compression questions . . .

khushy · 23 Sep 2008 at 21:54

I currently use EAC with either MP3 or (most recently) FLAC compression - my question is why (instead of FLAC) not just take a direct WAV copy of whats on the CD so that you dont use any compressionat all - surely that will produce the very best quality music - whih is what I am after.

FLAC certainly is much better than an MP3 at any bit rate IMHO.

The way EAC works is that it rips the track from a CD ina WAV file first then it uses the external compression file to convert it to your file of choice - MP3 FLAC etc - whats the point exactly apart from savinga few MB's

khushy

Hxc · 23 Sep 2008 at 22:08

FLAC is lostless. No information is lost. You can get the WAV back from it.

Think of it like a zip specialized for WAV.

khushy · 23 Sep 2008 at 22:13

I have been reading a bit about this - WAV is supposedly exactly what is ripped from a CD - OK its a big file and FLAC compression (zip as you say) saves up to 50% of the file size - but on an MP3 player it takes more cpu power to play a FLAC than a WAV and in the compression you must loose something for it to be compressed in the first place.

So for ALL OUT - BEST quality surely you are better off with a WAV file?

khushy

Hxc · 23 Sep 2008 at 22:17

The quality is the same, you don't lose anything. Much like when you compress a word doc in a zip file, you don't lose half the words.

It does take more power to play it, as it has to be decompressed as it's played.

khushy · 23 Sep 2008 at 22:27

ok . . .

I am getting to grips with this . . .

so more memory per file but less cpu power = WAV
less memory per file but more cpu power = FLAC

with no loss in original CD quality

much less memory per file but even more cpu power = MP3 but much less quality too

etc etc

khushy

Flibster · 24 Sep 2008 at 00:10

Flac and MP3 require close to the same amount of processor time to decode. It's due to the way FLAC is encoded - long to encode, short to decode. However, the reading from memory of the larger flac file will make it drain the battery faster.

On my D2 I get about 40 hours play from a charge with only 320kbps mp3 and around 32 hours with level 8 encoded FLAC files.

I would suspect that FLAC and WAV use the close to the same amount of battery power and it will spend more time reading the file with WAV and mroe time decoding with FLAC.

Energize · 24 Sep 2008 at 03:42

One thing to note is that flac doesn't always reduce the file size, as with all forms of lossless compression it will increase the size of some files.

wonko · 24 Sep 2008 at 18:18

As others have said, flac is lossless so quality is exactly the same as the original wav. Other than saving on storage space, the big practical benefit of using flac over wav is the ability to include tag data, album art, etc. No standard way of doing this with wav IIRC.