Lossless to lossless and compression questions

[Conspera]

Just downloaded a .wav file and converted it to FLAC, and everything seems fine, but then I tried to reconvert it back to a .wav file out of curiosity. Since this is lossless, I'm wondering if there will be any issues or differences if you convert lossless to another lossless format such as FLAC to .wav (well, apart from the obvious increase in size).

Along with that comes the compression... I'm not too familiar with lossless formats, but it seems that as the compression, as in the single-digit numbers ( not the percentages) in dBpowerAMP goes down, such as when converting to FLAC, the size increases. I'm just wondering... what difference does it make to have it lower? Aside from the increase in size, the quality should be the same, right?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Oops, I meant to post this in the dBpowerAMP Music Converter Support forum. Sorry about that.

[xoas]

Re: Lossless to lossless and compression questions

As you surmise, lossless means lossless. This means that any lossless codec should preserve 100% of the audio information contained in the source audio. So you should not lose any audio information or quality converting from wave to Flac or back again or converting between lossless codecs.

With lossless codecs there is no change in the quality of the files associated with different compression rates (as is the case with mp3 and the other "lossy" codecs where more compression results in lower quality). The trade-off with lossless codecs is between file size (more compression results in a smaller file) vs. conversion time (it takes longer to achieve more compression).

Hope this helps.

PS-We (more exactly, the two moderators, ChristinaS and LtData) will see this gets transferred to the proper section of the forum.

Best wishes,
Bill

[LtData]

Re: Lossless to lossless and compression questions

Moved to dMC Support.

Also, the compression rate adjusts how much CPU time is required to decompress the file. Normally, unless you are REALLY strapped for space, its best to leave it on the middle value, such as "Normal" or the like. It is the best compromise of space vs. decompressoin time.