CD Ripper best sound quality, lossless Level 5 vs uncompressed

[Oggy]

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

Once we had a secretary who told me, that she doesn't zip compress documents for emails, because they will not look so sharp if you print them later on...


Dat Ei

[Dat Ei]

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

Once we had a secretary who told me, that she doesn't zip compress documents for emails, because they will not look so sharp if you print them later on...


Dat Ei

[Oggy]

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

He shouldn't hear any difference (given that all these FLAC files are decoded back to the same lossless audio), unless something is very broken with his server/player!

Was it Spoon who said he put the Uncompressed setting in for the paranoid?!

[garym]

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

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...

He shouldn't hear any difference (given that all these FLAC files are decoded back to the same lossless audio), unless something is very broken with his server/player!

[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...

[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.

[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?

[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/

[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

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

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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."