CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

[tunes]

When I first used CD Ripper I was told that the best encoding compression option was lossless level 5 (default) but after reading a bit, there are those who say that for best possible sound quality selecting uncompressed gives better sound than any compressed level.

1. Is this true or not?

2. With the limit of human hearing could anyone tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed flac files?

3. Can I convert from lossless level 5 to uncompressed flac for all of my music library. I currently have ~ 111 GB on an SD card in my player. If I converted over to uncompressed flac what would be the size of my new library? I have two 200 mb SD cards.

Thanks

[thexfile]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Compressed lossless output file is as good as it can get. If you want a level of 1 or 8 it doesn't effect the sound at all.

In my FiiO player I use (5) just because I don't want to think about it.

[jultsu]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

The audio content stays exactly the same no matter which level of compression you use. Some argue that the increased load placed on the hardware with compressed files (due to running data extraction in real time) could have an audible effect on the analogue side of the player. The less intensive the task is, the less current flows through the circuitboard/cables and induces less magnetic fields which could disrupt the analogue operation. Best if you just try it for yourself.

Compressed albums usually run at 200-400MB, uncompressed will be roughly double that.

[garym]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

if you're getting different sound quality from any different compression levels of a FLAC file (uncompressed or 0-8) then something is broken in your system. All FLAC files are decoded to the exact same PCM data before playback.

[Jailhouse]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Quoted from Carlton Bale (emphasis mine):

"The CPU decode load is constant regardless of the encode compression setting. The CPU cycles are spent trying to encode to the smallest possible file size that meets the FLAC format, but the decode is the same regardless."

[jultsu]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

And after the D/A conversion anything is possible, even an ant's fart could make a difference on the analogue operation.

[thexfile]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

The compression level is just looking for any unused bits that can be trimmed off.

[garym]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

And after the D/A conversion anything is possible, even an ant's fart could make a difference on the analogue operation.

Agree! At that point it's mostly up to speakers, speaker placement, and room or room treatment.

[garym]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Quoted from Carlton Bale (emphasis mine):

"The CPU decode load is constant regardless of the encode compression setting. The CPU cycles are spent trying to encode to the smallest possible file size that meets the FLAC format, but the decode is the same regardless."

This quote is consistent with how I've always understood things to work. That is, the computer may work a little harder ENCODING the file to FLAC at higher compression levels, but it is irrelevant on the DECODING side. I always just assumed that Spoon provided "uncompressed FLAC" for audiophiles/phools that were unnecessarily paranoid.

[Jailhouse]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Some people just don't want to use compression, and Level 0 is there for them.

For anyone who's interested, the link I provided doesn't work because a hashtag was somehow changed to an asterisk. The correct link text is below; copy and paste it into your browser's address bar, or click on the link and correct the text in the address bar. Either way works. (I didn't make it a link because that causes a post to be delayed. Moomph.)

http://carltonbale.com/configure-dbpoweramp-bit-perfect-cd-ripping/*comment-133894

[garym]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Some people just don't want to use compression, and Level 0 is there for them.

Actually, level 0 is still compressed. It's the "uncompressed" that is for those folks.

[Jailhouse]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Actually, level 0 is still compressed.

Oops! My bad. Thanks for setting me straight.

Well, I'll be damned if the hashtag in the link wasn't changed to an asterisk again. Moomph. This one should point to the beginning of the article (I hope):

http://carltonbale.com/configure-dbpoweramp-bit-perfect-cd-ripping/

[JohnM1966]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Can I assume that there would be no issues for any device to play a flac file whether uncompressed or compressed at a certain level?

[garym]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Can I assume that there would be no issues for any device to play a flac file whether uncompressed or compressed at a certain level?

correct. No reasonably modern player (last 15 years) would have any issues whatsoever.

[Oggy]

Re: CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

Can I assume that there would be no issues for any device to play a flac file whether uncompressed or compressed at a certain level?

I started on the default 5 and now use 8. A work colleague started on 5 and now uses uncompressed, even though he admits he can hear no difference whatsoever between Uncompressed, level 5 and level 8!

I guess storage is cheap these days...