HydrogenAudio

Lossless Audio Compression => Lossless / Other Codecs => Topic started by: krmathis on 2006-04-23 20:42:52

Poll
Question: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Option 1: ALAC votes: 15
Option 2: FLAC votes: 229
Option 3: WavPack votes: 141
Option 4: YALAC votes: 2
Option 5: Monkey's Audio votes: 36
Option 6: Shorten votes: 0
Option 7: WMA Lossless votes: 6
Option 8: TTA votes: 0
Option 9: OptimFROG votes: 5
Option 10: Other (post details below) votes: 1
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: krmathis on 2006-04-23 20:42:52
I think its time for an updated "Which lossless audio codec do you use?" thread! 

Place a vote for your prefered lossless audio codec above.
Feel free to post the reason you prefer it over the others as well...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2006-04-23 20:45:07
WavPack because of its fast encoding and decoding. The compression ratio is not bad either and my Ubuntu supports it as well.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: goodnews on 2006-04-23 20:50:08
FLAC due to the very good software support. I don't want to have to re-encode or transfer to another lossless format in the future if it can be avoided. I think FLAC (and ALAC) have the best software support currently. Strength in numbers is the reason I picked FLAC I guess. Plus its free and open unlike ALAC.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: atici on 2006-04-23 21:02:18
Wavpack -hmx1 single file image with embedded cuesheet.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2006-04-23 21:08:14
WavPack.

I switched from Monkey's Audio to WavPack in 2005. My main consideration is compression rate, but I was concerned by the lack of error tollerance with Monkey's.  On consideration I realised that the difference of a few percent between MAC Extra High and WavPack High was negligable when considering my archive of 100-150 GB.

WavPack seemed to have decent compression rates, error tollerance, multichannel support, and I was just really impressed with the way that David reacted to users' requests.

I've said for a while that I will be interested to see the results of this poll.  In the last poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24921) WavPack received a measily 15% of the votes.  I believe it will be a lot higher this time: it's basically going to be FLAC or WavPack to come top.  FLAC may still take it, but WavPack will sure be close.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: guruboolez on 2006-04-23 21:10:29
I was originally a Monkey's user, which offered (and still offer) excellent ratio at excellent speed. Then I was looking for formats offering a higher decoding speed: opening these files then appeared as a much more confortable process on Cool Edit/Audition (opening time could be 4 time faster between WavPack or FLAC compared to MAC -normal) and faster decoding also mean faster transcoding.

FLAC and WavPack were the fastest ones (with Shorten... unbeatable but outdated); WavPack finally had my preference, because:
- the tagging system is much more conveniant for my purpose (i.e. much faster)
- seeking was even better than FLAC (which is already very good)
- I got better encoding ratios
- I liked the red icon 
- David is a very nice guy (it's not a necessary condition: I also used MPC in the past (http://forum-images.hardware.fr/icones/biggrin.gif)...)
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: jmartis on 2006-04-23 21:41:49
Today I've voted in one lossless poll, now here's another! My decision hasn't changed though... WavPack.

[edit: typo]
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: DreamTactix291 on 2006-04-23 22:09:43
Lots of lossless polls at once 

Hasn't changed though.  WavPack still for me for the same reasons I posted just minutes ago.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Josef K. on 2006-04-23 22:18:08
- I got better encoding ratios
Could you please tell the difference? I don't want to infirm your statement at all, I'm just curious. I've got huge Flac collection and if I could save say 2% (6 GB in my case) of space by reencoding, I will seriously consider to do it. (It must be horrible work anyway)
So: what do you think? Is it worth to reencode (or transcode...) from Flac to WavPack?
Thanks for response.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: vitos on 2006-04-23 22:19:39
Heh, the day of lossless polls.

I used to be Monkey's Audio user because of its strong compression. However I became unsatisfied with its low decompression speed when I started regular conversions to lossy formats for my portable flash player. Also growing collection and shrinking HDD space made me think to use lossy formats for some less critical  music.

Then I found WavPack. A lot faster with small compression loss (vs Monkey's) and with hybrid option. And this format is still evolving, whereas any news for Monkey are hardly possible.
My spell: -b360cmx
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Shade[ST] on 2006-04-23 22:35:25
I've got huge Flac collection and if I could save say 2% (6 GB in my case) of space by reencoding, I will seriously consider to do it. (It must be horrible work anyway)
So: what do you think? Is it worth to reencode (or transcode...) from Flac to WavPack?
Thanks for response.

Wait until YALAC final comes out : it's blazing fast, and has great compression ratios (just look at the YALAC threads, and at synthetic soul's posts.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: seanyseansean on 2006-04-23 23:05:16
David is a very nice guy (it's not a necessary condition: I also used MPC in the past (http://forum-images.hardware.fr/icones/biggrin.gif)...)


Was that really necessary?
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: keytotime on 2006-04-23 23:22:46
I'm also waiting for YALAC to come out.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Supacon on 2006-04-23 23:41:55
Like guruboolez, I used to use Monkey's audio because it first seemed the obvious choice.  Good compression speed, and high efficiency.  It's probably got the highest compression speed to compression ratio of any codec.

After transcoding my collection several times, however, I decided that I should switch to FLAC because its decompression time is much much faster which outweighs the small size increase.  FLAC seems to be one of the most popular and supported codecs which is a big plus (although I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference in my application).

I think that wavpack offers great advantages, like better compression and still good speed, but I don't think anything quite has as good of a balance between decompression speed and efficiency as FLAC does yet.  I'd probably use WavPack in lieu of monkey's now if I needed better compression.

YALAC looks really promising too, and when finalized, I'd switch to that in a heartbeat if it doesn't have any huge disadvantages over the other codecs.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Triza on 2006-04-23 23:58:32
FLAC because

1) Extremely thorough testbed. So I can be assured that if my compile passes the tests, then it must be OK.

2) --verify option, which decodes the encoded singnal during the encoding to ensure that no SW or other errors occurred.

3) Inbuilt MD5 signature over the audio content, which is essential to be able to carry out truly reliable integrity check.

4) Vorbis tagging. I love it and since my choice of lossy is vorbis, this makes convesion very trouble free.

5) Good error recovery.

6) Cross-platform. This is an absolute must for me.

7) Good command line interface. This is an absolute must for me.

8) Widespread. Best SW/HW support.

9) Stable. No compatibility breaks. Few but reliable releases.

10) Excellent PC HW tester. If you have a flaky HW FLAC is likely to exhibit corruptions.


Maybe Wavepack or others have these, but in 2003 it did not. I do not like changes. Also 2% size difference does not cut it for me. In fact I always use compression level 5.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: flcpge on 2006-04-24 00:10:45
I also use FLAC. Too lazy to learn anything else right now, but that may change in the future.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: haregoo on 2006-04-24 00:34:25
FLAC for faster/stable decoding speed.
Thanks developers & john33's faster encoding compile.

I will switch to YALAC when get matured.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Mirage2k on 2006-04-24 03:23:41
ALAC. I'm on a Mac--'nuff said. Although I guess now with Max it wouldn't be as much of a chore to maintain and transcode from a FLAC library as it used to be.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: iGold on 2006-04-24 07:48:54
FLAC for vorbis comments and good command line support.

I wrote shell script for Linux to encode from one .flac with embedded cuesheet to per-track .ogg files copying common and per-track .flac comments (my own scheme compatible with foorbar 0.9 one) to the result files. The ability to decode specified track from such .flac only with command line switch is very handy for me, also common tagging format with ogg vorbis allows easy transfer of metadata.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: micimaci on 2006-04-24 11:03:38
WavPack, but lookin forward to YALAC
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Zurman on 2006-04-24 11:25:16
Monkey 3.99 High, because of its good ratios. I'm planning to switch to wavpack one day though.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: zombiewerewolf on 2006-04-24 12:17:12
Wavpack for me.

The first lossless encoder I used is LA  because it got the first rank in encoding ratio.
After encoded 2 albums, I quitted, cannot stand its slowness.

I was looking for a new format for archiving my collection.
I read this page (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison#Comparison_Table) on wiki section and choose the one that has more green colour. 

Wavpack caught my attention (no orange colour). It has very fast speed in both encoding and decoding. So I tried and love it since.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: man on 2006-04-24 17:40:42
I used Monkey's Audio [high] for 3 years.

Then I changed 16 months ago to WavPack [-m -x4] because of :

- fast decoding speed,
- still with a very good compression ratio,
- very fast seeking making the payer more responsive (seek can be controlled from remote control)

ReplayGain supported by the Winamp plug-in was also a reason, it can be used by Meedio, my interface of choice.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: jcoalson on 2006-04-24 19:03:41
another interesting thing so far... compared to the last poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24921&pid=385515), the FLAC percentage is the same (ALAC too) but wavpack has pretty much eaten up everyone else.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: guruboolez on 2006-04-24 19:20:18
...and compared to an earlier poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10953&hl=) it seems that Monkey's was replaced by WavPack in the heart (and hard drive) of non-flac HA.org users

ALAC score is pretty low compared to the absolute number of iPod supporting this format.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Fandango on 2006-04-24 20:06:00
- I liked the red icon 


Me, too. But FLAC's golden-orange one isn't bad either.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: tgoose on 2006-04-24 21:35:07
FLAC for support and for trading, since it's pretty much standard amongst trading communities (and yes, I'm talking about legal ones!). I used to encode the odd thing I actually ripped for myself (not much, since I have a CD player right next to my computer anyway...) in TTA because it was pretty fast, although YALAC will probably take over that if it's as good as it sounds and gets both Linux and foobar2000 support.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: satorippoi on 2006-04-24 22:44:08
The results are simply astonishing - Flac and WV are leaders...ALAC and APE are far behind...TTA and SHN have no votes...

Here in Russia people are mailny fond of APE...and it is hard to make them think different...
As for me, it is WavPack...because of high decoding speed and embedded cue-sheet...

p.s. And yes, David is a great guy...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Yaztromo on 2006-04-24 23:23:17
Monkeys Audio

1) Good compression at normal and fast speed

2) The excellent Windows front-end.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: xmixahlx on 2006-04-25 00:27:05
#1 wavpack (new encodes)
#2 flac (older encodes that i'm not going to convert for reasons of laziness)

i switched because wavpack seems to be more actively and interactively developed


later
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: negritot on 2006-04-25 02:35:35
I use ALAC because it's the easiest to use with iTunes, and my lossless files are only for personal use.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Firon on 2006-04-25 03:35:55
I still see Monkey's Audio as the majority out there, unfortunately.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2006-04-25 17:19:23
Considering only the FLAC and WavPack votes, the "Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?" (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43906) poll has a split of 56% to 44% in FLAC's favour, but in this thread the split is 62% to 38%... It would be nice to have enough votes that a more consistent conclusion could be made. 

Also, why is Yalac an option, and who chose it?!    I hope it was TBeck.


Look, an elephant! 
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: guruboolez on 2006-04-25 17:30:55
The YALAC choice surprised me as well, but it makes sense, considering the life expectancy of a poll (12...24 months). Who knows... in one month, YALAC may appear as a valid choice (but if people are moving to this encoder, they can't vote for a second time...).


Where's the elephant? Or is it a new name suggestion for yalac (after monkeys and frogs, rats and penguins)?
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: TBeck on 2006-04-25 17:42:32
Also, why is Yalac an option, and who chose it?!    I hope it was TBeck.

Look, an elephant! 


No, No.

And i didn't pay for this vote! 

  Thomas
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2006-04-27 13:38:40
The YALAC choice surprised me as well, but it makes sense, considering the life expectancy of a poll (12...24 months). Who knows... in one month, YALAC may appear as a valid choice (but if people are moving to this encoder, they can't vote for a second time...).
A very good point.  It's inclusion may be justified in this poll's lifetime.

Personally I would prefer it if polls were closed after a short period of time, e.g.: one month.  I think of a poll as a snapshot at a particular time.  With this in mind I would rather see a new poll 1st January each year, that lasted for one month.  This gives you an indication of preference at a given point in time.

By leaving polls open for one to two years (the last lossless poll was left open for over twenty months I think), by my limited logic the results get poluted over time, by new members voting.

The Yalac situation is a great example.  Right now it has no right to be in the poll, but in six months maybe it will.  However a noob looking at the poll in one year will think Yalac is not popular, but it may be as various members who voted in the poll's beginning have switched since that time.  At least its exclusion would highlight to the noob that there must be a reason it was excluded (it is in alpha).

Where's the elephant? Or is it a new name suggestion for yalac (after monkeys and frogs, rats and penguins)?
  Sorry, that was just me being weird.  My post was a semi-bump, and the content was semi-diversionary.  When I want to divert my kid's attention I always shout "Look, an elephant!" and point in the opposite attention to the one in which they shouldn't be looking...

Is this post an elephant post?  Who knows...  this poll seems to be fading into the distance all too quickly though.

And i didn't pay for this vote!


Edit: The other poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43906) still has a FLAC/WavPack split of 56% to 44%, this one is now 61% to 39%.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: guruboolez on 2006-04-27 14:56:33
Personally I would prefer it if polls were closed after a short period of time, e.g.: one month.  I think of a poll as a snapshot at a particular time.  With this in mind I would rather see a new poll 1st January each year, that lasted for one month.  This gives you an indication of preference at a given point in time.

You have my vote. I'd also like to something less uncoordinated. A limited electoral time is also preferable in my opinion. One or maybe two polls per year, open for 2 or 4 weeks - with a fixed period. Therefore, comparison between polls would be more pertinent.

I like the idea of having two polls by year to get a better representation of changes. Such solution would be more acceptable for new members frustrated because they can't vote: in worst case they have to wait 5 months and not 11.
I noticed that dual-polls are possible since last IPB update. Why about creating a dual lossy/lossless poll instead of two separates one? It could be experimented.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: a_aa on 2006-04-27 15:31:13
FLAC. Why? Well, why not...?

As long as it is lossless, I can always easily change to a not-seen-yet-outstanding lossless format to come - it's really not very important wich one I use at the moment...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: halb27 on 2006-04-27 15:33:48
I like Monkey extreme high for archiving purposes cause it yields a very good compression rate while being fast enough on encoding and decoding. Do this at the moment.

I like wavPack because of it's high quality (at 350+ kbps) productive lossy mode (usable with Rockbox) and the possibility of backing up a correction file to get a lossless archive. Think again about using it in the future for high quality CDs (but probably then without the correction file).
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Shade[ST] on 2006-04-27 15:42:38
I'm the one who voted YALAC, because I currently have more YALAC archives on my computer than any other lossless format.  I'm basically just waiting until the source code gets opened, to take a look (even if it's delphi -- I did some pascal in my youth ), and make a plugin for foobar
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2006-04-27 15:44:18
I like the idea of having two polls by year to get a better representation of changes. Such solution would be more acceptable for new members frustrated because they can't vote: in worst case they have to wait 5 months and not 11.
That makes a lot of sense.  I really don't see it to be a major problem to vote in a poll twice a year.  I see it as your duty as a member, almost like a questionnaire a supplier might send out to clients.

One or maybe two polls per year, open for 2 or 4 weeks - with a fixed period.
With this new version of IPB you can set opening and closing times for a thread.  Someone could create the poll one day to open at midnight that night and close 2/4 weeks later. As you say though, this needs to be co-ordinated; there's no point in twenty of us creating such a timed poll.  Perhaps a thread a week in advance to alert users a new poll is coming...

I noticed that dual-polls are possible since last IPB update. Why about creating a dual lossy/lossless poll instead of two separates one? It could be experimented.
That would also make sense.

As I posted in the other thread, I was actually going to start this poll myself, but ran out of time.  The reason I ran out of time was that I was messing about with additional questions for the poll.  I started off including a poll regarding how people rip (tracks for archive; tracks for playing; image for archive; image for playing; etc.) but decided that it was really irrelevant to the lossless poll.  I was then leaning toward questions regarding the reason for the choice (best compression rate; excellent compression with a reasonable speed; good compression and good speed; speed all the way; hardware support; other) and maybe a "What other features do you look for" poll (containing options regarding tagging; multichannel; kudos; error tollerance; etc.)....  you might see why I ran out of time!  Next time I'll start one when I'm not upstairs on the premise that I am getting ready to go out... it's less stressful for both me and my wife...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: guruboolez on 2006-04-27 16:00:03
Maybe a pre-poll discussion might be opened to collect ideas about what may be a unified structure for all future polls. I didn't thought about ripping habits and it's indeed a good idea to join it in addition to the commonly used audio formats. Maybe different people could add interesting ideas, and maybe could we fix a date for the first poll, choosing people responsible of them (admins or mods only, members, etc...), put a sticky about the voting period, the planning and the conditions for creating a poll, etc...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: DARcode on 2006-04-27 19:14:53
[...]WavPack seemed to have decent compression rates, error tollerance, multichannel support, and I was just really impressed with the way that David reacted to users' requests.[...]
Amen.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: PoisonDan on 2006-04-27 20:40:25
Look, an elephant! 

Look, behind you! A three-headed monkey!

/me wonders how many of the HA crowd will recognize this one.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: lanosk on 2006-04-27 22:18:18
Look, behind you! A three-headed monkey!

/me wonders how many of the HA crowd will recognize this one.


Guybrush
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Xenion on 2006-04-28 01:51:18
Wavpack for Me
Fast, Perfect Cue-Sheet Support, Cool
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: miscellanea on 2006-04-28 02:45:05
I'm using FLAC and WavPack but mainly WavPack now.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Supacon on 2006-04-28 04:20:46
Wow... wavpack is really starting to sound like the way to go.

I really do like my fast decompression time in FLAC though, because when I need to decode and lossily encode 400 CDs at once, that can nearly make a day's difference in time.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Shade[ST] on 2006-04-28 04:39:22
I think Wavpack has a compression option which makes it even faster to decode than FLAC, no?  I just know I've had great experience with Wavpack.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: MusicLover on 2006-04-28 07:54:40
I use Monkey's Audio - speed is not an issue for me, since I have a modern pc (everything used to be quite ok with an old one, though) - it's Extra High mode has a good compression rate and I cannot find any pluses over Monkey by Wavpack or FLAC...
I don't care about an error robustness since I have never ever had any issues with Monkey. It is being developed, BTW... 4 b2 came recently.
I understand that it is fashionable to use Wavpack, but I'm not much into Haute Couture
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: zorba on 2006-04-28 10:48:49
i'm using flac & wavpack but i've voted flac cause the last cd was flacced, and my lossless collection is more flacced than wavpacked


more, flac is easy to say [flak] while wavpack is not easy to write nor pronounce [weivpak] or [wa:vpak] since there is no E after V

Hey Bryant, why there's not e? how many spelling errors on the internet with "wavepack"?
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: rjamorim on 2006-04-28 11:51:53
Hey Bryant, why there's not e?


I'm not Bryant but...

The file extension is .wav, not .wave
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: probedb on 2006-04-28 11:54:19
I use FLAC  Dunno why really, Squeezebox has native support which is helpful for when I eventually get one
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: jcoalson on 2006-04-28 16:56:10
Hey Bryant, why there's not e?

maybe because there was already a wavepak (http://www.aminet.net/package.php?package=mus/misc/wavepak.lha) format?
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Cartman_Sr on 2006-04-28 17:53:12
I use flac because I still think it was designed right from the beginning to have the best forward-compatibility with future software and hardware. Like I said before (not that it matters to anyone), having an extra 4% compression is not going to help much anyway, especially with the relatively low cost of hard drive space nowadays.

Quote
I understand that it is fashionable to use Wavpack, but I'm not much into Haute Couture

Me neither 
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: bryant on 2006-04-28 19:30:53
Hey Bryant, why there's not e?

maybe because there was already a wavepak (http://www.aminet.net/package.php?package=mus/misc/wavepak.lha) format?

Actually, I never saw that program before! It's funny though because that's missing the 'c'. People just don't want 8 letters! 


flac is easy to say [flak] while wavpack is not easy to write nor pronounce [weivpak] or [wa:vpak] since there is no E after V

Hey Bryant, why there's not e? how many spelling errors on the internet with "wavepack"?

Yeah, people include the 'e' all the time. Fortunately the search engines still find me first when people type "wavepack".

The genesis was that originally all I had was the extension .wv, which basically was .wav with the fat squeezed out. The programs were called wav2wv and wv2wav. Those obviously had to go, so a friend suggested "wavpack". Well, I should have changed the extension to .wpk right then, but I didn't.

BTW, it's pronounced "wave-pack", except for my Romanian mother-in-law who says "wauve-pock".

When I released 4.0 I briefly thought of changing name and extension to PAF for "People's Audio Format", but fortunately I came to my senses in time. My mother-in-law probably would have approved though. 
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Hyrok on 2006-04-28 19:33:48
I voted for WAVPACK because it seems to be the best lossless format when you take a look at the comparison table in HA-WIKI.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: xmixahlx on 2006-04-28 20:40:34
i'm down with the wpk file extension, bryant.

*goes to rename all his files*

seriously though, that might be a good idea...
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Supacon on 2006-04-28 21:11:45
[Monkey's Audio] is being developed, BTW... 4 b2 came recently.


According to the development history (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/versionhistory.html) at monkey's audio, the changes in the newer versions seem only relevant to the GUI, which probably doesn't mean much to most of the people here.

I generally am using EAC or foobar, and not the Monkey GUI when I encode, so it's irrelevant to me.

Does anyone know if there are changes to the compression or speed in the newest versions of MAC?
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: MusicLover on 2006-04-29 13:48:06
Quote
Does anyone know if there are changes to the compression or speed in the newest versions of MAC?

No, not yet. However, it is promised soon... Whatever the future will be, it produses the smallest files with reasonable CPU use, for me the choiсe is obvious.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: smok3 on 2006-04-29 14:50:02
i use FLAC, since wavpack page annoys me (i blame roberto for that), and yes the logo sucks as well

p.s. that was a joke
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Egor on 2006-05-11 12:21:49
FLAC for me (though Wavpack is a very attractive alternative).

- various open-sourced distros include flac, so it is widespread and therefore easy to decode as codec is already in the system.
- synonym to lossless: when someone says he has flac files you know for sure it is lossless. Yes, I think that value of hybrid mode is really overestimated: lossy part of the encoding that is not supported by hardware/portable players has a little sense.
- almost ideal cuesheet support - since I stopped caring about cd-text to be necessarily restored onto the restored audio cd. I just add cuesheet into vorbis unicode tag for transcoding purpose (with fb2k), and then embed the flac-metadata cuesheet which is to be used to recreate disc from an image.
- cuepoints is a good idea, one can even create set of mp3s from flac image with only flac.exe and mp3encoder.exe! (but without tags)

I wish flac could have more options to manage and embed cuesheets (e.g., import to vorbis tag as well).
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: pest on 2006-05-11 12:43:34
i use monkey's audio since a couple of years

wavpack is a good alternative solution but i don't like flac
because cue-sheets get crippled and there's no? possibility to
restore the original one. wave-extended files don't get read
and additional riff-headers don't get stored. the only reason
why someone could use flac is because of hw-support.
i hope that wavpack improves on compression (maybe some high-order predictors?)
than i would switch
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: venezici on 2006-05-15 14:23:48
Hi audio geeks,

I prefer flac. because EAC(my preferable ripper) supports it as well as my Foobar player.
Only disadvantage are the large filesizes on your harddisk.
Further it's free and open source.
As for a lossy codec (now we're at it) I prefer mp3 V0 VBR. Good soundquality, and it only takes the size it needs. So, low bitrates when replaying silent parts in your tracks and vice versa.

Venezici
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Galley on 2006-06-02 02:12:32
RealAudio Lossless; I'm getting encoding speeds from 25-33X.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: satorippoi on 2006-06-29 18:37:37
Well, I guess it is time to have my say..)))

First of all, I should say that personally I am used to using Wavpack:

1. high decoding speed
2. quite an impressive compression rate
3. embedded cue

However, today I found out something that is definitely going to shake my values and believes...
It is about Flac...

1. high decoding speed - 188x at -5
2. Flac now also supports embedded cue via Fb2k

So, now it basically comes to compression rate...
I have ripped A-ha album "Headlines and Deadlines" and that is what I get:

Flac - 448.543 Kb
Wvpack - 430.537 Kb

As you see, the difference is ~18Mb which is...umh, and that is what I want you to ask

Would you go for Flac or choose Wvpack considering that the size difference is quite impressive?..Is encoding speed so important to you and are you willing to sacrifice space for this?..

Edit: forgot to state the space of these files
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Martin H on 2006-07-10 04:33:26
Would you go for Flac or choose Wvpack considering that the size difference is quite impressive?

You talk like WavPack only had the -h option

If you want fast decoding speed, then just use WavPack's -f switch, which is about 0.6% faster than FLAC -5, while encoding about twice as fast as FLAC -5 and having the same compression ratio as FLAC -8. FLAC is indeed a very good lossless format, but unless you have a FLAC supported hardware player that you want to use, then i would stick with WavPack anytime as it's simply a more feature-full, efficient and flexible codec, which depending on mode used can outperform FLAC in either decoding speed, encoding speed or compression ratio or several of them at once.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: JohanDeBock on 2006-07-11 09:52:55
I'm trying out OptimFROG.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: JEdwardP on 2006-07-18 06:02:13
I switched from FLAC to WavPack in August of 2005. It's encoding, decoding, and tagging are fast, and it's compression is better than FLAC. I've tried and rejected Monkey's, OptimFrog, LA, TTA and Shorten for various reasons.

I'll try YALAC at some point, but it'll need to be awfully good to unseat WavPack as my lossless codec of choice.

Jim
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: eboomer on 2006-09-03 08:02:17
I'm currently transcoding my files to OptimFROG because my external HD just filled up, and I'm planning to get a new desktop in a few months or so, so I need high compression ratios.  I would use Monkey's Audio (typically better compression within sane encoding timeframes), exept that it takes a few seconds every time playback starts and every time I use the seek bar.  When I get my new desktop, however, I'll probably use FLAC just because it gets the most support and is best known outside of the audiophile niche.
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: hellokeith on 2006-09-07 21:02:53
Flac.  Simple, easy to understand command line.  Plays gapless in Foobar.

EAC + Mareo (Flac for lossless, WMA 2pass VBR for lossy)
Title: Which lossless audio codec do you use?
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-02 08:10:49
Poll closed.  Please take a look at the latest poll (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=51493).