Ever since I first dabbled with electronic constructions in the 1960s, I went on a "best sound system ever" endeavour. From the first tube based amplifiers and massive speaker systems and onwards.

My kids still remember how Daddy, when they grew up some 30+ years ago, played music at home in a way that they couldn't hear anywhere else.

Well, then came MP3 and other modern stuff, so my massive creations were slowly replaced by more modern equipment, but somewhere on the way, I still feel we lost something. The perfect sound.

Now, I'm dedicated to once again recreate real Hi-Fi, meaning playing true loss-less (unlike the compressed MP3-files) music. So I started with my nine CD collection of ABBA music, and re-ripped them all to lossless FLAC files. But before I go all-in on a costly path, I want to make sure I'm on the right path.

So, I've tried various ways to reproduce the music, and I'm still not totally convinced. There's a long chain of possible POF on the way so far. The first one is the digital distribution of the music files. And here's where I wonder if there's still some true audiophiles out there. With the ultimate sound system, and the ear to notice the difference between "normal" music and proper Hi-Fi ditto.

On http://eljaco.se/ABBA/ I have all the 133 ABBA songs in my possession in a loss-less format. Can you please check and see if you think it's worth spending thousands of dollars pursuing this quest.




..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

On 1/01/2022 12:11, Björn Felten : All wrote:

[...]
I still feel we lost something. The perfect sound.

   Now, I'm dedicated to once again recreate real Hi-Fi, meaning playing true loss-less (unlike the compressed MP3-files) music. So I started with my nine CD collection of ABBA music, and re-ripped them all to lossless FLAC files. But before I go all-in on a costly path, I want
to make sure I'm on the right path.

Some years ago I tried to transfer some Beatles records to MP3. Even in highest scan rate they sounded like crap. Then again, so did the LPs I was sourcing from.

--
Regards
David

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbi
* Origin: Bucca, Qld (3:640/305)

Hello Bj”rn Felten!

** On Saturday 01.01.22 - 03:11, Bj”rn Felten wrote to All:

..but somewhere on the way, I still feel we lost
something. The perfect sound.

The "sound" is truly in the ear of the beholder.

..So I started with my nine CD collection of ABBA music,
and re-ripped them all to lossless FLAC files. But before
I go all-in on a costly path, I want to make sure I'm on
the right path.

Ripping to FLAC is costly? How so? CD WAV --> FLAC might be a
bit time consuming, certainly though.

So, I've tried various ways to reproduce the music, and
I'm still not totally convinced. There's a long chain of
possible POF on the way so far.

^^^

[?]

The first one is the digital distribution of the music
files. And here's where I wonder if there's still some
true audiophiles out there. With the ultimate sound
system, and the ear to notice the difference between
"normal" music and proper Hi-Fi ditto.

The bottom line is if YOU notice a difference. ;)

How are you listening to your music: open-air speakers?
standard headphones? in-ear headphones?

FLAC also has various levels of compression too. Maybe you
could adjust that to get closer to the non-discernable
difference that you seek.

On http://eljaco.se/ABBA/ I have all the 133 ABBA songs
in my possession in a loss-less format. Can you please
check and see if you think it's worth spending
thousands of dollars pursuing this quest.

I have some ABBA material on CD too. I could compare some of
those and your tunes with my modest system.
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

* Originally in FN_SYSOP
* Crossposted in AUDIO
* Crossposted in MUSIC

Hi Bj”rn,

On 2022-01-01 03:11:44, you wrote to All:

[Disclaimer: I don't consider myself an audiophile ;)]

Now, I'm dedicated to once again recreate real Hi-Fi, meaning playing
true loss-less (unlike the compressed MP3-files) music. So I started
with my nine CD collection of ABBA music, and re-ripped them all to lossless FLAC files. But before I go all-in on a costly path, I want
to make sure I'm on the right path.

Well, since they are digital copies there is not much more you can do here. Just make sure the cd's are clean before you start ripping, so the chance of uncorrectable reading bit errors is minimal...

So, I've tried various ways to reproduce the music, and I'm still not totally convinced. There's a long chain of possible POF on the way so
far. The first one is the digital distribution of the music files. And here's where I wonder if there's still some true audiophiles out
there. With the ultimate sound system, and the ear to notice the difference between "normal" music and proper Hi-Fi ditto.

On http://eljaco.se/ABBA/ I have all the 133 ABBA songs in my
possession in a loss-less format.

It would be nice if they were grouped on an album basis! ;)

Can you please check and see if you think it's worth spending
thousands of dollars pursuing this quest.

What could improve playback experience a bit is if you apply "replaygain" to your files. This doesn't change the bytes that represents the music, but adds some calculated values for the music that can improve your playback experience:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain

With commandline flac you just add --replaygain when encoding the files. Or you can have it added afterwards if your software doesn't support it directly.

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hi August,

On 2022-01-01 08:18:00, you wrote to Bj”rn Felten:

So, I've tried various ways to reproduce the music, and
I'm still not totally convinced. There's a long chain of
possible POF on the way so far.

^^^

[?]

Points Of Failure

FLAC also has various levels of compression too. Maybe you
could adjust that to get closer to the non-discernable
difference that you seek.

Flac is a lossless encoder, so the compression level doesn't matter for the audio quality. It just influences how much cpu cycles are spent on encoding and decoding and the resulting file size.


Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hello Wilfred van Velzen!

** On Saturday 01.01.22 - 14:35, Wilfred van Velzen wrote to August Abolins:

..There's a long chain of possible POF on the way

^^^
[?]

Points Of Failure

Thx.

FLAC also has various levels of compression too. Maybe
you could adjust that to get closer to the non-
discernable difference that you seek.

Flac is a lossless encoder, so the compression level
doesn't matter for the audio quality. It just influences
how much cpu cycles are spent on encoding and decoding
and the resulting file size.

Ah.. Interesting.

BTW, my PC's can't seem to play FLAC files directly (via VLC
player) The playback stops/stalls every few seconds. But if I
convert to AppleLossless, the playback is much better (iTunes).

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

On http://eljaco.se/ABBA/ I have all the 133 ABBA songs in my
possession in a loss-less format.

It would be nice if they were grouped on an album basis! ;)

Yeah, I realized that myself. Fixed. :-)



..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

..but somewhere on the way, I still feel we lost
something. The perfect sound.

The "sound" is truly in the ear of the beholder.

True. But it can also be in the ear of invited guests.

..So I started with my nine CD collection of ABBA music,
and re-ripped them all to lossless FLAC files. But before
I go all-in on a costly path, I want to make sure I'm on
the right path.

Ripping to FLAC is costly? How so? CD WAV --> FLAC might be a
bit time consuming, certainly though.

No, you misunderstood me. I meant before I go beyond a simple headphone solution, making use of all those big speakers I now have stored in my basement (three pairs).

I have some ABBA material on CD too. I could compare some of
those and your tunes with my modest system.

That would be nice. Thanks.


..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

BTW, my PC's can't seem to play FLAC files directly (via VLC
player) The playback stops/stalls every few seconds. But if I
convert to AppleLossless, the playback is much better (iTunes).

Apple products are notorious for not supporting anything else, like FLAC, but their own "inventions", such as ALAC. Every Android version above 3.0 support FLAC, so all my smartphones work well, and even Firefox on Windows XP works...

I presently use the VLC app on my Amazon Fire TV stick (where I have 5.1 sound) without any problems.


..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

* Crossposted in AUDIO

BTW, thanks for the tip. :-)



..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

Hi Björn,

On 2022-01-01 15:27:26, you wrote to me:

On http://eljaco.se/ABBA/ I have all the 133 ABBA songs in my
possession in a loss-less format.

It would be nice if they were grouped on an album basis! ;)

Yeah, I realized that myself. Fixed. :-)

Thanks! ;-)

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

* Originally in AUDIO
* Crossposted in FN_SYSOP
* Crossposted in MUSIC

Hi August,

On 2022-01-01 08:54:00, you wrote to me:

BTW, my PC's can't seem to play FLAC files directly (via VLC
player) The playback stops/stalls every few seconds. But if I
convert to AppleLossless, the playback is much better (iTunes).

Apparently your hardware isn't fast enough to decode it on the fly? A bit strange, but I don't know what kind of hardware you're using. ;-)
Maybe it's encoded with the maximum compression level, which is too much for your hardware?

Is it one of the files from Bjorn? I could try to re-encode it with a lower flac compression level. If you're interested in a test?

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hello Wilfred van Velzen!

** On Saturday 01.01.22 - 17:47, Wilfred van Velzen wrote to August Abolins:

* Originally in AUDIO
* Crossposted in FN_SYSOP
* Crossposted in MUSIC

Apparently your hardware isn't fast enough to decode it
on the fly? A bit strange, but I don't know what kind of
hardware you're using. ;-) Maybe it's encoded with the
maximum compression level, which is too much for your
hardware?

FLAC files are choppy with the T60/XP

Intel Core Duo T2400
Code Name Yonah
Package Socket 479 mPGA
Technology 65nm
Specification Genuine Intel CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz
Rated Bus Speed 665.1 MHz
Stock Core Speed 1833 MHz
Stock Bus Speed 166 MHz
Average Temperature 54 øC
L1 Data Cache Size 2 x 32 KBytes
L1 Instructions Cache Size 2 x 32 KBytes
L2 Unified Cache Size 2048 KBytes

And they're also choppy on my Lenovo 3000 G430. That one is at
a remote site, so I can't confirm specific specs for it right
now.

Is it one of the files from Bjorn? I could try to re-
encode it with a lower flac compression level. If you're
interested in a test?

I haven't tried Bj”rn's files yet. I have to dig up my ABBA CDs
first so that I can do proper A-B comparisons.

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

* Originally in AUDIO
* Crossposted in MUSIC
* Crossposted in FN_SYSOP

Hi August,

On 2022-01-01 12:39:00, you wrote to me:

Apparently your hardware isn't fast enough to decode it
on the fly? A bit strange, but I don't know what kind of
hardware you're using. ;-) Maybe it's encoded with the
maximum compression level, which is too much for your
hardware?

FLAC files are choppy with the T60/XP

Intel Core Duo T2400
Code Name Yonah
Package Socket 479 mPGA
Technology 65nm
Specification Genuine Intel CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz
Rated Bus Speed 665.1 MHz
Stock Core Speed 1833 MHz
Stock Bus Speed 166 MHz
Average Temperature 54 øC
L1 Data Cache Size 2 x 32 KBytes
L1 Instructions Cache Size 2 x 32 KBytes
L2 Unified Cache Size 2048 KBytes

So not a real speed monster even when it was introduced in 2009... ;)

And they're also choppy on my Lenovo 3000 G430. That one is at
a remote site, so I can't confirm specific specs for it right
now.

I think it's about the same generation as the T60, but it came with different processors. But apparently you don't have a speedy one...


Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Apparently your hardware isn't fast enough to decode it on the fly?

Actually it may be one of the POFs I was talking about? I'm still at IIS 5 and I've got reports that sometimes downloading with http is really slow, considering that I sit on a 100/100M fiber.

And regarding another comment, my FLAC files should be totally uncompressed. That was the whole idea behind going from MP3 to FLAC...


..

--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101125
* Origin: news://eljaco.se (2:203/2)

Hello Bj”rn Felten!

** On Saturday 01.01.22 - 19:08, Bj”rn Felten wrote to Wilfred van Velzen:

And regarding another comment, my FLAC files should be totally uncompressed. That was the whole idea behind going from MP3 to FLAC...

What Kbps rate were your MP3 files?

For me, I can discern a very noticable difference between
192kbps and CD. 320kbps comes close to indestinquishable, but
the bass is still a bit boomier and the highs have an obvious
"edgyness" that is not pleasant for long passages. All that is
for home-based listening with open-air speakers. 320kbps would
be the minimum I would prefer on the car stereo for music.

I've never really bothered with VBR (variable bit rate)
versions.

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

* Originally in FN_SYSOP
* Crossposted in AUDIO
* Crossposted in MUSIC

Hi Bj”rn,

On 2022-01-01 19:08:12, you wrote to me:

Apparently your hardware isn't fast enough to decode it on the fly?

Actually it may be one of the POFs I was talking about? I'm still at IIS
5 and I've got reports that sometimes downloading with http is really slow,
considering that I sit on a 100/100M fiber.

I think August was talking about playing flac files in general, so your bandwidth is not the issue...

And regarding another comment, my FLAC files should be totally uncompressed. That was the whole idea behind going from MP3 to FLAC...

The compression level of flac files doesn't influence the audio quality! Flac is a lossless compression format, so when you decode it, you get the same bytes back that went into them. But if you don't want compression for some reason, you would be better of using wav files...

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

* Originally in MUSIC
* Crossposted in FN_SYSOP
* Crossposted in AUDIO

Hi August,

On 2022-01-01 13:52:00, you wrote to me:

I only mentioned it because it too operates XP, and seems perfectly
fine with AppleLossless versions.

I don't know about AppleLossLess, and how it compares to Flac.

For Bj”rn's test, I'll be generating CDs from the FLAC files to
test on my hi-fi system.

I had a family friend do a similar test on some of the FLAC vs AppleLossess files that I produced, against the original CD
versions of a few tunes. The fellow has a fine hifi system.
He found no discernable differences.

There shouldn't be any difference. They all produce the same bytes that go into your DA converter for playback.

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hello Bj”rn Felten!

** On Saturday 01.01.22 - 19:08, Bj”rn Felten wrote to Wilfred van Velzen:

Actually it may be one of the POFs I was talking about?
I'm still at IIS 5 and I've got reports that sometimes
downloading with http is really slow, considering that
I sit on a 100/100M fiber.

I was referring to playing the files AFTER they are downloaded.
But even if I could play/stream your files directly, my DSL
speed at about 650-800Kbps wouldn't be good enough.

And regarding another comment, my FLAC files should be
totally uncompressed. That was the whole idea behind
going from MP3 to FLAC...

For totally uncompressed, WAV ought to do it. But FLAC offers
a modicum of space/storage efficiency.
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

I have some ABBA material on CD too. I could compare some of
those and your tunes with my modest system.

I haven't bought a CD in ... pfftttt ... 15 years. I only got vinyl.

\%/@rd

--- DB4 - Dec 14 2021
* Origin: Hou het veilig, hou vol. Het komt allemaal weer goed (2:292/854)

Hello Ward!

** On Sunday 02.01.22 - 15:40, you wrote to me:

I have some ABBA material on CD too. I could compare
some of those and your tunes with my modest system.

I haven't bought a CD in ... pfftttt ... 15 years. I only
got vinyl.

I have a modest collection. Only about 800-1100 LPs. Maybe
about 400-500 45's. I haven't put them to much use since the
quality of sound is noticeably not as good as I remembered some
of them to be. The speakers are fine, and professionally
rebuilt. Maybe my ear is conditioned to the more consistent
sound from a CD. However, I learned that a new needle/
cartridge pair is probably long overdue. It is recommended that
the needle be replaced every few hundred hours of play.

What make/model of record player do you have?

I've gone through several, but ultimately received a fine
Pioneer PL-A35. I love the steampunk look of the balancing/
pressure mechanism with the wire and weight.

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

What make/model of record player do you have?

I'm on the road, but it's a Lenco. I think Swiss made

--- DB4 - Dec 14 2021
* Origin: Hou het veilig, hou vol. Het komt allemaal weer goed (2:292/854)