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Topic: flac or mp3 or bad master? (Read 3775 times) previous topic - next topic
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flac or mp3 or bad master?

I purchased a FLAC album from Tidal.  The album is a digital album only.
The artist added two b sides which I had prior as an mp3.
AuCDtect said the source of the two files was mp3.

It seems the cut off is around 16 khz but the spectrum also goes into 22.

Are we thinking this still isn't a flac because the cut off occured at 16?  Why is some of the music hitting 22?

Flac 1 and 2 files are the ones in question.  Flac 3 seems to have more detail and is labeled as CDDA as the source in AuCdtect.

I have also shown the mp3s I had prior.  The "Flac" seems better but maybe not?



Re: flac or mp3 or bad master?

Reply #1
> The "Flac" seems better but maybe not?
impossible to tell without having the actual records (and even then it's impossible, for other reasons). if you decompress a mp3 file back to flac, it becomes worse because it's now having a bigger file size and you can't reverse the transform without an additional generation of loss; but it could be that they just used lossy sources when mixing and then flac version could be mathematically closer to the original.
normal records which had not come through a lossy codec don't have these kinds of spectrums so from the sales perspective it could be said that this is a scam, however I doubt that they actually promised anything with regards to recording quality so it's probably tough luck.
also AuCDtect should not be trusted as it often produces false negatives and false positives. (but it seems to be right with these 3 samples)
> Why is some of the music hitting 22?
because it can, at the record time many sounds have a lot of HF content (percussion, for example)
and mp3 encoders usually don't simply delete everything above 16kHz
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: flac or mp3 or bad master?

Reply #2
is it not true that a flac doesn't have a firm cut off?

Re: flac or mp3 or bad master?

Reply #3
FLAC only has the Nyquist cutoff of the sample rate it happens to have been recorded or mixed at before encoding. Being a lossless compression format, it has no other cutoff possible, unless someone or something applied a cutoff to the signal before encoding it.

Another possibility is a round trip through lossy compression before it was converted to FLAC. Some unfortunate people either source lossy backing tracks into their mixes, or even mix to a lossy format before sending said lossy files to their publisher.

 

Re: flac or mp3 or bad master?

Reply #4
imho all except Flac 3 are mp3 sourced.