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Topic: Comparison of lossless audio formats (Read 5539 times) previous topic - next topic
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Comparison of lossless audio formats

I've added to my site a bigger comparison of audio formats than my previous [2004] page covered. The lossless formats page can be found here:

Lossless audio formats (2006)

The comparison is based on ripping ten varied albums from CD and looks at the time taken and file size produced by each of: uncompressed wave, FLAC, WavPack, Shorten, Monkey's Audio, OptimFROG. I've also looked at the average number of bytes per second each album uses when stored with the five compressed lossless formats.

The page is aimed at people who may be unaware of the options open to them when creating a digital audio library from their CD collection, so I fear that it is rather basic for a group of audiophiles such as found at hydrogenaudio.org. But I hope that the link may be of interest to some here, and I welcome any comments.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #1 –
A job well done.  Thank you, Bobulous !

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #2 –
Bobulous, can you give a date as to your last update? I want to put your page as a link in HA wiki, but I need full date, while you only provide May 2006 there.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #3 –
Good work Bobulous.

I particularly like the graphs and the conclusion for each category.  Both aspects make it nice and easy for lazy people like me to get the picture very quickly.

If I had one gripe it would be that I'm too short.  If I had two gripes it would be that the large font size and letter-spacing mean the tables are too wide even on a 1280x1024 monitor.  I'm all up for WAI compliance, but you could shrink the font down a little more.

Well done.
I'm on a horse.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #4 –
Ah, in curiosity I checked the next page and, though I appreciate you taking your time testing, there's some slight mistakes there.

aoTuV is fine tuning of libVorbis 1.1.1 producing higher quality.

Lancer is the accelerated aoTuV, and it comes in SSE, SSE2, and SSE3 flavors.

See this page , this page , and this page.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #5 –
Nice one mate.

Call me a picky b@stard, but "Time in seconds needed to rip each album with each codec" isn't technically right.  It should be "...rip and encode..."

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #6 –
Excellent to see such indepth testing (times, sizes, etc).

Perhaps for 2007 add WMA Lossless and Apple Lossless, these two will gain ground/numbers over the years.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #7 –
Out of curiousity, why did you only use Flac -4 and WavPack in fast mode, but monkey's audio in High mode?  Not my test, but it seems a bit odd.  I think FLAC's default is -5, and WavPack in High mode is still quite fast and likely would have shown better results than flac.  Still a nice comparison of lossless codecs if you want to encode the audio as fast as possible.  Be interesting to see a comparison using the setting most people use when ripping.  I think Monkey's audio highest is what most use, FLAC -8, and WavPack -fx6 or -hx, no idea about OptimFrog though.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #8 –
pepoluan, the date the page was first published is 22nd May 2006. And I'll try to put right the technical errors regarding the Ogg encoders.

I agree about the width of the tables, Synthetic Soul, and I'm trying to think up a way of making my site more accessible for everyone, including people who can read tiny text. (I'm aiming for a style-chooser, but that will mean unifying the markup across the whole site.) In the meantime, I may just make the text smaller in the tables. I am surprised that you can't fit the tables onto a 1280x1024 page. I must be using a different sans-serif font.

jaybee, "rip and encode" it shall be.

Thank you, spoon, for the nice comment and for the software. I guess I should have realised that MS and Apple's own lossless products were bound to be growing in profile. Maybe I will add them into the fray next time.

Duble0Syx, I think my biggest problem was deciding on the compression setting for each codec. I was aiming for the optimum balance between ripping (and encoding) speed and the end file size. I tried to get the codec creator's recommendation, but often I couldn't find one. So I looked through audio forums to get a feel for the most-recommended setting. Sometimes I still had to either go with the default or otherwise just choose what seemed most suitable. FLAC at -5 seemed to take longer without producing an impressive reduction in file size, so I went with -4 (and I think -4 is the FLAC default in dBpowerAMP, but I'd have to double check that). I've no doubt that each codec's creator could complain that I didn't choose the setting that was comparable to the settings I used for the other codecs, but I tried my best to make each codec run at its most impressive.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Bobulous on
I am surprised that you can't fit the tables onto a 1280x1024 page. I must be using a different sans-serif font.
I am viewing in Firefox, and the sans serif font appears to be Arial.  In truth it is just the last three digits in the file size table that are unviewable (I see "xxx,xxx,").  This introduces a horizontal scrollbar.

I see you are using EM as your unit of measurement.  This means that you don't need to start out so big; users with poor sight will no doubt have their browser viewing larger text anyway.

I actually find the increased letter spacing makes it more difficult to read, but that's probably just me!  Perhaps there is less distinction between word and whitespace... or perhaps I'm just whacko. 
I'm on a horse.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #10 –
The fastest mode in OptimFrog is --mode fast --optimize none

BTW Why the bitrate unit is Kbytes/s and not Kbits/s?

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #11 –
Okay, made some changes:
  • "ripping times" has become "rip-and-encode times", and "to rip" has become "to rip and encode", where appropriate;
  • font-size in the tables has been made smaller, and border-spacing has been reduced;
  • I've reworded the description of the Ogg Vorbis codec varieties, so hopefully it's more accurate.
Synthetic Soul, if you're having trouble reading the spaced-out lettering, then I've definitely got to think about a change in stylesheet. It might also explain why the AdSense banner at the top of the page receives much more attention than the one at the bottom of the page in that directory of my site — people obviously can't wait to get away.

ggf31416, it's in bytes per second purely because it seemed more appropriate (as the graph shows how much disk-space each different album takes up per second). Had I been referring to the rate achieved by codecs rather than albums, I'd have gone with the conventional kilobits per second. If enough people here tell me they want it changed to kilobits per second or even megabytes per minute, I'll change the graphs.

As for the OptimFROG setting, I chose the fastest mode that the dBpowerAMP codec offers.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #12 –
Fyi, the spacing between letters is a bit disturbing to me. It makes me not want to read any of it. So I didn't really go over anything in detail, but.. nice job with all the testing dude. =)

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #13 –
I honestly had no idea the stylesheet on that page was causing so much revulsion. I'm very glad people here have expressed their distaste — it gives me a chance to improve things. I must be slightly dyslexic, because I find the spaced-out text easier on the eye.

For the time being, I've hastily altered the stylesheet to remove all the excess spacing around letters and words. Let me know what else makes the page visually appealing or unappealing.

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Bobulous on
pepoluan, the date the page was first published is 22nd May 2006. And I'll try to put right the technical errors regarding the Ogg encoders.
Um, rather than the first publish date, I would like to know the last 'data-update' date, i.e. the last change in the data table.

Anyways, sorry for not getting back sooner. My phone line was cut off the last 3 days 
 

Comparison of lossless audio formats

Reply #15 –
It's okay, pepoluan, I've been permitted to edit the Wiki, so I've added the link myself.