Re: [ARSCLIST] FLAC

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One man's ears here, but I prefer the SACD audio reproduction on my mid-priced ($550 street price) 
Marantz universal DVD/CD/SACD player and even my low-priced ($150 street price) Toshiba universal 
player to ANY Sony SACD of any price I've heard. So no matter the price, it could have just been a 
bad SACD player.

That said, I've heard 96/24 PCM and SACD audio of the same source and can't tell any difference so 
my ears might not be as gold-leafed as others'. I can tell the difference between CD of the same 
source and either hi-rez format, and the hi-rez does seem to have a nicer top end and bit more air 
and space around things, but not enough that I'd go replace my whole CD collection. Unfortunately 
the hybrid SACD/CD format never reached critical mass, so the next hope is that at least CD-quality 
digital downloads will one day be the dollar choice, as opposed to the complete ripoff of iTunes and 
Amazon lossy-compressed dollar downloads.

Are there any Flac players for us non-geeks, something that works at least as well and is at least 
as fully featured as the Windows Media Player? Are there Flac add-ins for iTunes or are you stuck 
with Apple's proprietary but good lossless format in the iPod world?

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "carlstephen koto" <cskoto@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] FLAC


> I knew that FLAC was fast becoming the format of choice with younger  folks who were looking to 
> store their music in an uncompressed state.  But, I had very little experience with it before. I 
> was happily  surprised by the sound quality of the better downloads I've now  heard, and feel that 
> (at least in it's 24/96 form)the quality is  limited more often by the source recording than the 
> math.
>
> Regarding the difference in sound quality of the SACD's and the 24/96  downloads, to me, it sounds 
> akin to generational losses in the analog  domain. Why that is, I don't know for sure but my guess 
> is that there  are some areas of HiRez disc production that still need some ironing  out.
> Steve Koto
> On Jun 9, 2008, at 9:46 AM, Jim Sam wrote:
>
> > I believe Trent Reznor was selling no-DRM FLAC files in the release  of Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts 
> > release and the Saul Williams record he  produced.  He also gave away 96/24 files for free on his 
> > latest NIN  album.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > At 12:33 PM 6/8/2008, you wrote:
> > > I am intrigued to find that at least one website (http:// www.hdtracks.com)
> > > is selling CD-quality music tracks, with FLAC as a format option,  and no
> > > DRM. I'm curious whether anyone else is using FLAC commercially.  This is
> > > obviously only a case or two, but would this not bode well for the  future
> > > of the format?
> > >
> > > Matt Snyder
> > > Music Archivist
> > > Wilson Processing Project
> > > The New York Public Library