CD sound Vs FLAC sound of the same track

I am searching for help on this one for sometime now. I hope I will have a few good responses.
I bought the Onkyo TXNR609 (TI Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-Bit DACs on all channels 32-Bit DSP chip for advanced processing) because it has a USB input to be able to playback FLAC files.
1. I am disappointed to find that the play back of the ripped FLAC (44.1/16), via USB into Receiver, is not as good as the original CD.
2. My equipment: LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA-4020B ripping drive, Cambridge Audio 650BD DVD/CD player, Onkyo TXNR609 Receiver (with USB input can only plays up to 96/24 FLAC files via USB).
Q1:Which could be the weak link in the rip/playback chain? (a) Ripper drive, (b) EHD/USB output to Receiver or (c) receiver? . The track ripped by EAC gives a confidence 2 and ripped by dBpoweramp gives an accuracy of 2. Does this show I may need something like Plextor 230A or similar for ripping to a high accuracy? Or is there another reason? perhaps the Receiver DAC? I need to eliminate the cause before I rip all my CDs.
The track used as a test is U2, The Joshua Tree, Where the streets have no name.
Any help will be most appreciated.
Regards
William

 

FLAC files use lossless compression and should sound exactly like the uncompressed files.
If you are using WinOS there could be something wrong with your OS configuration (kernel, Asio drivers, etc.) but unfortunately I am a MacOS user so I can't help you there.

On the other hand, unless the DAC is able to re-clock the incoming data your USB connection will be adding a "bit" of jitter.

Cheers,
Ric

 

You're comparing 2 dacs if i understand this right. One in the cdp and one in the receiver. If your cdp has a digital out try running that into a digital in on the receiver then compare cd/flac. Sounds like it might be the receiver letting you down.

Your rips sound healthy and another drive for ripping may be a waste of cash unless the current one starts struggling with a few discs. Although a TEAC DW-224SL-R would be one to look out for. Old but you can still find them. Got mine and enclosure for £20.

 

your comparing apples and oranges [pun intended]

as stated you need to play both file and cd through the same dac ..

your actually using two different systems ..then asking why does the cd sound better on my mates system than it does on mine !

 

go though an independent dac that has the facility of catering from both sources to compare the sampling to the soud preferred, you will find that both souerces going through one dac will be and sound identical pending on the capability of the digital out put souerce in khz but a good dac should cope with that to it's capability to upsample.