# FLAC



## nutts (May 8, 2002)

Why bother with FLAC, when at the highest quality compression you are only compressing by at best 20%? :? (i.e. 6 to 8 ) so why not retain the file as a Wav?

and if you go to a lower quality file/higher compression FLAC (i.e. 1 to 3) you are no longer lossless? :?

Currently I have about 100gb of music at 320kps in MP3 form using the Fraunhofer Pro codec. I have no problem re-ripping it and potentially will do, but can't see past the FLAC vs Wav issue:?

I've just upgraded my whole AV kit, inc the Denon 4308 which can stream from a NAS. I'd prefer to stream the highest quality, but can't see the benefit in FLAC yet...

Pointers and comments appreciated please


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

Above my head :roll:

I wait to see Coupes opinion and just agree with him :wink:


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

jonah said:


> Above my head :roll:
> 
> I wait to see Coupes opinion and just agree with him :wink:


 :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

At the moment I'm just experimenting with lots of different freeware to rip to FLAC/WAV from cd, auto populate V1 & V2 id3 tags and *also *auto add the album artwork to a *tag* and the album folder


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## trev (Aug 5, 2005)

Phew that was pretty intense  got a headache now and still donâ€™t understand it; anyway hope you get sorted whatever it is. :wink:


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## Wallsendmag (Feb 12, 2004)

trev said:


> Phew that was pretty intense  got a headache now and still don't understand it; anyway hope you get sorted whatever it is. :wink:


You're telling me I still have trouble with taps :roll:


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## trev (Aug 5, 2005)

wallsendmag said:


> trev said:
> 
> 
> > Phew that was pretty intense  got a headache now and still donâ€™t understand it; anyway hope you get sorted whatever it is. :wink:
> ...


 :lol: :lol: turn anti clockwise on/ clockwise off unless your at Aviemore.
if so just leave them and run and hope for the best [smiley=toilet.gif]


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

I just re-ripped all my CD's in AIFF before Xmas - figured that i had enough space to do it and then i could convert if needed. If you've got the room and the Denon will handle AIFF / WAV then why compress ?

Cheers

James


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

My thoughts exactly James 

The Denon will handle most formats except ogg. However, on further research the tag handling on the flac is limited (whilst a lot better than the .wav) to Vorbis comments. When a flac is transcoded to mp3/ogg/etc the Vorbis comments are also converted into ID3 tags. Wav tagging is limited, so I've come to the conclusion that I should use flac 

Not from a space management standpoint (I have a couple of TB as NAS), but just functionality. 

Having played with a variety of apps ripping to flac this weekend, ExpressRipPro rips to flac natively, though EAC has more options (even though it uses an external flac encoder like AudioGrabber does).

Anyway, I'm now up to 20gb ripped and a long way still to go :roll:


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

Tags ! - now thats another thing. Got some neat apps running in iTunes to embed my album art as Squeezeserver was having trouble extracting it but it still has trouble with some

Anyone know a good source of more obscure album art ?

ta

James


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

iTunes, now that's another thing :wink: :lol:

Wouldn't touch an ipod/itunes with a barge pole. I simply share my Nokia N95 8gb drive and drop tracks into the relevant directory  Works for me 8)

Not sure how the Denon uses artwork, but I'm fairly sure I've seen freeware out there that will autopopulate artwork using a multitude of sources :?


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

iTunes isnt that bad. Very good for organising my music, downloading podcasts etc and keeping my work iPod up to date. Squeezecentre works nicely with it for music round the house. Works for me 8)


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

coupe-sport said:


> iTunes isnt that bad. Very good for organising my music, downloading podcasts etc and keeping my work iPod up to date. Squeezecentre works nicely with it for music round the house. Works for me 8)


I cant get itunes to import FLAC files. :?

Am in process of archiving all my music in FLAC form, purely because it's fatest form, truley lossless and a good starting point for an archive. I still put everything at 320kps for ipod etc.

Have yet to listen to back to back Mp/34, wav/wma 320 kps and FLACs files of same tracks on a decent reference system.


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

garyc said:


> coupe-sport said:
> 
> 
> > iTunes isnt that bad. Very good for organising my music, downloading podcasts etc and keeping my work iPod up to date. Squeezecentre works nicely with it for music round the house. Works for me 8)
> ...


Except it's not "truely" lossless... On most of the flac rippers I've now played with, you can still choose the level of ripped quality. Flac has a 1 to 8 scale, where 5 isn't "normal" lossless, 1 is the lowest quality and 8 is the highest quality. Everything I've ripped so far has been at 6.

If it was truely lossless, what are you flexing between 1 and 8? :?


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

coupe-sport said:


> Anyone know a good source of more obscure album art ?
> 
> ta
> 
> James


James you have an email. I've attached an app that you put the artist and album and it searches a host of sites for the cover artwork. Give it a try.

Cheers
Mark


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

Nice one Mark 8)


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

coupe-sport said:


> Nice one Mark 8)


Let me know if it works


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## mde-tt (Aug 7, 2007)

nutts said:


> My thoughts exactly James
> 
> The Denon will handle most formats except ogg. However, on further research the tag handling on the flac is limited (whilst a lot better than the .wav) to Vorbis comments. When a flac is transcoded to mp3/ogg/etc the Vorbis comments are also converted into ID3 tags. Wav tagging is limited, so I've come to the conclusion that I should use flac
> 
> ...


I've read this thread 4 times and it still doesn't make sense to me. 

My final thoughts, as my head throbs with all the extra input, is that you guys must be very smart to understand this kind of thing. 
But as every day is a school day, and the best way to test knowledge is to share it; WTF is all that stuff about in thicko speak?


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## W7 PMC (May 6, 2002)

nutts said:


> jonah said:
> 
> 
> > Above my head :roll:
> ...


Way too much time on your hands Mark. Go to the pub or something :lol:


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## W7 PMC (May 6, 2002)

garyc said:


> coupe-sport said:
> 
> 
> > iTunes isnt that bad. Very good for organising my music, downloading podcasts etc and keeping my work iPod up to date. Squeezecentre works nicely with it for music round the house. Works for me 8)
> ...


You too must have too much time on your hands, get some work done :lol:


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## spumanti (Jan 31, 2008)

nutts said:


> Except it's not "truely" lossless... On most of the flac rippers I've now played with, you can still choose the level of ripped quality. Flac has a 1 to 8 scale, where 5 isn't "normal" lossless, 1 is the lowest quality and 8 is the highest quality. Everything I've ripped so far has been at 6.
> 
> If it was truely lossless, what are you flexing between 1 and 8? :?


Hi.

FLAC is _truely lossless_ no matter what compression rate you choose.

The setting you can change from 1 to 8 is the compression level -i.e. how CPU intensive the conversion to FLAC and reading from FLAC is.

Using setting 8 you get the smallest files, which is more CPU intensive to encode and decode.

Using setting 1 you get almost no compression, but it doesn't require so much of your CPU.

Either way the FLAC is lossless.

I always use compression rate 8 to get the smallest possible files, and my SlimServer - SqueezeBox plays them just fine too.

Hope this makes sense!


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

spumanti said:


> nutts said:
> 
> 
> > Except it's not "truely" lossless... On most of the flac rippers I've now played with, you can still choose the level of ripped quality. Flac has a 1 to 8 scale, where 5 isn't "normal" lossless, 1 is the lowest quality and 8 is the highest quality. Everything I've ripped so far has been at 6.
> ...


Sort of makes sense - depending on how the tokenisation algorithm works during compression - but do you know a clever way to get FLAC into iTunes?


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

http://www.macworld.com/article/51774/2006/07/ogg.html

The link in the artcile takes you to Mac and Windows downloads.

Cheers

James


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## Lock_Stock (May 22, 2007)

garyc said:


> spumanti said:
> 
> 
> > nutts said:
> ...


As I understand it, all music compression algorithms use the same principle. They vary slightly in how they 'decompress' the file meaning some sound different to others. If the file is smaller, given the analogue nature of the source (I know technically it is digital) then the resulting file has lost some of the data. In simple terms it chops the top and bottoms off the music, mainly outside the human range and then deduces what was there when it decompresses the file. The Bit rate also contributes which is just the number of slices per second of information.

Even a CD is not lossless, regarless of what people say. It is digitised data, and does not capture 100% of the source, it is just so close you cannot really hear the difference.

If you disagree, please be specific.


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## spumanti (Jan 31, 2008)

I must agree, that seen from an audiophile's viewpoint, a CD is in its nature lossy, as is every digital media trying to store data from an analogue source.

However; using the CD as a reference point, the FLAC music format is lossless.
If you encode a WAV file to FLAC, it is possible to restore the WAV file completely from the FLAC, with no loss of data.

Of course if you rip a CD to FLAC, you will loose the track-order and leading silence in between tracks, but the audio itself will be 100% intact.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac for more detailed info.


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## coupe-sport (May 7, 2002)

> Even a CD is not lossless, regarless of what people say. It is digitised data, and does not capture 100% of the source, it is just so close you cannot really hear the difference


Why do you say that ?

James


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

Lock_Stock said:


> garyc said:
> 
> 
> > spumanti said:
> ...


I sort of disagree about your decompression alogorithms all be same analagy. Some algorithms chop the top and bottom ends, then have varying degrees of 'squeeze' for the bits that are left. Other data compression algorithms use tokenisation - which work across the whole spectrum to replace multiple common repeating bit sequences or patterns with a single token mark for each incidence, but actually takes nothing away to deduce later. The tokens are removed before the DAC restoring the full original digital file for play back/restore.

Some of these algorithms hark from data back up technologies, where HW or SW data compression is key to speed. The best example of tokenisation for illustration purposes, would be to imagine you had to store the contents of 100 PC laptops. With tokenisation you would only store one copy of say MS Office for all the 200 incidences with a token marker in place for all othe others , achieving great compression. But you would still get a full version of Office for every incidence.

Now I dont know which audio formats use what algorithms...

As for Cds not being 100% efficient and therfore lossless by nature. What if the sound source for recording is digital? Zero loss. :wink:


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## HardDrive (May 10, 2002)

The point of using FLAC over WAV is that FLAC will store tags like Track, artist and album name. WAV doesn't. All FLAC formats are lossless.


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