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DB Poweramp and Lossless flac


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Hi all

i have been using DB Poweramp to rip my CD’s as Lossless FLAC.  However, if I go into the files with windows explorer after the rip, I notice that all files have been compressed by 20 to 50%.  I noticed this before my last couple of rips, made sure the settings were lossless,  however have noticed that all files are 20% or so compressed.

 

what have I done wrong

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27 minutes ago, srms said:

Compressed from the original CD file size? FLAC is a lossless compression format so they will be compressed.

 

FLAC Compression

 

Everyone has their favourite tool for ripping, I like EAC

 

Cheers

 

Aah, I took the term lossless to mean identical.  Is there a 1:1 format.

I think I use to use level 5, however my most recent ripping has been at level 0, which I took as 1:1

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FLAC is a compression algorithm (analogous to, say, Zip, or ...) (plus a few other capabilities like storing meta-data, cover art etc.), for taking a music file (the raw material is PCM encoded digital data) and making it smaller, yet still retaining the original content.  Nothing is lost, nothing is discarded ie. it is lossless.

 

It is the whole point of FLAC that it makes the file size smaller by being cunning about the storage process.  Of course you need an application to understand what FLAC has done so it can restore the file to its original bit perfect state before or during playing.

 

Original data = PCM

Uncompressed lossless file types = AIFF, WAV and others?

Compressed lossless file types = FLAC, ALAC and others

Lossy (ie information has been discarded) = MP3, AAC and others

 

Once the PCM has been converted to a lossy format the original bits can never be recovered, so always rip to lossless to preserve fidelity.

 

FLAC level 5 is what most programs use as default compression strength.  I can see no reason to use any other level.

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14 hours ago, aechmea said:

FLAC is a compression algorithm (analogous to, say, Zip, or ...) (plus a few other capabilities like storing meta-data, cover art etc.), for taking a music file (the raw material is PCM encoded digital data) and making it smaller, yet still retaining the original content.  Nothing is lost, nothing is discarded ie. it is lossless.

 

It is the whole point of FLAC that it makes the file size smaller by being cunning about the storage process.  Of course you need an application to understand what FLAC has done so it can restore the file to its original bit perfect state before or during playing.

 

Original data = PCM

Uncompressed lossless file types = AIFF, WAV and others?

Compressed lossless file types = FLAC, ALAC and others

Lossy (ie information has been discarded) = MP3, AAC and others

 

Once the PCM has been converted to a lossy format the original bits can never be recovered, so always rip to lossless to preserve fidelity.

 

FLAC level 5 is what most programs use as default compression strength.  I can see no reason to use any other level.

Thanks Aechmea, that makes sense

i gather there is no advantage to using wav over FLAC or vice versa

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1 hour ago, JkSpinner said:

Thanks Aechmea, that makes sense

i gather there is no advantage to using wav over FLAC or vice versa

Some say that they can detect a difference between real-time playing of FLAC versus WAV.  If so, it is likely that the difference is minuscule and probably due to computer hardware/software problems rather than the storage type itself.

 

I haven't experienced a difference myself, but my player software reconstitutes the FLAC file to PCM and then loads the PCM into a very large RAM buffer and is played from there.  So, no chance of any interaction with the un-FLAC-ing process.  In any case the computer power needed to un-FLAC a file is trivial.

 

So, I would say "no advantage" sound quality wise. 

 

FLAC has advantages for archival reasons (ie smaller file size) . 

FLAC is also good for ability to store metadata about the music.  The metadata is used by many "music" software apps, so is becoming a necessity. 

There are a few apps that can't play FLAC but they are few and far between.  FLAC is pretty universal these days.

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2 minutes ago, aechmea said:

Some say that they can detect a difference between real-time playing of FLAC versus WAV.  If so, it is likely that the difference is minuscule and probably due to computer hardware/software problems rather than the storage type itself.

 

I haven't experienced a difference myself, but my player software reconstitutes the FLAC file to PCM and then loads the PCM into a very large RAM buffer and is played from there.  So, no chance of any interaction with the un-FLAC-ing process.  In any case the computer power needed to un-FLAC a file is trivial.

 

So, I would say "no advantage" sound quality wise. 

 

FLAC has advantages for archival reasons (ie smaller file size) . 

FLAC is also good for ability to store metadata about the music.  The metadata is used by many "music" software apps, so is becoming a necessity. 

There are a few apps that can't play FLAC but they are few and far between.  FLAC is pretty universal these days.

Excellent post!

 

I have read that some people can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC, but I can't. 

 

When I started with computer based music I went the FLAC way as it required less storage. Now people argue that storage is cheap, but the main issue for me against WAV is the metadata issue as you have said.

 

I use FLAC at compression 5.

 

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2 hours ago, aechmea said:

Some say that they can detect a difference between real-time playing of FLAC versus WAV.  If so, it is likely that the difference is minuscule and probably due to computer hardware/software problems rather than the storage type itself.

 

I haven't experienced a difference myself, but my player software reconstitutes the FLAC file to PCM and then loads the PCM into a very large RAM buffer and is played from there.  So, no chance of any interaction with the un-FLAC-ing process.  In any case the computer power needed to un-FLAC a file is trivial.

 

So, I would say "no advantage" sound quality wise. 

 

FLAC has advantages for archival reasons (ie smaller file size) . 

FLAC is also good for ability to store metadata about the music.  The metadata is used by many "music" software apps, so is becoming a necessity. 

There are a few apps that can't play FLAC but they are few and far between.  FLAC is pretty universal these days.

I have all my FLAC saved to both a NAS and a USB SSD, that is simply plugged into the back of my oppo 105.  Is there a better way to do this?

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1 minute ago, JkSpinner said:

I have all my FLAC saved to both a NAS and a USB SSD, that is simply plugged into the back of my oppo 105.  Is there a better way to do this?

It is actually better that many others have. It is good as you have it. There is one possible further step you may have to follow.

 

Firstly: A variation is that you could just have it on the SSD, but that would remove the convenience as well as the backup the NAS provides

 

More importantly, and that is a an issue we all have to consider: What is your offsite backup? 

 

Please read this: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/cloud-music-library-backup-r1002/

 

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3 hours ago, JkSpinner said:

I have all my FLAC saved to both a NAS and a USB SSD, that is simply plugged into the back of my oppo 105.  Is there a better way to do this?

That should work fine; very direct and no problems.

 

For backup I have one USB drive connected to the hifi, so that I can play from that if I want to.  All FLAC files.

Another drive is in another room.

A third drive is in another town altogether.

You would need a nuclear accident to destroy all of them at once.

 

Better than paying for insurance and one can always re-burn a CD if that's what you normally play and it gets damaged.

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6 hours ago, Gieseler Audio said:

When ripping to FLAC In DB Poweramp there is a setting called "uncompressed"

The size of a file after ripping in this mode is actually very slightly larger than a "WAV" rip.

 

I ripped 12 CD’s on the weekend using this setting, thinking this is the case.  I have since checked the files, All files were compressed somewhat.  I will have another crack today

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8 hours ago, Gieseler Audio said:

When ripping to FLAC In DB Poweramp there is a setting called "uncompressed"

The size of a file after ripping in this mode is actually very slightly larger than a "WAV" rip.

 

 

There is more information stored in the FLAC file than in the WAV.  Neither are purely PCM data.  Both have headers, control information, ie. frame size info, stereo/mono switch, and so on.  FLAC goes further than that with the metadata that we are used to (track names, artist, track number, year etc etc) and FLAC can even store the cover art inside the file.  WAV has much less descriptive "stuff".

 

So given the zero music data compression, WAV will be a bit smaller than FLAC.  However, once the PCM data is compressed by FLAC, FLAC files will be smaller.

 

WAV can embed metadata too but the capability is rarely if ever used.

 

The definitive file structures can be found with an internet search.

 

[An analogy might be to think of the file types as suitcases (the file) with clothes (music data) stored in them.  The clothes may be the same but the suitcase is different and the clothes will be arranged differently inside and there may be stuff other than clothes in there as well.]

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The clothes in the suitcase may be inside a vacuum storage bag, to compress them, allowing you to fit them into a smaller suitcase too.. When the clothes come out of the bag, they are still all the same clothes.

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1 hour ago, bob_m_54 said:

The clothes in the suitcase may be inside a vacuum storage bag, to compress them, allowing you to fit them into a smaller suitcase too.. When the clothes come out of the bag, they are still all the same clothes.

 

Over time I've noticed the whole WAV sounds better than FLAC has pretty much died down around here and there was a time when there were some very boisterous claimants of it.
To go along with your analogy the clothes would come out of the suitcase all creased. ?

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On 20/04/2021 at 7:04 AM, Gieseler Audio said:

That is weird, it has been a while but whenever I ripped in uncompressed mode the file size is always

a fraction bigger than the wav size.

I will recheck this morning when I get to work.

I take this back, I have gone back and checked my recent rips, even checked on a different PC, to find that they are in fact uncompressed.  I am totally not sure what I saw on the screen.

however one SACD remained compressed even though it was recorded with no compression.  I figured this may be a SACD thing

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