Oh dear! Has anyone tried transcoding with Minimserver?

uglymusicuglymusic
edited September 2016 in Digital
You know that controversy about WAV files sounding better than FLACs? Well, this evening I was messing around with Minimserver and discovered it will transcode between different file formats.

OK. I thought. I'll give it a go. I'm transcoding between FLAC and WAV, and it seems to sound better (primarily at the bass end, but also more 'air' in some recordings). At first, I thought this was because I'd removed some of the load from the RPi (although the RPi is hardly stressed at all with audio playback), by offloading the FLAC decoding on to the NAS. But then I wondered if I was just hearing the purported differences between FLAC and WAV.

Any thoughts?

Comments

  • DocfosterDocfoster
    Interesting. :-)
    What's "transcoding between"?
  • uglymusicuglymusic
    Minimserver is taking FLAC format files and making a WAV format copy. The WAV file then goes over the network to the Raspberry Pi instead of the FLAC file.
  • DocfosterDocfoster
    Thanks Dave. :-)
    Are you saying that WAV files are superior per-se, or just in this particular arrangement?
  • cj66cj66
    No knowledge of Minimserver but have played extensively with Flac to wave conversions. If the recording is good quality in the first place then the wav conversion is always better. Computer bods will say this is impossible but I trust my ears far more than them!
    A lot also depends on the Flac file itself i.e. was it well done. There are degrees of quality in the original encoding regardless of what the checksum claims!!!
    Can of worms opened....
  • uglymusicuglymusic
    Docfoster said:

    Thanks Dave. :-)
    Are you saying that WAV files are superior per-se, or just in this particular arrangement?

    I don't know, TBH. I've never really had many WAVs, but I do have AIFFs - Apple equivalent, with better metatagging.

    I think it may be my digital tweaking project for a while.
  • uglymusicuglymusic
    cj66 said:

    No knowledge of Minimserver but have played extensively with Flac to wave conversions. If the recording is good quality in the first place then the wav conversion is always better. Computer bods will say this is impossible but I trust my ears far more than them!
    A lot also depends on the Flac file itself i.e. was it well done. There are degrees of quality in the original encoding regardless of what the checksum claims!!!
    Can of worms opened....

    Defo can of worms!

    The last time I tried comparing FLAC/ALAC with WAV/AIFF was years ago. And I felt I couldn't tell the difference. Better system now, so I may be changing my mind.
  • cj66cj66
    Just for fun/experimentation:-

    Take a good quality recording and save it in wav by the best means of recording you have.
    Then convert that to Flac and again that Flac file back to wav.
    Compare the original wav against the flac and the new wav files.

    What do you find?

    This has been covered more extensively over on CA forum if you care to read around it. Therein are also methods described for maximising the quality of rips and conversions. Pay special attention to posts by member "sandyk". Many detractors there too but make up your own mind after you have tried.
  • uglymusicuglymusic
    Yes. I've read some of that stuff. I'll go back and read some.

    I've also read about making non-compressed FLACs - effectively WAVs with better metadata. Might give that a go, too.
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