FLAC vs WAV vs MP3 vs M4A Experiment(good article to read)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

First part:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/bl...experiment-94/

Second part:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/bl...l-results-155/

[kalniel]

First part, whilst not giving any info about the quality level chosen for m4a is not surprising (especially if it's looking at 320kbps mp3 and then only 128kbps m4a). [edit: actually they didn't even create the m4a themselves, and given the length disparagy it's clearly a different mix so shouldn't be compared!]

But I don't quite understand the second part. Is he basically saying that lossless compression is only lossless if you playback on the same computer that you compressed it from (ie DAC running at same tick rate as ADC)?

That doesn't sound right to me unless your computer is not accurately reporting clock speed. I might have a go at reproducing that result myself, if I can get hold of everything I need for it. Won't help answer the question for how I play my music though (lossless media shift on computer, playback via arcam DAC).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It also puts paid to the claim that 320KBPS MP3 are CD quality! TBH,I only skimmed through both articles(my bad),so it seems he really only incluced he m4a file,to indicate how different the remasters can be.

You have got a point about the second part,but the company who made the software have noted this can happen. Although,whatever the issue is,it does not seem to be down whether the FLAC decompression is lossless or not.

I did some Googling and it does seem there is a thread about the second part involving the chap who ran the test:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showth...1628#post91628

It seems he has done some more tests(in the comments section of the article).