dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

[arthurb]

Hello,
I am trying to change some 24/192 FLAC files from Level 5 to Level 2 compression (FLAC5 -> Wave -> FLAC2 as I'm cautious), but when I convert the Wave files I get the same compression percentage as I did with Level 5. It appeared to work as required the first time I did this but now, with different files of course, seems to insist on using the default level. Has anyone experienced this, and/or got any idea what may be happening or what I am doing wrong.

dBpa V17 - 64 bit on Windows 10.

[arthurb]

Re: dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

A few more thoughts about an hour later.

The files that I first converted, and saw a reduction from approximately 50% compression to approx. 37%, were solo piano music; the files that seem unaffected by the compression level are Symphonic works (Bruckner 7th and Beethoven 5th). The latter seem to give a compression of about 50% no matter whether the FLAC level is 0 or 8. There is a slight reduction in filesize between those extremes of 242 to 238MB, and the dBpa Explorer pop-up gives the compression level as 49% and 50%; this is not really the difference that I was expecting.

I had begun to wonder if this what one would expect on complex music, but I had reduced the compression level of a Linn Mahler 2nd recording a couple of years ago and level 2 gave a file compression of 37%, so no, it isn't; or, perhaps, wasn't.

Running the conversions with Debug turned on a couple of times confirmed that dBpa was using the requested Level number. But the difference between compression levels 5 and 2 is, at most, about 4MB in approx. 240MB (Compressions of 49 or 50%).

One last thing: specifying uncompressed gives a file size of 474MB - so that definitely works.

As I asked above can anyone shed some light on this, and specifically advise me how to reduce the compression without having to remove it altogether?

[Spoon]

Re: dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

Possibly, the different type of music might not fit well into flacs predictor which gives the compression.

[schmidj]

Re: dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

I am trying to change some 24/192 FLAC files from Level 5 to Level 2 compression (FLAC5 -> Wave -> FLAC2 as I'm cautious), but when I convert the Wave files I get the same compression percentage as I did with Level 5. It appeared to work as required the first time I did this but now, with different files of course, seems to insist on using the default level. Has anyone experienced this, and/or got any idea what may be happening or what I am doing wrong.

Why do you want to change the compression level? FLAC is a lossless encoding, like Zip. No matter what level of compression you use, the playback is identical, the same as if it was a WAV file.

[arthurb]

Re: dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

Thanks for the reply Spoon. I am looking back at other files encoded using previous versions of dBpa. The more lightly compressed Linn Mahler 2nd that I mentioned above was encoded by 'LibFLAC 1.2.1 20070917' (must have been more than just 'a couple of years ago'), the ones I created today are encoded by 'libFLAC 1.3.3 20190804'. I just have the feeling that something is different there - of course I may be way off course.

Thanks for your reply too schmidj. I am aware of what you are saying and understand it, but nonetheless it is very important to me to lower the compression.

[mville]

Re: dBpa Converter forcing FLAC level 5

I am looking back at other files encoded using previous versions of dBpa. The more lightly compressed Linn Mahler 2nd that I mentioned above was encoded by 'LibFLAC 1.2.1 20070917' (must have been more than just 'a couple of years ago'), the ones I created today are encoded by 'libFLAC 1.3.3 20190804'. I just have the feeling that something is different there - of course I may be way off course.

If you go to the flac website, you can take a look at the differences between flac library versions.