CDs, mp3s, & .flac files

[lewashby]

I play most of my music from a digital media player called an 'iBasso DX50'. I chose this product because it plays .flac files which is what I have been slowly replacing most of my mp3 library with. Even though the .flac format is said to be much superior to the mp3 when I listen to it I still feel like it's missing something compared to a CD. I usually listen in my car using the AUX jack on my CD player. My question is could the AUX cord / jack be the bottleneck to my music quality and if so does anyone have a solution in mind that would allow me to keep playing my iBasso? Thanks.

One other thing. Even better than a .flac file is a .wav file because that's pretty much all a standard CD is playing anyway. One problem I've always had when I tried to rip music to .wav instead of .flac or .mp3 is that the .wav files don't always contain the meta data (artists, album, etc...), and sometimes the rips do contain the meta data. Can anyone explain this inconsistency and explain why a .wav files wouldn't get meta data ripped to it and what if anything can be done about it? Thanks.

[Numanoid]

Even better than a .flac file is a .wav file because that's pretty much all a standard CD is playing anyway.

A FLAC file is the same as a WAV file (if made from that), only that it is compressed, and takes up less space

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality

[BertKoor]

Even though the .flac format is said to be much superior to the mp3 when I listen to it I still feel like it's missing something compared to a CD. I usually listen in my car using the AUX jack on my CD player. My question is could the AUX cord / jack be the bottleneck to my music quality

Say you insert a CD into your car radio and press Play. The digital data goes through the CD player's DAC, into the preamp with tone control, into the power amp and on to your speakers.

Say you use the iBasso player. The digital data goes through the iBasso's DAC, maybe a OPAMP buffer, through a simple shielded cord, into the car radio's preamp with tone control, into the power amp and on to your speakers.

Spot the differences... I can tell you that a cable with 3.5mm plugs does nothing significant to the audio quality itself. It's mainly a different DAC. Have you compared this with playing the same song? It's known that a tiny difference in just the loudness makes a huge difference in perceived "quality". We like louder, and perceive that as "more detail, separation, hifi, mojo". The brain is easily fooled...

Have you tried what difference the player's Headphone Out makes compared to the Line Out?

One problem I've always had when I tried to rip music to .wav instead of .flac or .mp3 is that the .wav files don't always contain the meta data (artists, album, etc...), and sometimes the rips do contain the meta data. Can anyone explain this inconsistency and explain why a .wav files wouldn't get meta data ripped to it

With the modern formats .mp3 and .flac the storage of metadata is standardised. With .wav less so. Wav is designed for the PCM data itself. There are options for also storing metadata there, but that's less standard. So you are at the mercy of in what format the ripper stores it, and whether the reader can make sense of that.

[aciddose]

Regarding "meta data" in RIFF WAVE files:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_ ... ile_Format

Using the "INFO" chunk a wide array of string data is stored. Microsoft originally specified a large number of INFO sub-chunks "Ixxx" to store (all?) the info compatible with EXIF.

There are additional standard "tags" for sub-chunks.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exi ... /RIFF.html

So to say there is "no standard" isn't entirely correct. The software or devices reading the information may not follow a standard, but there are already several well established standards they could follow.

[lewashby]

Thanks everyone. I usually rip with Banshee and I don't know how it stores the meta data. And I play with my iBasso and I don't have any idea how that plays either.

[Numanoid]

You can use a free prog like Tagscanner to check and edit the meta data:

http://www.xdlab.ru/en/