Noise in some but not all FLAC conversions?

[Redd]

I thought I'd try dbpoweramp for converting my lossless WAV library to FLAC for a new media player.

The WAV files are mainly Windows Media Player rips of CDs, WMP 8-11 over the years, no idea which made what. Some of the WAV files are also made by Audacity (again, several years worth of versions) from LPs or tapes directly.

I have both WAV and VBR2-MP3 versions of all files as my "originals" and none of the WAV or MP3 files have any audible noise beyond LP or tape background noise at the lowest levels.

As a trial I had dbpoweramp convert a couple of thousand files and throw them in one folder, to see how the new music player would work and whether my ears could appreciate the difference with FLAC files. Well....

Some of the FLAC files are gorgeous. This is a Fiio X5 and it certainly beats all hell out of even highly rated cell phones (G).

But some of the FLAC files, no particular logic as to which, have an incredible amount of white noise (or similar noise) as if someone was spraying Lysol across a mic while they were being recorded. Which of course they weren't, they were being converted from the WAV files that have NO audible noise.

The noise is in the FLAC files, not the device playing them. Same horrible noise on the laptop, with two different players (WMP and VLC).

I'd really like to upgrade to the pro version and run a batch conversion of the whole library, but this noise! Surely, there's some real simple solution?

Anyone?

[Spoon]

Re: Noise in some but not all FLAC conversions?

24 bit files?

Try foobar 2000 as a player, VLC has known to have flac problems, and WMP does not support flac natively.

Try converting the flac files with noise back to a wave file, then play wave file, does it have noise?

[Redd]

Re: Noise in some but not all FLAC conversions?

Thanks, Spoon. Can't reconvert to WAV, the trial has timed out. Or so it tells me.

Did see something very interesting on the Fiio though. It said the first noisy file (I haven't looked at them all) is an 8-bit file ?! instead of the usual 16-bit. Since they're only from CD sources, they should all be 16-bit not 24-bit. IIRC this particular file was ripped from CD and should be 16-bit although since I've tried and used a variety of software in the last years, I can't say for certain what ripped what.

Is it possible (ha) that somehow I've got some 8-bit WAV files, and that converting those to FLAC creates 8 bits of noise floor plus the other 8 bits of music, making a really nasty file?

Is there any way to scan WAV files, to find out if they are all 16-bit /vs/ 8 bit? Or...do 8-bit WAV files even exist?

I'm real certain this is not a "player" malfunction, since the PC and the Fiio player BOTH play the same FLAC files as full of noise. Totally different hardware and software, the files sound the same.

[Spoon]

Re: Noise in some but not all FLAC conversions?

dBpoweramp would not say the trial has run out if converting FLAC to Wave, only if converting FLAC to mp3. See:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/db-versions.htm

Which settings were used when creating the flac files? it would not write 8 bit flac unless you had a DSP effect 'Bit depth' set to 8 bit.

[Redd]

Re: Noise in some but not all FLAC conversions?

Spoon-
Mystery solved, thank you. Not a conversion problem, not a dbp problem.

In fact, dbp has been invaluable in finding the extent of the problem. Apparently some 20 CDs that I probably ripped "first" in my conversion project (they look like the ones that had been in a car sleeve) all converted to 8-bit WAV files, and I'm going to blame that on an old (XP or NT5) version of Windows Media Player.

So, the problem is that 8-bit WAV files ripped from CD have an incredibly high noise level, or at least, whatever ripped them did.

dbp's wonderful "sample size" listing in the batch converter gave me a way to see just how many files were a problem, otherwise I'd have been toiling in there forever!

Now I just have to get into the "put away forever I'll never need these again" boxes to do it again the right way. And fortunately, all the other files are 16-bit. "All" being a shorthand for "many many more than 20".<G>