cbuck1

@marvincollins, there was another post stating that this was a Q/A channel for users and that support questions needed to be go to the support channel. I opened an issue there on tis topic and get a reply within a few hours and we have been working the issue but I have no remedy at this time. @k9gardner, I think I understand your question: Is flac a worthwhile format or is there a better one out there that imparts even less distortion? I will stay out of that discussion except to say you might want to look at WAV files, which is contains the straight-up PCM data with no compression whatsoever. Flac is supposedly a lossless compression algorithm, so converting a WAV file to flac and back to WAV should result in an identical file on the backend as the front-end (at least within 1-bit to account for round-off errors). I am not sure about that but can tell you it sounds much (!) better than mp3 (no surprise) and is widely used to distribute commercial digital audio files as it is roughly 1/2 the size of WAV.

I have this exact problem. I just ripped several CDs to flac using Express Rip CD Ripper Software Plus (licensed version) and every track is oversaturated and distorted to such an extent as to make it inaudible. The CD plays fine in a computer and on a CD player. Also, at least one of the CDs is older, manufactured before ripping was prevalent, so I am skeptical that copy-protection is to blame. The CD copy protection schemes I am aware of altered the table-of-contents information and affected a CD-ROM drives' ability to read the disc at all and could not carry the Compact Disc logo. To answer Chris75's question, I used both maximum compression (4) and "Balanced" (2), the default. Sample rate of 44100 Hz, 16-bit resolution (standard CD). Please advise.