I mean that when you say "I can tell the lossy algorithms at work", how did you verify that you actually can?
Same way as I can tell if one dish has more salt added than another of the same recipe.
To be more exact, (I work in data storage management, compression, deduplication, and replication btw, so am biased)(hence being barred from the other Ethernet cable thread)
MP3 compression physicality removes from the music certain parts based on psychoacoustic ideals it assumes we don’t need/won’t miss (and many won’t ) the music content is altered.
Flac compression uses deduplilaction reduction processes. By this is it looks for patterns or fixed length chunks of 1 and 0s that are the same, then replaces these with a smaller token marker, thereby reducing the footprint. When data is decoded all the tokenised bits are put back in, check summed then delivered to DAC (in case of audio). There is nothing taken away. The music is not altered.
Thereby WAVs And FLACS (and ALACS btw) are the same. Any sonics differences perceived or heard here, could be due how the code on board DAC or app handles the files.
Within LMS etc there are transcoding options.
I have these all set the same.
So fir example I have fav demo track Tom Petty ‘crawling back to you’
I can play it from source CD thru same system and into LMS that I have then ripped (dbpowrramp) I to aiff, wav then flac.then also to 320 and 256 mp3.
I can play 3 source streams concurrently then switch on fly. Each source stream route is identical from same NAS (same Ethernet cables, same router, same switch into one SBT then to same DAC then active speakers.
so Tom Petty “crawling back to you”
Source CD
WAV/FLAC/ALAC/MP3 320 256
I can play 3 concurrently (using 3 LmS servers into SBT/DAC). Then switch on the fly.
NAS to SBT to Benchmark HGC to Dyaudio Actives. Velodyne sub. It’s not a bad system.
This as as standardised test - from ripping SW to playback infrastructure commonality - that I have tried.
One track I know intimately played via different codecs on same system.
First three sound identical to Source CD - factoring in my ears and brain. If I play those three I cannot discern and forget which one is playing after too many switches.
MP3s are subtly different - sound increasingly lacking space depth ambiance and nuance as the bit rate decreases. Less enjoyable. I can tell instantly.
So that’s my evidence. Not scientific but I believe my ears on this one.
Ps no 24 bit available for this test. But I use Qobuz Sublime and can stream or download many of same tracks with 24/16 rates. I do this often and struggle to discern. Using above infrastructure and system.
As an aside Some Hd tracks are a complet con. For example Hawkwind Space Ritual I have CD, then bought 16 bit then 24 bit downloads from Quobiz. Not only do they sound no different to me - they were recorded analogue in first instance - the 16 bit and 24 bit files are the exact same size in total andbtravk by track. I should have complained.