set up for. From memory, regardless of what you set the phone to, it will change if you change receiver settings.
 
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przemnet

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I'm asking about phone settings (once I change those, receiver will be setup in the same way) assuming that DAC has full LDAC support (990kbps, 96kHz, 32bit).

Every time when I was connecting to the DACs that I've tested (Topping D50s, Topping DX7 Pro, SMSL M400), my phone was connecting with the following settings:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Best effect (Adaptive bit rate) ***
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 96kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 32bit

Should I play with Developer Options and change to (when streaming 44.1/16 files):

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Optimized for audio quality (990kbps/909kbps)
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 16bit

Yes / no ? Why ;-) ?

Cheers,
Przemek
 
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Jimbob54

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I'm asking about phone settings (once I change those, receiver will be setup in the same way) assuming that DAC has full LDAC support (990kbps, 96kHz, 32bit).

Every time when I was connecting to the DACs that I've tested (Topping D50s, Topping DX7 Pro, SMSL M400), my phone was connecting with the following settings:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Best effect (Adaptive bit rate) ***
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 96kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 32bit

Should I play with Developer Options and change to (when streaming 44.1/16 files):

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Optimized for audio quality (990kbps/909kbps)
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 16bit

Yes / no ? Why ;-) ?

Cheers,
Przemek
I'm asking about phone settings (once I change those, receiver will be setup in the same way) assuming that DAC has full LDAC support (990kbps, 96kHz, 32bit).

Every time when I was connecting to the DACs that I've tested (Topping D50s, Topping DX7 Pro, SMSL M400), my phone was connecting with the following settings:

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Best effect (Adaptive bit rate) ***
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 96kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 32bit

Should I play with Developer Options and change to (when streaming 44.1/16 files):

Bluetooth audio LDAC codec: Optimized for audio quality (990kbps/909kbps)
Bluetooth Audio Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Bluetooth Audio Bits Per Sample: 16bit

Yes / no ? Why ;-) ?

Cheers,
Przemek
Why dont you play and report back? Can't see how upsampling for transmission can have a positive impact on playback quality, but I can imagine how it may impact on signal transfer quality in the negative.

Personally, I'd leave as default if I had experienced no negative impacts on either.
 
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przemnet

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Why dont you play and report back?
Of course I can listen and test, but I'd like to get Audio Science based theoretical answer, what is the correct setting in case of streaming 16/44.1 files with LDAC.

Personally I think it makes more sense to change in Developer Options bit rate and sample rate to 44.1/16 for LDAC and have straightforward signal path:
44.1/16 file on phone ---> 44.1/16 BT transmission ---> decoding of 44.1/16 in DAC

Instead of leaving default settings and:
44.1/16 file on phone ---> upsampling to 96/24 ---> 96/24 BT transmission ---> decoding of 96/24 in DAC or downsampling to 44.1/16 and decoding of 44.1/16 file in DAC (I don't know what actually happens inside the DAC in this case and it was one of questions in initial post)

But I may be wrong and I'm just curious of the theory, not the listening tests.

Cheers,
Przemek
 

Jimbob54

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Of course I can listen and test, but I'd like to get Audio Science based theoretical answer, what is the correct setting in case of streaming 16/44.1 files with LDAC.

Personally I think it makes more sense to change in Developer Options bit rate and sample rate to 44.1/16 for LDAC and have straightforward signal path:
44.1/16 file on phone ---> 44.1/16 BT transmission ---> decoding of 44.1/16 in DAC

Instead of leaving default settings and:
44.1/16 file on phone ---> upsampling to 96/24 ---> 96/24 BT transmission ---> decoding of 96/24 in DAC or downsampling to 44.1/16 and decoding of 44.1/16 file in DAC (I don't know what actually happens inside the DAC in this case and it was one of questions in initial post)

But I may be wrong and I'm just curious of the theory, not the listening tests.

Cheers,
Przemek

I've never seen anyone on here make a good case for upsampling anything, so yes, your approach makes more sense. Not sure how many of the folks here have done any serious digging into BT transmission, probably why you arent getting flooded with answers. Its lossy, you cant make it lossless/ bit perfect with current tech as you know. I suspect the dev options for settings are there should you encounter incompatibility with the defaults, more than an audiophile option.

EDIT- https://www.androidauthority.com/bluetooth-codecs-997074/
 
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przemnet

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I opened few FLACs in VLC player and next went to:

Tools -> Codec Information -> Statistics [tab] to observe "Input bitrate":

bitrate2.png


I was surprised how often it is above 990kbps (I wasn't able to capture it on screenshot since it was changing very dynamically)...

Cheers,
Przemek
 

tvrgeek

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As I dig in deeper and found these metadata editors, I was surprised to find such a variance in bitrate.
I use WMP to rip. FLAC "lossless" I believe, but now I wonder. All 14.1 16 bit CDs. Metadata says "free lossless codec" Windows 10.
I have bitrates from 1079 down to 225. Does this imply much lower dynamics on some files? Long quiet passages? Rates are spread out about equally over 8000 files.
At first I thought it was a few of the "basement made" CDs, but one of the lowest is actually a Sheffield.

Any explanation would be helpful.
Are there differences in results from different CODECs? I thought FLAC was FLAC. I am assuming it is still the most appropriate format. For me, quality matters the most. Size is basically irrelevant. SSDs are cheap and I have plenty of processor horse power for the decoding. But if I am suffering a loss in quality, I will redo the collection.

The Above PDF is worth more study.
 
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mansr

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As I dig in deeper and found these metadata editors, I was surprised to find such a variance in bitrate.
I use WMP to rip. FLAC "lossless" I believe, but now I wonder. All 14.1 16 bit CDs. Metadata says "free lossless codec" Windows 10.
I have bitrates from 1079 down to 225. Does this imply much lower dynamics on some files? Long quiet passages? Rates are spread out about equally over 8000 files.
At first I thought it was a few of the "basement made" CDs, but one of the lowest is actually a Sheffield.

Any explanation would be helpful.
Are there differences in results from different CODECs? I thought FLAC was FLAC. I am assuming it is still the most appropriate format. For me, quality matters the most. Size is basically irrelevant. SSDs are cheap and I have plenty of processor horse power for the decoding. But if I am suffering a loss in quality, I will redo the collection.

The Above PDF is worth more study.
FLAC is always lossless. The bitrate it needs to achieve this depends on the content. Solo piano compresses very well, often below 300 kbps. Things like thrash metal can easily demand over 1000 kbps. Either way, there is never any loss in quality.
 

tw99

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I suppose the use of the term bitrate to denote the amount of lossless compression achieved with FLAC is potentially confusing, as it looks superficially like data has been lost if you just look at that figure and compare it with a lossy codec.
 

tvrgeek

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Watching VLC ( hint from this thread) it seems to be dynamic so not sure what the metadata really says. As long as it is actually lossless, I am happy with that. I am sure some golden ears will argue otherwise. I actually see that subject pop up occasionally. I put it in the same category as those who keep trying to defend $2000 speaker cables, usually hooked up to $1000 speakers.

As I have no "trash metal" not a problem. My version of heavy metal is Night On Bald Mountain or similar Eastern European pieces. These kids think 4 or 5 people playing hard is heavy. Try 80. :p

Searched for other players. Music Bee seems to be popular. ( Looking for one with ASIO) Did not find cover art, but when it plays, it shows up in the corner. Kept downloading pictures, and it required several keystrokes to play more than one album. Not the simple drag and drop of WMP. Tried AIMP and I could not even get it to find my files. Deleted FooBar again, but I am told it can display covers, so trying yet again. Bad documentation seems to be the norm here.
 

maverickronin

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I have bitrates from 1079 down to 225. Does this imply much lower dynamics on some files? Long quiet passages? Rates are spread out about equally over 8000 files.
At first I thought it was a few of the "basement made" CDs, but one of the lowest is actually a Sheffield.

As a rule of thumb, FLAC bitrate is inversely correlated with dynamic range. Lower dynamic range = higher bitrate.
 
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Bartek

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What is your opinion? And why ;-)?

Cheers,
Przemek

Hi Przemek (Cześć! :) )
As a fresh owner of o bluetooth dac with LDAC (that so so praised Radsone mk100) I investigated this problem so I feel I can give you my findings.
The main reason of my inspection was that by default I actually got worse quality sound from the external DAC than from the internal phone dac directly by cable (which is also not bad, Xperia XZ1 Compact).
So first thing - when the LDAC is set to lets say 96khz (as default) and the sound material is 44.1 - upsampling has to happen. I found the instruments are somehow blurred, flatten with lost textures, comparing to that I got from phone by cable.
Tidal masters are sometime multiple of 44.1 (88.2), sometime multiple of 48 (96), so there is no one fixed solution.

My finding is that for the best unaltered quality, the LDAC just have to be set to exactly the played native frequency.

What is another problem with Tidal or another apps is the android audio stack. This is the same problem, the same situation, as we have on windows and default windows sound output, (which we all want to avoid), and remedies like exclusive mode, asio etc. Actually it seems that Tidal also can resample the sound trough android stack. Probably you dont realize (as me, till yestrday) that system frequency in android is 48khz, and everything, what is not specially handled, is resampled to this frequency.

BUT, good news is that, there is an app USB Audio Player PRO, which can play directly to the internal or USB dac, omitting the android stack, and also omitting some stack to the bluetooth. Reading the recommendations, I installed it and it REALLY sounds better both on cable, and on bluetooth. In fact now I hardly go back to native tidal app, because it doesnt sound as good, as through the UAPP. The minus is that this app is not so handy as native Tidal app unfortunately... And to get to get the sound unaltered for the Bluetooth, you have to read what frequency is written for the current track, and if changed, switch the LDAC s/r to this frequency... Unfortunately, this is very inconvenient and I would love to get better idea how to avoid manual switching. (for playing by cable, you dont have to switch anything)
Actually, playing Tidal through the UAPP, the sound on the Bluetooth is quite good even when the s/r doesn't match the native frequency (there is less blur than from native Tidal app), but yeah, still, as I said, the best is to set LDAC the native S/R.

Also, I dont know which DAC you have, if you have selectable filters, but I dont find the default slow roll of filter to be neutral - it smoothes the sound and slightly changes it. The short, unsymmetric filters even more - imho they should be definitely avoided. The overall result might be highly dependent on the sound material and/or used headphones and preferences. For me the standard (long) sharp filter is most accurate (/detailed) and neutral.

So resuming, the main problem is not the LDAC codec, but to avoid resampling (maybe even multiple resampling) on the way from the native source to the LDAC. Though the UAPP and matched sampling rates, the result is really very good. But is so unhandy... :/

Another topic is that on Tidal, many albums have watermarking and sometimes less, sometimes more it is audible and disturbing like a flutter/phazer effect. The watermarking is intentionally in audio band, to cannot be easily removed without another sound distortions :(.
I compared one album with a Primephonic (this is another service, which is known that doesnt have watermarking), and wow, all the strange flutters dissapeared.
So sadly, Tidal is not everywhere lossless without special attention when playing from the native app, and even the Tidal source files are not always lossless because were watermarked sometimes with destructive effect.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Greets
Bartek
 

Blorg

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Whether you have to go into developer options or you can select on the BT menu is a matter of phone user interface. On Samsung you have to go into developer options. On Huawei and Xiaomi UI, you don't.

On Xiaomi you can turn LDAC on or off on the BT menu, but you need to go into developer options to change the sample rate / bit depth / bitrate. This is the same on stock Android, there's a switch to turn "HD" (which includes LDAC) on or off on the BT menu but need to go into developer options to change the details.

It also doesn't "stick" which is the annoying bit, if you disconnect and reconnect it will revert to the defaults (96kHz, 32 bit, "Best effort" bitrate).

Screenshot_2021-04-26-12-30-26-190_com.android.settings.jpg Screenshot_2021-04-26-12-30-07-048_com.android.settings.jpg
 

Asylum Seeker

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On Xiaomi you can turn LDAC on or off on the BT menu, but you need to go into developer options to change the sample rate / bit depth / bitrate. This is the same on stock Android, there's a switch to turn "HD" (which includes LDAC) on or off on the BT menu but need to go into developer options to change the details.

It also doesn't "stick" which is the annoying bit, if you disconnect and reconnect it will revert to the defaults (96kHz, 32 bit, "Best effort" bitrate).

View attachment 126375View attachment 126376
Again, this is UI specific as it does not "stick" on Samsung while it does "stick" on Huawei.
 

Blorg

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Again, this is UI specific as it does not "stick" on Samsung while it does "stick" on Huawei.
If it sticks on Huawei I suspect that's the exception and that the norm on most Android is it doesn't stick. Samsung, Xiaomi, and another stock Android phone I have, all of these it doesn't stick.
 

Kosiarz_PL

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Hello from Poland,
I have Sony headphones with LDAC and Motorola Moto Z3 Play. Developer options enabled, best quality LDAC set permanently.
But, LDAC transmission rate is always set to 96khz and 32 bit. There is no way to hardset it to 16bit and 44,1 khz.
I use Poweramp and many files lossles, some hi-res and some good quality mp3.
Straight to the point:
Is better to force Poweramp to upsample EVERY files to 96/32 for prevent to doing this by LDAC? Or leave files untauched and LDAC doing this upsampling anyway.
Whith option is better for high quality sound priority?
Regards,
Paweł
 

Juss

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Hello from Poland,
I have Sony headphones with LDAC and Motorola Moto Z3 Play. Developer options enabled, best quality LDAC set permanently.
But, LDAC transmission rate is always set to 96khz and 32 bit. There is no way to hardset it to 16bit and 44,1 khz.
I use Poweramp and many files lossles, some hi-res and some good quality mp3.
Straight to the point:
Is better to force Poweramp to upsample EVERY files to 96/32 for prevent to doing this by LDAC? Or leave files untauched and LDAC doing this upsampling anyway.
Whith option is better for high quality sound priority?
Regards,
Paweł
That's what the app "Bluetooth Codec Changer" is for. You can make presets for LDAC yourself. For example, 16-bit 44.1kHz 990kbps. The app remembers which BT speaker/headphone/headphone amplifier you use and automatically sets just the right preset. No more going to DM and manually changing.
 
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