The Loudness Wars Rage On! Is FLAC as Good as CD Sound Quality?

By: Robert Petty, Team SoundDomain

This question came up while discussing the poor recording practices used these days. I've posted before about what compressing music into MP3 format does to your recordings. I decided to take a song that I like and compare the original CD recording to a FLAC version of it. The song? Steve Winwood "Higher Love" It has a nice percussion intro, and some decent dynamics. Steve's voice is pretty "thin" sounding compared to some, but that makes it even harder for an ordinary system to produce it realistically. So here's the results.

Doing an A/B comparison between the FLAC recording and the original CD, I sat in the car with just these two discs and played them both several times without looking at which disc I was listening to. The volume seemed identical. The only thing I could pick out was one of them seemed to have a little better dynamics than the other. For those who have never heard that term before, it's basically the difference between the "soft" parts of a track and the "loud" parts of the track. One of the discs seemed to have a little more definition between the soft and loud parts of the song, and there were some very faint details that were more clear in the same disc. Before we discuss which was the better one, let's look at the analysis.

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Dead To Me: Isolating Your Feet From The Floor

Team SoundDomain's Andy Jones just posted up a great how-to for custom floormats that also work to isolate floorboard vibration and road noise. And the best part? They're pretty simple to make and not too expensive! Now, he can't take all the credit, he acutally got the idea from fellow Team SoundDomain member Rick Sellers. Props to both for a great idea! What are you waiting for? Get Dead!

Sound Deadening Testimonials

By: Brian Murphy, SoundDomain Moderator

If you are a member of any Car Audio community then you have no doubt heard about the benefits of sound deadening your vehicle. It's a proven fact that sound deadening can reduce road noise and help keep your sound in your vehicle, and the rattles and road noise out. Have you seen the Sound Deadening Showdown? This website put many of the top sound deadening brands head to head to see who is on top. The SoundDomain blog has covered sound deadening before. Check out this great info.

Try to Google Sound Deadener testimonials and you will find a few posts mixed in with ads and all sorts of nonsense. Sound Domain has decided it's time we put all of them in one place. It's time for The Official Sound Deadener Testimonial post. This is a place where you can share your experience. It's not meant to be a commercial for any one brand. We all have our favorite brands, and no one company fits everyone's needs, but please share your experience.

in the forums!

Get Dead: Second Skin Hands-On

SoundDomain member Bikinpunk decided it was time to lose the rattles and hum from his daily driver and get the most out his sound equipment investment, so he applied a bit of Second Skin's to his Civic. Bikin's weapons of choice for the battle against noise? A couple hundred feet of Second Skin Damplifier Pro, a Speaker Tweaker Kit, and a box of Luxury Liner Pro. Check out his write up in the forums!

Hands-On: Alpine IVA-W505

SoundDomain member Erin "bikinpunk" Hardison picked up an Alpine IVA-W505 and decided to document the unboxing and provided a pictorial walk-through of some of the different menus and screens. If you've considered picking up one of these multimedia powerhouses, click through to the forum to check out everything from the basic CD and DVD controls to the USB input interface and sound-shaping controls.

Check it out!