AMPS 119 - Mellow Moods (1977) Flac

[joelfan71]

A great 70's Amphonic title that may be a nice quality upgrade for some.

mediafire.com/file/7hnhm64yhinwucb/AMPS_119_-_Mellow_Moods_%25281977%2529.rar/file

[stefaneddu]

Thanks!

[nidostar]

Unfortunately these are fake FLAC files.

[Greta]

Link edited.
Please, DO NOT hotlink to external sharing sites.
Thanks.

[Ice8]

Thanks Joelfan71.

And thanks nidostar for the find.

[zoomo]

Unfortunately these are fake FLAC files.

Found the following info online.

M4a files can be lossless. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) is often stored within an m4a container, providing lossless compression of digital music.

[Greta]

I'm on a Mac machine and I'm used with this matter and/or confusion.

.m4a is the successor of .mp3 and at the same bitrate is a much better compression lossy codec.

Now, speaking of lossless, the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), which is comparable to FLAC or APE, just uses the same extension of that (modern) lossy audio codec: .m4a
This is where the confusion arises.

The files Joelfan kindly shared are undoubtedly fake lossless. They "say" they're ALAC compressed (obviously with .m4a extension), but they're not lossless.
They look to me as 128kbps mp3, then upscaled to 16-48 lossless ALAC.

I hope I've shed some light on the topic, even if we've discussed this already in the past.

Anyways, here is a legit lossless AMPS 119 for those interested.
Enjoy.

swisstransfer.com/d/05a7e2c9-e85b-4a24-8e9c-85371521533e

[kpmhill]

Unfortunately these are fake FLAC files.

Found the following info online.

M4a files can be lossless. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) is often stored within an m4a container, providing lossless compression of digital music.

These files are 1536 kbps Apple Lossless, which would be legit for lossless 48kHz/16 bit. They appear to be real lossless, but a frequency check would be necessary before any pronouncement of being "fake."

[Greta]

So you suppose that nidostar didn't check the frequency before stating they're fake.
He surely did, as I did, and the hard cut-off at the 16kHz is a verdict!

[kpmhill]

So you suppose that nidostar didn't check the frequency before stating they're fake.
He surely did, as I did, and the hard cut-off at the 16kHz is a verdict!

I have no idea whether nidostar checked the frequency — he said nothing about it. And zoomo didn't mention any of this in his (latest) thread response. I don't first read every comment in every thread I respond to, and I'm no exception. I don't doubt your verdict, but I think a little extra chill on your part would be helpful.

[Ice8]

Thanks Greta again for this Flac in lossless.

[Greta]

joelfan's file, for everyone to see.
This is the spectrum analyzer's verdict, not mine.



No further comment on your post, you won't drag me into your sterile controversies.

[nidostar]

Thanks Greta I was trying to work out how to include a graphic file in a post to illustrate the problem but you pre-empted me!

As Greta says Apple use the M4A suffix for both ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding ie lossy) files. Fortunately, on the Mac at least, iTunes/Apple Music can tell the difference between the two types of file in the "Kind" field. But the bottom line is you can't tell a file just by its suffix whether it be M4A, FLAC or WAV.

As an example take an MP3 file and load it into Audacity or any other audio editor. Without making any change to the file immediately save it as a WAV or FLAC. Because you haven't made any changes to the content of the file it still contains lossless data but is now masquerading as a FLAC or WAV file. So it is a fake. This process is called "upsampling". It doesn't improve the quality of the music data and just ends up with a much larger file.

The best way to check whether a file is a fake FLAC/WAV is to use an app like Spek, a screen grab from which Greta has posted above. If the frequencies suddenly cut off such as this one at 16kHz then the file is a lossy one. Sadly there's no way to come back from this because if you were now to convert the file to lossy format the additional compression will further degrade the quality of the sound. Spek is available for both Mac (which I use) and Windows. Though sometimes it is not always visually clear if a file has been upsampled. So in addition I use a Windows only app on an aging laptop called Lossless Audio Checker. It analyses music files and reports whether they have been upsampled or not. It was this app I used to check the share here: https://librarymusicthemes.com/index.php?topic=8362.msg57359#msg57359.

You can find further info on this subject here https://erikstechcorner.com/2020/09/how-to-check-if-your-flac-files-are-really-lossless/

[kpmhill]

joelfan's file, for everyone to see.
This is the spectrum analyzer's verdict, not mine.



No further comment on your post, you won't drag me into your sterile controversies.

You posted your response here less than 10 minutes after I posted mine, and your response wasn't on the page when I viewed the browser tab containing it. zoomo's post was the last one visible- that's why I quoted zoomo's post- and not yours. There was zero information anywhere — about anyone having checked frequencies. As I said afterward, I didn't question a verdict based on an actual frequency examination.

You won't drag me into your "sterile controversies" either.

[Greta]

So in addition I use a Windows only app on an aging laptop called Lossless Audio Checker.

Actually, there's also a Mac (and Linux) version of this software but it's command line only and I'm far to be a "Power User", lol.
I would like to have a tool like that to help me with the ambiguous situations, although in reality I would like to be able to distinguish every single case on my own without doubts.
Btw, is that software trustworthy?