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Lossless - when is it not so?

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iVinyl:
I thought that lossless encoders were just that, bit perfect representations of the CD or source.  I got into a bit of an argument with a Naim user who had 'perfect rips' of the CD's onto their hard drive. He claims that the output of that system compared to say, the FLAC output of a Rockbox'd iRiver through its SPDIF will be different. His further claims suggested that not all FLAC's are created equal. When I mentioned ALE - then all bets were off.....

I guess the folks here, and at Rockbox should know more about these kind of things that I do. If we were to compare the SPDIF outputs of digital transports playing WAV, FLAC and ALE - would they all be the same?

regards
Chris

evilnick:
As far as I know (and there are plenty of people who could be far more technical about this) all FLAC files are lossless - the difference in the compression levels just refer to the size of the compressed file.

If you rely on ALE then this might have changed your perceptions  ;D

(ALE is usually referred to as ALAC)

Buschel:
The formats themselves and the compression algorithms used are lossless. That means the output after decoding is 100% the same as before the compression. Example: Use a wav-file and compress it, then decode it to an output wav file. Both wav files have identical content now.
*If* there is any difference audible when comparing both units either the ALAC/APE/FLAC/WAV decoder is faulty or there are issues with the SPDIF connection.

iVinyl:
thanks folks - I suspect this is Naim forum snake oil.

Chris

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