Converted files sound distorted

[roskilde96]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

I've encoded the "distorted" BWF file to Flac and then to an uncompressed wav, both as wav 48 KHz and wav 44,1 KHz, but the distortion is still there.

Especially using the 1 KHz tone, I hear the difference in quakity (Listening with a Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphone).

I'm gonna try a clean windows install (won't take long, I have a system image file). I'll let you know if that helps...

[roskilde96]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

I'm back ;-) Just did a clean OS install (ghost image) and reinstalled dBpoweramp. Unfortunately with the same results ... After conversion to BWF (R5) the 1 KHz tone sounds different (distorted).

Could this be a system issue? My sound card is able to handle upto 96 KHz and 24 bit audio ... So, it should be able to handle 48 KHz and 16 bit.

As an example, I've recorded the mix of my sound card and played back the 1 KHz tone as plain wav file first and then the BWF version. Here you can download the recording, it's a normal wav file at 48 KHz and 16 bit stereo, containing the recorded playback of both tones.

Could you tell me if you hear the difference between those two recordings?

I'm really sorry for all this, but I need to find out what causes this problem before converting my entire music collection ...

Best regards and many thanks!

[roskilde96]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

Me again ;-)

I get better results when enabling "professional frequency conversion" (didn't know of this feature) especially with the 1 KHz tone, but still there's a difference in quality ... The quiet parts of songs seem to have a sort of digital noise. It's worse without the professional frequency conversion but with it, it's still there. I tried a lot of file converting combinations. Flac - WAV - BWF, rip from CD to BWF, all with the same result.

Loud parts sound OK because then the noise is not really hearable.

I can't imagine this is typical for the BWF file format, it's a pro (EBU) format.

Regards!

[Spoon]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

It is a fundamental when converting between frequencies. Using the pro-frequency conversion will give much better results, but when looking at the 1 Khz sine wave, you will see slight distortions of the wave.

Try this, convert your 1KHz wave (original) straight to linear PCM wave, 44Khz >> 48 Khz, with the pro frequency conversion on. Can you hear the distortions?

[roskilde96]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

No, it doesn't sound distorted when converting the wav file to 48 KHz.
Maybe something with the BWF compression ...

[Spoon]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

BWF is mp2, more to try:

convert your 48khz wave file to bwfmp2 256kbps, 48 khz - is distortion there?
convert the 44Khz original wave file to bwf 256kbps 44khz - is distortion there?

[mange]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

BWF is mp2

My harddisk recorder writes Broadcast wave files wich are .wav files with some more tags in them. Timecode and such.

[Spoon]

Re: Converted files sound distorted

You will be able to use R12.2 to write BWF linear wave files.