FLAC Compression - file size difference (specific situation)

[jtaylor991]

Hello! I'm new here, and this looked like the best place to ask this, so here I am. I'm jtaylor991.

So I've been ripping my CDs in Flack Compression Level 0 forever, and I have also downloaded FLAC from Bandcamp.com. So I have a mix of compression levels, most likely.

I decided I might as well save the space and compress further. So I fed my entire FLAC library into dBPowerAmp and converted from FLAC to FLAC Level 6.
Out of ~2900 FLAC files, there was about a 3GB drop in size in the overall folder (I output everything to a new folder, same folder structure).
(There were also 2 files less in the new folder, whatever)

Is that realistic, only 3GB reduction in overall filesize?
If so, I might as well just keep doing things as I have and not bother finding those 2 files that got lost or fixing up the little imperfections in the newly converted library.

If not, what did I do wrong? Is there another way to do this? FLAC to WAV first then to FLAC 6?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

You might do better just to google FLAC and look for the techie sites to explain this.

You're going to get ...what you get! No-one can tell whether a 3Gb gain is good, because you didn't tell what you started with. But, there is no good, or bad... you get what you get.

Another aspect to all this is that, despite being an absolute rationalist about these things ---lossless compression is lossless compression, you get back what you started with and, in theory, it doesn't matter how many times you convert backwards and forwards--- I'm not comfortable with the idea of doing that, between different formats, in practice!

Ultimately, I'm afraid the answer, these days, is... buy more discs!

 

[jtaylor991]

Yeah I didn't did I, oops. 70GB to 67GB was the drop. I was just wondering if that sounds like a decent drop in filesize from FLAC Level 0 to 6, but it doesn't to me.

 

[Nikhil]

Merry Christmas jtaylor991!

Memory and storage is cheap nowadays. Which begs the question why do you really need to add more compression. If audio fidelity is your goal then go in the other direction - uncompressed. The less you touch your files the better. I am currently experimenting with moving from FLAC to WAV.

I saw this on google from a similar discussion here

Cheers!

 

[ranjeetrain]

Is that realistic, only 3GB reduction in overall filesize?
If so, I might as well just keep doing things as I have and not bother finding those 2 files that got lost or fixing up the little imperfections in the newly converted library.

If not, what did I do wrong? Is there another way to do this? FLAC to WAV first then to FLAC 6?

Welcome to HFV jtaylor991,

You did nothing wrong. You got a 5% drop, which is pretty realistic.

How much further drop you will get by increasing the compression level depends on what was initial compression level. FLAC supports 9 compression levels, 0 to 8, with 0 being lowest and 8 being the highest.

The compression level in FLAC has absolutely no bearing on the sound quality, until such a distinction is made by the playback software. Most audiophile-targeted-software players are optimized in certain ways to "improve the fidelity". Such software may work better on one format over another, i.e. their ability to play back and produce results may be better suited for a certain format, but if such distinction is not made and a software just does a bit perfect out to an external DAC with same jitter performance, it will sound absolutely the same.

Bottom line, you did nothing wrong. A gain of 3GB is not surprising. In any case I won't expect more than 10-15% of file-size difference between the maximum and minimum compression.

You may, if you want to be absolutely certain, try this:

(1) Copy 5 files from your collection chosen randomly to a temporary folder. Check their total size.
(2) Uncompress to WAV.
(3) Compress back to FLAC and check the total size of the new files.

I can almost guarantee you, you won't get more than 10% gain.

 

[netant]

jtaylor991,
your question is largely answered by ranjeetrain and a wonderful link provided by Nikhil.
if you are going to use those flac in PC no need to worry but if you even any plan to use them in any standalone player, do consider something else from dBPowerAmp
something like :- New FLAC Frontend

PC would never have problem in decoding level-8 FLAC until it has less then 64MB RAM so wont worry about the compression, compress with Level-8 with confident.

there are various type of FLAC encoder/decoder used by various applications, make sure you encode with only official encoder to maximize the compatibility.

a good read :- What differences among CUETools outputs? libFlake/libFLAC/flake/FLACCL - Hydrogenaudio Forums

 

[netant]

I am currently experimenting with moving from FLAC to WAV.

I would be waiting to lean more about your experience.
how you are cataloging them ?

 

[Nikhil]

I would be waiting to lean more about your experience.
how you are cataloging them ?

Tagging is not a problem with JRiver MC.

I'm suspecting that WAV is a touch more open and natural sounding.
Its nitpicking really and FLAC sounds great. Really depends on the supporting gear to hear the difference.

 

[ukjeyaraj]

I would be waiting to lean more about your experience.
how you are cataloging them ?

I was about to ask the same question. Does WAV has anything like ID3? Is it possible to have album art

 

[Nikhil]

I was about to ask the same question. Does WAV has anything like ID3? Is it possible to have album art

Again ... JRiver 17 onwards supports WAV tagging.
WAV & AIFF Tagging - JRiverWiki

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

FLAC gives pretty good compression compared to, eg, WAV --- but nothing even approaching the lossy compression of MP3, OGG, etc. Where file sizes really count, eg on a small portable player, you have to start sacrificing the music.

For purposes such as that, you would be surprised how good high and variable bit rate MP3, OGG, etc is. On a portable player, you may not tell the difference. Even on your hifi you might find it tough.

The thing is, for most of us, the word lossy is a turn off --- and, as a matter of principle, rather than practice, we don't use MP3 unless we can't get the music any other way. Whether we can hear the difference or not.

 

[manoj.p]

FLAC is already a very efficient compression codec. It cannot really compress beyond certain point because of it's loss-less nature. The higher compresssion profile means it tries to be more intensive and try to compress more it can. That's it. So its not very surprising you are not getting very big drop by changing the profile. It's the same way zip utilities have different compression profiles.

It's better to stay at default level - it gives very good compression and increases compatibility with standalone devices. Using high compression profile means more processing power during playback and all the devices may not support it.

 

[jtaylor991]

hey, thanks for all the great responses! so I guess I didn't do anything wrong.
I wanted the smaller file size for portability, since I'm carrying my FLAC library on my rockboxed iPod classic. I have ~100 of 160gb filled for my entire library. that won't last forever.
I've managed two libraries of different formats side by side before and I'd rather not again if I don't have to. if I can find software that can sync to Rocmbox and concert flac to 320 mp3 on the fly, I'd have no problem with that. mediamonkey gold can but I'm not sure if it can sync with rockbox, ive yet to try it.

 

[musicbee]

Again ... JRiver 17 onwards supports WAV tagging.
WAV & AIFF Tagging - JRiverWiki

I went with FLAC simply because I could tag my music... now that WAV is supported its an option but a daunting prospect since I spent an entire month in ripping and cataloging my CD collection the last time and was in between changing jobs with lots of free time.

FLAC gives pretty good compression compared to, eg, WAV --- but nothing even approaching the lossy compression of MP3, OGG, etc. Where file sizes really count, eg on a small portable player, you have to start sacrificing the music.

For purposes such as that, you would be surprised how good high and variable bit rate MP3, OGG, etc is. On a portable player, you may not tell the difference. Even on your hifi you might find it tough.

The thing is, for most of us, the word lossy is a turn off --- and, as a matter of principle, rather than practice, we don't use MP3 unless we can't get the music any other way. Whether we can hear the difference or not.

Very true.... VBR for the most part is very good and might even win a few blind tests unless of course the equipment itself is very revealing. On a few setups I have found FLAC to have more soundstage and detail but I'm pretty sure it was not apparent to everybody listening... and you will start to lose company when you start tossing around terms like soundstage and detail especially if its music lovers and non-audiophiles you are dealing with.

 

[Staxxx]

At the risk of causing a mini-war on this thread, in terms of absolute sound quality, I am having a problem with compressed FLACs that I purchase.
I rip to WAV and often purchase WAV when I have the option. But one site in particular (for classical music) only offers a highly compressed FLAC format for sale.
There is now little doubt in my mind, after buying over 60 albums, that the sound quality is inferior. I am not sure why (as it is lossless) but I am hypothesizing that it is something to do with the re-conversion and not inherently to do with the file itself.
As I do have a fairly highly resolving system the differences are not subtle

 

[manoj.p]

Oddiophile is a disease! lol
The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon at the Movie Theater - YouTube

 

[ranjeetrain]

At the risk of causing a mini-war on this thread, in terms of absolute sound quality, I am having a problem with compressed FLACs that I purchase.
I rip to WAV and often purchase WAV when I have the option. But one site in particular (for classical music) only offers a highly compressed FLAC format for sale.
There is now little doubt in my mind, after buying over 60 albums, that the sound quality is inferior. I am not sure why (as it is lossless) but I am hypothesizing that it is something to do with the re-conversion and not inherently to do with the file itself.
As I do have a fairly highly resolving system the differences are not subtle

Two possibilities.

(1) Those are indeed lousy recordings.

(2) Psycho-acoustic at play, i.e. since you know you bought compressed FLACs, that plays on mind.

Human brain is an amazing thing. Under circumstances it can see and feel what doesn't exist. It's been proven by a number of noted researchers worldwide. A prime example is V Ramachandran's famous work on phantom limb pain.

Elsewhere on Internet it's easy to find examples of psycho-acoustics and other illusions that can very easily fool human brain. All the differences a person can't tell in a DBT are examples of phycho-acoustics.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Staxxx, why dont you use dbpoweramp to convert all the flacs you purchase to wav? I am doing it already for different reasons (AIFF actually), but the availability of the option to batch convert means that you can choose the format you like anyway.

jtaylor991 - I have seen entire folders disappearing, so do make sure you have back-ups, if you are converting into the same folder as the source with the source being replaced.

 

[Staxxx]

Staxxx, why dont you use dbpoweramp to convert all the flacs you purchase to wav? I am doing it already for different reasons (AIFF actually), but the availability of the option to batch convert means that you can choose the format you like anyway.

jtaylor991 - I have seen entire folders disappearing, so do make sure you have back-ups, if you are converting into the same folder as the source with the source being replaced.

Yes, indeed I do. In fact I play all my music in WAV64 due to the wish of the designer of the music player (MP64).
However, I keep two sets of back ups. One in the converted format and one in the original format that I bought it - usually compressed/uncompressed FLAC or WAV. I have some also in APE.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

The higher the compression, the more work your computer has to do to uncompress the file. Whilst the result should be exactly the same, some suggest that that extra load on the CPu might have some effect on the sound.

I don't have an answer to that. I don't personally believe that it is likely considering the power-house computers of recent years, but we can say that it is not impossible that, while lossless compressed --> uncompressed results results in identical data,, that other factors may be involved.

Having said all that, what I feel is... don't worry about it! :lol:


Staxxx and Ranjeet... I do feel strongly that, just as we can't say that a "high-res" file is wonderful, we can also not say that any other format is inferior, unless we have the original for direct comparison.

I have no psycho-acoustic problems at all with FLAC --- but I am very much aware that I do have (for instance) with Wolfgang's Vault now providing 320kb MP3 instead of FLAC. This is, frankly, particularly unfair of me, because many of those recordings are live concert recordings complete with faults.

And the less I think about it, the better they sound.

I try not to bother to even remember the format when playing music from the PC. Forgetting it really helps musical enjoyment!