The default FLAC compression level tends to be 5 for most applications. I firstly ripped the two songs into uncompressed WAV files, and then encoded them into FLAC from the command line using the following code:. System specs: Intel Core i Bloomfield 3. Below you will find information about the two songs used as tests, and the results in sortable tables :. From both tests, it seems like FLAC compression level 3 is the right trade-off between file size and additional encoding time.
Probably not. However, my current collection is approximately hours or minutes. That means that I will save somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12 GiB for my entire collection. Maybe or maybe not. At the rate that storage prices are dropping, FLAC 0 would seem like the obvious answer, but for so very little of an increase in encoding time, FLAC 3 makes more sense.
Skip to comment form. This article was signposted during a search for information on the compression of WAV files using FLAC and whether using high compression settings affects sound quality. Nearly all the discussion on this page is about finding the optimum trade-off between time invested in ripping a bunch of CDs and the cost of storage.
Others have observed the same anomaly. Further searching through the audiophile forums suggests the sound quality is improved if the rip is to WAV rather than FLAC; if FLAC is used then better sound quality is achieved if i the rip uses level 0 in preference to uncompressed FLAC and any other level; and ii all tags are removed from the rip.
This is purely a consideration about sound quality, not about preferences or convenience. Are there alternative codecs, which deliver improvements in sound quality, such as ALAC? However, is there a reasonable explanation for the perceived difference in the sound quality when replaying compressed FLAC files? The explanation offered by Paul McGowan in the video makes a lot of sense to me, suggesting it is down to the way a rendering device is able to decode a FLAC file.
Storage is so cheap these days, seems like a no brainer to me… also Flac 0 is less likely to hiccup on a slower system since decoding it is less demanding to decode. So, Zac, have you any experience comparing the sound quality of FLAC files using different compression levels and is there an explanation for any differences, other than processing overhead when replaying the file?
Thanks for your comment. In my opinion, I think that the quality of the hardware decoding the FLAC will be more important than anything relating to the encoding process. To answer your question about comparing the sound quality of various compression levels, yes, I tried all of the ones mentioned in this article on my 2-channel system at home. I was not able to detect any differences.
There are no differences in FLAC, it is a bit by bit lossless format. We use it to master our audio files for our sound libraries and archive old game and movie projects that have a lot of files. As a teacher of sound design and an audio engineer that has a mastering studio I can tell you that in the course of my teaching career, many students and colleagues also told me that they can hear differences between PCM-WAV and FLAC files.
You can do one yourself using the awesome ABX comparison plugin for Foobar Here you can see both files playing at normal volume together. I mark the phase reverse in one of the tracks. That being said, the information that you provided may help others.
The links just contain simple screenshots of my experiment and are hosted in the known ImgBB. If that is a site-wide policy then no problem, the images are just for your information.
There is a key misunderstanding about FLAC, you at the of your published writing may not be aware about. FLAC is asymmetrical in terms of encoding and decoding time. When FLAC was developed one of the goals was to make a lossless encoder that is asymmetrical.
Encoding times are longer, but decoding times near real-time. With CPUs becoming more powerful, the encoding time is very low.
In fact there is a project that helped spur greater compression and speed development in the main FLAC branch. Once again you can find more detailed information at hydrogenaud.
So for archival purposes, there is no reason to encode a FLAC at level 0. The time difference encoding between 0 to 8 is there but the space savings is there. CueTools is also set to encode into tracks and create both a cue sheet, and a m3u file.
Produce a log file of its rip, along with AccurateRIP logging and extraction log. This is done so I can recreate the cd if need be.
For something I have purchased off a website like 7digital. I purchase in FLAC always. At this point I can run it through Cuetools set exactly the same, just to see if there is a difference in encoding levels. In fact, this is how I came across this post.
I was doing some research into what encoding level 7digital does to its FLAC. I noticed a 40 meg difference between their version of an album and my re-encoding of the same album that uses their FLAC files a a source. There is space savings. So you are basicly trading upfront time to encode a file to make an archive. Which is fine. I can run the encoding over night if need be. Thank you for your comment. You are correct about FLAC being asymmetric in terms of encoding versus decoding.
With processors continuing to get faster and storage continuing to get cheaper, the level is becoming less relevant altogether. As such, hopefully this post is still relevant today and can help people make informed decisions by reading the comments as well. Apologies if this has already been covered in the plethora of comments.
Recently I did some ripping tests using dbPowerAmp. For me I would like to save hard drive space becuase it is a solid state drive at only Gb, but even more importantly I need to keep the files smaller to fit onto Micro SD cards. Thank you for your feedback regarding your experience! Instead, if you want to encode a flac file with a different level, you would need to first decode it and then pass it to flac encoder again.
As it happens, I had already chosen 3 previously down from 8 and I did actually notice a difference in sound quality. Those are very interesting findings. My guess is that the difference could be based on the decoding capabilities of the player. Tony, Our ears sometimes play tricks on us. Rest assured, the quality is exactly the same, unless your CD was scratched.
But in that case the ripping software would have shown some errors. If you do a blind test, the difference will go away. What is Compression ratio? Wich best compression ratio to converting to vorbis ogg format kbps, 16 bits sample, Hz sampe rate?
The compression ratios indicate the file size as compared to the original, uncompressed audio track. You can see more about the Ogg Vorbis compression levels here:. Create New Forum Account. What's New? Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last Jump to page: Results 1 to 15 of Thread Tools Show Printable Version. FLAC Compression level? So where does Uncompressed fit into the levels?
Instead, if you want to encode a flac file with a different level, you would need to first decode it and then pass it to flac encoder again. As it happens, I had already chosen 3 previously down from 8 and I did actually notice a difference in sound quality.
Those are very interesting findings. My guess is that the difference could be based on the decoding capabilities of the player. Tony, Our ears sometimes play tricks on us. Rest assured, the quality is exactly the same, unless your CD was scratched. But in that case the ripping software would have shown some errors. If you do a blind test, the difference will go away. What is Compression ratio? Wich best compression ratio to converting to vorbis ogg format kbps, 16 bits sample, Hz sampe rate?
The compression ratios indicate the file size as compared to the original, uncompressed audio track. You can see more about the Ogg Vorbis compression levels here:. Below some explanation in detail. The short version is that compression levels seems not always to be correctly translated by some audio brands firmware.
In my case Naim. When converting the files to uncompressed FLAC files, problem was solved. Nevertheless, above is still a great article and before the firmware upgrade, this worked brilliantly.
I had it too at compression level 3. Now the not so quick note on the compression levels. My entire cd collection mostly 16bit Although I cannot find anything on the Naim forums, it turns out that the software does treat compression levels badly. In anycase, this explained the decraded audio experience with the firmware upgrade, which after approx. Up till now I used my superuniti which I downgraded back 3 years ago when my music experience seemed to be worse with the newer firmware.
Thanks to my unitiqute2 newest firmware, which showed the actual perceived bitrate, I now know why. Naim claims the the UnitiServe is the best and maybe their only way to get exact rips. Anybody who understands a bit about machine language knows that any zero and one wrong can lead to a programme failure and therefore there are no errors if you rip with your computer. Thank you, Jon, for sharing your experience here! This is a reason that I strongly suggest a vendor-neutral approach to decoding.
Again, though, thank you for sharing your experience! I am in the process of rejuvinating older recordings in various formats to compile and burn as an audio CD and as flac is able to accept metadata editing, to include CD text and ISRC code, It seemed to me that converting all to lossless flac prior to burning as a CDA would not need any compression and set it to zero default was 5. Imagine my gratitude for the information provided in your post!
By setting the compression to zero I am enjoying the benefits of much faster conversion time. Computers are getting more powerful. Sure, USB sticks are getting larger, and the cost of a single GB flash drive is affordable, But music databases are ever increasing.
Truth be said, I have about DJ mixes of each 2 hours in length. WMA, and live with the minor artifacts. However, Opus is best at 96kbits. Much better than any other. Pretty transient. The meaning for WMA VBR Q0, is not to be transient, nor recoding, but to capture as much audio in as small of a space possible, without sounding overly annoying with artifacts. Anyway, back to Flac; I would consider your future. Hard drives are not going to surpass much beyond the current 2TB disk size.
It is expected that future devices like cellphones will compress music at the same speed as current desktops, so I would really try to give it your best in compression. Thank you for your opinions regarding compression and storage space. I have USB in the car for sticks and Bluetooth from my phone.
Of course with this much cheap storage available, no compression is likely to be an option for many. Thanks for your thoughts, Robby. Even if one can get a GB SD card it still takes a lot of space so every single bit tends to be important. Mostly it takes ones time to do the names of the files.
What exactly are you trying to do by changing the filenames? Nice to know. This is due to sharing the flac with my mobile device, where the savings, although small, adds up quickly.
Thanks for your comments and questions. FLAC 0 will generate a larger file size, but will be decoded with less processing power. That should give you a reasonable set to use as a comparison. The page for abcde indicates that it calculates replaygain values, and abcde is for encoding. I use a headless system to perform all my ripping. I set it up to rip at level 8 compression. I have many TB of flac files, and the time to do the extra compression once seems worse to me than the ongoing cost of additional storage no matter how cheap it gets, as my media collection keeps growing.
Thanks for your feedback! Zach, I am interested in what you are seeing for decoding times. I have seen little here on that, but much more on the encoding time unless I missed it. But as I am starting to look into some portable flac media players that may actually become an issue. Much like you, I also mostly use old or legacy type hosts. I hence recommend FLAC Glad that you found the article helpful.
Good extension of it. So the link now is:. This table is very helpful; thank you for all the testing. I assume decode times have a similar trend to encode times? With GB microSD cards! The difference does seem negligible for a laptop or tower. Decode times are essentially negligible on any modern hardware. I ended up going with FLAC level 3 for my needs, but everyone is different.
Do your OGG files compare well to mp3s? I have a very high-end mobile as well, and am using a class 3 microSD card. All 16 bit, 48kHz? Or If compression level 8 is fast enough for you then there isn't any reason not to use it, although it typically only gains you a few percent over level 5.
You might try the -e option also. That is indeed an unusually large difference in size. I doubt that it has much to do with the version of Flac used to encode the files. I would suggest re-encoding the original again with Flac 1. There's also the possibility that the original was encoded with no compression.
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