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AIFF Vs. WAV


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...on this output files on 16/44 on 3 different formats, it was downgraded from Barry's 24/192 master?

 

If yes, those files shouldn't be 16/48?

 

Maybe is a mathematical question, since:

 

192/2/2=48 or 176/2/2=44

 

But I understood Barry answer to me when I asked him why Reference Recordings sells his Hi Rez music on 24/176. An he answered me "maybe for the 16/44 they sell under the RedBook version".

 

Since I'm a not a digital engineer I like to know your knowledge regarding this matter. My question is if this could affect the output files SQ someway?

 

Regards,

 

Roch

 

 

 

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My question is if this could affect the output files SQ someway?

 

With a good conversion algorithm it doesn't matter from quality point of view whether 44.1 is converted from 176.4 or from 192.

 

Maybe is a mathematical question, since:

192/2/2=48 or 176/2/2=44

 

After a bit of spinning with the maths, one can realize that it's all the same integer stuff... 192 -> 44.1 or 176.4 -> 44.1 ;)

 

It just rules out certain types of conversion algorithms.

 

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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Hi Roch,

 

In my experience, the sample rate conversion algorithm is what is important, not whether the conversion is integer or not.

 

I've said elsewhere that I'm always listening to src and dither/noise shaping algorithms. I have many of each in my "toolbox". Since my original recordings are done at 24/192 (except for "Lift" which was done at 24/96, the maximum my converters of choice offered in those days), I try all the algorithms.

 

The only criterion I use to judge them is direct comparison with the unconverted original. What I found (years ago actually) is that the best algorithms don't "care" whether the conversion is integer or not. The need for integer conversion is, in my view, a relic from the days when src algorithms just weren't very good. (To my ears, the majority are still not very good.)

 

For example, using the algorithm I've found to easily be the most transparent (iZotope's 64-bit SRC), I get results using non-integer conversion that are much more faithful to the unconverted original than any other algorithm I've tried using the "easier" integer conversion.

 

It really comes down to the algorithm being "smart" enough to handle the math. If it is (as the very best are), integer vs. non-integer is, in my view, a complete non-issue. If it isn't, the results will be colored anyway, even with integer conversion.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

...to the AIFF vs WAV discrepancies.

 

First, I have read most, but not all, of the comments about this topic.

Second, I have not done the test due to the inefficiency of my current audio system.

Third, I know that on Windows Vista and 7 (and future OS's that support Windows Audio Stack protocols), if Quicktime is set to WASAPI then iTunes becomes bit-perfect. I personally use J.River Music Jukebox 12 in ASIO with ASIO4all, and foobar2k customised to use either ASIO or WASAPI (I use the latter). I also know that iTunes on Mac OS's can be bit-perfect with third-party software, or other solutions that I am not well versed in.

Fourth, if I am repeating what has been said before, I humbly beg your forgiveness.

 

Now, in assuming that the easy explanations of any differences are understood by all (noisy source/environment, such as HDD or thin walls; encoding/decoding converters/playback software, and so forth), and if we can imagine a very good/almost perfect playback system that exhibits almost none of said issues, I can then offer some explanations.

 

I use dBpoweramp Ref 14 for many things, and one unique use is its phenomenal meta tagging abilities (though iTunes is slicker in general use), and can give an immense amount of detail about an audio files properties (encoder & encoder settings, audio quality, and so on).

When I first used dBpoweramp (at the time it was ref 12), and moving away from iTunes (then it was at v8.xxx), I noticed something startling in both the Audio Properties and the metatags of many of my then Apple Lossless (ALAC) and AIFF files; there was what looked like iTunes specific audio filters added to the data!

 

From research, I realised what they were, and was NOT happy.

The iTunes_CDDB_ID is ok. What is not is this field:

 

iTunNORM

 

O_O

 

Here is some more information about what this field does

iTunes Normalization Settings

 

This tag will affect any file that can be meta tagged, with the exception of WAV files.

(As an interesting note, WAV audio files can be meta tagged, but not without altering, and potentially, breaking the file container, making it useless to every piece of software and hardware other than the original software that altered it).

So, although iTunes stores meta tags in both audio files and its own database, I can only say that WAV files may not be affected by this gastly tagging field, but AIFF files are.

Of course, if this field is also stored in the iTunes database as well, then I am sorry for wasting time (and I will boycott Apple until they get their act together).

I also think that ReplayGain is also used in iTunes, and that iTunes uses an internal SRC alongside Mac OS, but don’t quote me on these, as I cannot remember where I read such articles.

 

Finally, here are some other links about what iTunes may be doing to audio playback/audio files under the hood. As a disclaimer, most articles refer to older builds of iTunes, but these may still be relevant. I do not trust Apple on new builds of iTunes due to their history of breaking certain features between revisions/builds (and memory leakage/RAM usage) [even though I secretly still ? iTunes]:

 

http://www.stereophile.com/news/121707lucky/

 

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/discuss/feedback/newsletter/2007/12/2/technology-update-itunes-7-windows-xp-and-mac-os-x

 

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/ITunes-QuickTime_for_Mac_-_Setup_Guide

 

http://designwsound.com/dwsblog/hifi-computer-faq/cas-7-itunes-pc-81110-problem/

 

http://designwsound.com/dwsblog/hifi-computer-faq/cas-8-itunes-pc-bit-transparent-high-resolution/

 

Hope this helps! ;)

 

(P.S. Just FYI, I currently use EAC v1.0 Beta 2 in secure mode, with customised settings, to rip CD’s into to WAV. Then I use dBpoweramp Ref 14.2 to convert the WAV files into FLAC (v1.2.1) level 8, or LAME (v3.98.4) MP3 320 kbps CBR for special occasions. The files are then meta tagged using MusicBrainz’s Picard v0.15.1, though I also use dBpoweramp for further editing.

In my past iTunes day's, I used iTunes to rip my CD's with error tracking on, into lossy, then lossless, formats, before I seriously got into the audiophile scene :) ).

 

Audio Playback:[br]Windows Vista SP2 x86 build 6.0.6002 ? (Either) foobar2000 v1.1.8 beta 6 using WASAPI or ASIO (or) J.River Media Jukebox v12.0.49 using ASIO4All ? Asus Xonar D2X (firmware v6.12.8.1794) ? 1m Zu Audio Pivot RCA to 3.5 mm TRS jack IC ? NuForce Icon (1st Gen) using original 24W PSU ? 2x 1m NuForce RJ45 to Banana plug CAT6 Speaker Cables ? (Either) JohnBlue AudioArt JB3 fullrange bookshelf loudspeakers (or) AKG K 701 circumaural headphones with stock cable ^_^[br]Portable Playback:[br]Apple iPod 160GB 6th Gen (2007 model) ? John Seaber’s JDS Labs cMoy Bass Boost Headphone Amp v2.02 (custom built with higher quality components from maker) ? Etymotic Research ER-6i Isolator canal Earphones [previously used Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Pro canal Earphones, but lost one of the earphones :’( ][br]Gaming Set-up- Stereo:[br]Xbox 360 ? Cheap 1m 3.5mm to 3.5mm TRS Jack IC ? Nuforce Icon (1st Gen) ? 2x 1m NuForce RJ45 to Banana plug Speaker Cables ? (Either) JohnBlue AudioArt JB3 loudspeakers (or) AKG K 701 headphones[br]Gaming Set-up- Dolby Digital (5.1/7.1):[br]Xbox 360 ? Cheap 1m Optical Toslink IC ? TurtleBeach Ear Force DSS 7.1 Sound Processor (Powered by USB cable) ? 1m Belkin Blue Pro 3.5mm to 3.5mm TRS Jack IC ? Nuforce Icon (1st Gen) ? 2x 1m NuForce RJ45 to Banana plug Speaker Cables ? (Either) JohnBlue AudioArt JB3 loudspeakers (or) AKG K 701 headphones.

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  • 1 year later...

Still wondering why people are talking about WAV / AIFF... It's been converted from the disc and gone through another dozen processes and machines and wires etc..

 

Always thought FM live concerts sounded good due to the lack of stages in the replay chain.

CD has between 10 and 15.

Download is much better = especially if care is taken.

Playback, supposedly jplay/jriver help.

 

AIFF/WAV can normal people even with expensive but not very good hifis or headphone setups tell? I doubt. They both have their issues, probably swings and roundabouts.

 

Where is the SQ thread someone started??

 

Saw on tomorrows world in the early 80's or late 70's a demonstration...

They had 1 speaker, they could move the sound up, down, left or right (not sure about depth). Someone managed to work out how the ear decodes this info. I think Sony do some high end studio boxes to give hyper real sounds etc.

 

Funny, this thread is Mac vs PC :)

And btw, link for test files doesn't work.

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  • 2 weeks later...

New Grateful Dead cd's arrived in the mail and I ripped them into iTunes using, what I thought was, the slowest, hi-res rip. The files are showing 16/44.1 but are file-named ".m4a". I used to do this stuff daily and seemed to remember the files naming as .aiff. What am I doing wrong?

 

Any tips on how to rip cd's properly? Thanks.

Ex. HD > iMac > Duet > Creek 4330 > Epos ELS8 (Morrow SP1\'s). I want a system that cleanly plays live, lossless Grateful Dead.

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I ripped them into iTunes using, what I thought was, the slowest, hi-res rip. The files are showing 16/44.1 but are file-named ".m4a".

 

Just FYI, Apple Lossless files also have the ".m4a" file extension, so ".m4a" doesn't necessarily mean lossy. If you want AIFF, you just need to change your importing preferences.

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Thanks, new_media and mayhem. Do you think it's worth re-doing? The files are lossless, so the question is, will apple lossless sound as good as AIFF?

Ex. HD > iMac > Duet > Creek 4330 > Epos ELS8 (Morrow SP1\'s). I want a system that cleanly plays live, lossless Grateful Dead.

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  • 2 years later...

Goes back a long way this thread and I am not sure anyone is still reading it, but here goes.

 

An interesting little experiment a friend did recently was to take some 192/24 (FLAC) files and load them into Amadeus Pro, he then chopped them up into 10 second chunks and recoded alternate ones 44/16 (AIFF) then stitched the whole lot together and recoded it all to 192/24 (FLAC) and sent the files back to a few of us without clues as to wheat had been done (we agreed not to scrutinise the files before playing them and the sequence wasn't always the same, some started down and up converted and some the other way around). Three things of interest here - Firstly, before we knew what was going on nobody could ascertain the pattern of 10 second chunks but everyone heard significant differences - it as as if we all somehow psycoacoustically integrated these files to make sense of them. The differences between those files and the original were a lot more to do with image width, ambience, instrumental separation etc than other factors though the sensation was of a definitely degraded performance that, had we not heard the original would be heard as not terribly good recordings rather than bad ones.

Once we knew the process it was easier to detect the changes but even then our ears preferred to mask it somehow.

 

For me what stood out was that the sections that weren't transcoded also sounded different to the original - that is that loading the files into Amadeus made subtle changes. It wasn't dramatic but the two of us with higher end (12k and 30k uk pounds) both heard this independently and unambiguously) the tentative conclusion being that unless files are directly transferred a processing application can alter something within the file to, ultimately change it acoustically.

 

My own accidental switching of my Naim Unitiserve to 96/24 and subsequently back to 192/24 was clearly noticeable on appropriate tracks and I have since repeated this with friends listening and me, out of their sight, switching the DACs. WAV v FLAC, for the me jury is out as it's quite hard to find two ostensibly identical recordings in both formats so any, what have to be subtle differences, are masked by the recordings simply being different. I have however downloaded some free tracks from Linn in both formats and think I can detect a small difference, but it is extremely subtle and I'd doubt myself rather than stating there was a difference.

 

An interesting aside to this is that the final size of the 'modified' files showed varying amounts of data compression (due to the FLAC recoding). The conclusion we came to was that whilst the supplied files were 192/24 the original recordings were probably only 44/16!

 

Anyway, I ramble and I suspect interest in the post has waned, but any comments about this little experiment will be read with interest.

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"[...]I'm interested in an explanation. My guesses have been that the process of stripping metadata from non-wav files involves some sonic penalty, and byte-swapping. But I have no idea if either of those has been tested."

 

In my opinion, the first thing to determine is whether there is a psychological explanation for hearing improved sonics from one uncompressed format when compared to another uncompressed format. Only if placebo is eliminated as an explanation, can there be any reasoned search for an explanation in the physical world.

 

Don't you mean psychiatric?

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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Don't you mean psychiatric?

 

We can do without the state of mental health suggestions and sarcasm thank you !

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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Anyway, I ramble and I suspect interest in the post has waned, but any comments about this little experiment will be read with interest.

 

Please check your PMs

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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  • 3 years later...

This topic is pretty interesting, like the next level of 'bits are bits'. 

 

WAV does sound a bit better than FLAC , most can agree,  so I've been trying to improve the quality of FLAC files by converting to WAV.

I'm on server 2016 using HQ player, 96KHz PCM to DSD128.
Foobar was used, the software shouldnt matter for this kind of conversion.

The resulting wav sounded different, slightly softer highs and lighter bass, it was more pleasant to listen to but it felt like some clarity was lost and the change in bass was really odd... something seemed off

 

Next, using freac and dBpoweramp (with tagging disabled) yielded 2 more non-identical sounding wavs! these 2 feel like an improvement over the original flac, poweramp is better but freac is best.

afaict enabling tagging for poweramp didnt make a difference which is interesting, that could have explained why foobar sounded different.

 

Another thing was both these programs take a second or 2 to convert a track to WAV where as foobar was almost instant.

 

So converting FLAC to WAV can be good but the conversion process is imperfect, god knows why.

 

 

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