# Can spectrogram lie about audio quality? **URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-spectrogram-lie-about-audio-quality/17591 **Category:** Off-Topic **Created:** [January 26, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-spectrogram-lie-about-audio-quality/17591 "2016-01-26T20:07:26Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 8
### Author: ![Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/zerow/32/11379_2.png) [@Zerow](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zerow) #### Post date: [January 28, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-spectrogram-lie-about-audio-quality/17591/8 "2016-01-28T17:46:44Z")
> [@zerow](#): > > What I take from this is: what really counts is the number of kHz and how the look > [...] > A tell sign are also empty horizontal areas going through the entire width [or at least some parts of a file visible as distinctive blocks]; which can be unfortunately masked pretty good by noise > [...] > In theory all you need is your eyes and some experience. But unfortunately one must consider this: if during the mixing of a file / record were used some low quality samples, then this will show up even when ripped directly from a CD, misleading the viewer. [An example of this is track "Running With The Wolves" by The Prodigy] I thought I had this figured out But I just do not know what's happening in this file: [http://lilfile.com/tWJoGi](http://lilfile.com/tWJoGi) It is suppose to be FLAC and looks like it- but aside from that incomplete horizontal line Spectro specifically tells that this is the cut-of line [the point where the faking begins]. But it should go all the way. And also what is above it looks quite natural. But I do hear some things in it that make me wonder, if there were compressed indeed. And there are other examples like that on that FLAC album that this files comes from The only explanation for this that I can think of is that parts of this file were made [mixed] from different recordings / tracks. But that doesn't make much sense- why would original score, written by one composer and [as to my knowledge] conducted and sometimes recorder by him, be of different quality? Something like that is to be expected if you create music using samples [like The Prodigy does]- but not in a film music compositions --- _[View the full topic](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-spectrogram-lie-about-audio-quality/17591)._