I had this flac file purchase from source claiming to be ripped from cd. Can someone say based on this spectrogram that whether it a fake or not. because peak is enfing at 16hz and extended to 22 so is it real or amplified fake
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1Golden rule: Don't buy flac files. No-one releases songs in flac format. You would get a better sounding file if you just bought the AAC from iTunes. iTunes uses 24-bit masters not 16, so they're already better than the CD. btw, I have no idea what that file sounds like, but I've not seen quite so much banding in a spectrograph in quite some time. Last rule: don't try to judge the "quality" of a recording from a spectrograph. That's not what they're for. If I were to be forced to guess, that looks like 3 minutes of unrelenting techno - sound quality not high on the producer's check-list.– TetsujinFeb 6, 2022 at 19:40
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1. Welcome Don! 2. No such thing as a "fake flac" lol 3.@Tetsujin I respectfully think you're wrong about 24 bit AAC vs 16 bit PCM, buddy. Bit depths for lossy and lossless compression are different beasts altogether; they mean different things. As for perceived quality, that's up to the listener, but 16 bit PCM is a closer representation of the source signal, even if they were both encoded as a master. :)– n00dles ♦Feb 7, 2022 at 16:59
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@n00dles - I never mentioned "24-bit AAC". I said the masters are delivered in 24-bit, from which the AAC is derived. People get too caught up in the 'lossless is best' meme, without ever considering what it's a lossless conversion of. If you're getting your material in flac & it's not from somewhere like HDtracks, then you have literally no idea what the actual source was.– TetsujinFeb 8, 2022 at 9:06
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@Tetsujin yeah 100% agree on that– n00dles ♦Feb 8, 2022 at 19:19
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@n00dles - Cool :) BTW, did you check out the audio samples in the question linked underneath the answer? Total fuzz-box, actually officially released on CD.– TetsujinFeb 8, 2022 at 19:28
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1 Answer
This looks "extended" because of the (most probably) linear scale that your spectrogram is using on the frequency axis. It should look way more common if you switch it to log or similar.
@Tetsujin: FLAC is a lossless format, AAC is a lossy one, I really don't understand your statement 🤔
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1An AAC from a good source is always going to be better than a flac from a dodgy rip. 'Ripped from CD' is already lower quality than you'd get from iTunes these days. People get so caught up in the 'lossless' factor, they forget the 'chain of custody' required to get a sonically good file that's only been processed once since the master. See this related question where someone already owned an official physical CD of a truly abysmal transfer - musicfans.stackexchange.com/questions/12545/…– TetsujinFeb 7, 2022 at 9:51