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Poll

What lossless format(s) do you use on a *regular* basis?

Apple Lossless (ALAC)
[ 13 ] (5%)
FLAC
[ 161 ] (61.9%)
Monkey's Audio (APE)
[ 9 ] (3.5%)
OptimFROG
[ 2 ] (0.8%)
TAK
[ 13 ] (5%)
WavPack
[ 33 ] (12.7%)
Uncompressed PCM (.wav, .aiff)
[ 19 ] (7.3%)
A different lossless codec (please comment)
[ 1 ] (0.4%)
I don't encode or listen to lossless audio on a regular basis
[ 9 ] (3.5%)

Total Members Voted: 183

Voting closed: 2024-01-01 16:51:53

Topic: 2023 Lossless format poll (Read 15916 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #25 –
WavPack for my own rips (hybrid mode still provides the ultimate convenience) but since it's not offered on many legal sites like Bandcamp, unfortunately, I go for FLAC for downloads.
WavPack 5.6.0 -b384hx6cmv / qaac64 2.80 -V 100

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #26 –
Quote from: DARcode on
WavPack for my own rips (hybrid mode still provides the ultimate convenience) but since it's not offered on many legal sites like Bandcamp, unfortunately, I go for FLAC for downloads.

Same here,  I download wav or flac from bandcamp then encode to wavpack.
Hybrid is very useful with non-cd samplerates and more stuff now comes
in 44-48/24bit.  You don't need to resample or figure it out. Just specify -b x
instead of a fixed bitrate (-b4.35 = -b384 for 44/16) .  The savings in the lossy part is huge.
I've been using -b2.9x4 lately (-b256 for cd audio).

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #27 –
Quote from: shadowking on
I download wav or flac from bandcamp then encode to wavpack.
Why WAV and not a format that comes tagged? Actually even their AIFF seem to come tagged by now - with ID3v2.4. The wavpack.exe test build at https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123684.0.html can --import-id3 those. At least the couple I downloaded to test that version.

I have however found that sometimes the resolution differs between (lossless) formats ... hm.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #28 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: shadowking on
I download wav or flac from bandcamp then encode to wavpack.
Why WAV and not a format that comes tagged? Actually even their AIFF seem to come tagged by now - with ID3v2.4. The wavpack.exe test build at https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123684.0.html can --import-id3 those. At least the couple I downloaded to test that version.

I have however found that sometimes the resolution differs between (lossless) formats ... hm.

TBH, I am a bit paranoid at times and go for WAV , then download flac and bit compare.
So far all good. Your say resolution is different, that's what I am afraid of.
 

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #29 –
Quote from: shadowking on
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: shadowking on
I download wav or flac from bandcamp then encode to wavpack.
Why WAV and not a format that comes tagged? Actually even their AIFF seem to come tagged by now - with ID3v2.4. The wavpack.exe test build at https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123684.0.html can --import-id3 those. At least the couple I downloaded to test that version.

I have however found that sometimes the resolution differs between (lossless) formats ... hm.

TBH, I am a bit paranoid at times and go for WAV , then download flac and bit compare.
So far all good. Your say resolution is different, that's what I am afraid of.

I downloaded and compared myself a few times, when sizes quoted there appear unreasonable. Most often those sizes are wrong, for reasons I cannot figure out; those errors are typically when WAVE and AIFF sizes are quoted to differ significantly (and don't).
Except ALAC. Well, depending on whether "unreasonable" is really unreasonable subject to the explanation:
ALAC seems to be capped at 48 kHz. Even this release, which is advertised as 96/24: https://anekdoten.bandcamp.com/album/until-all-the-ghosts-are-gone-hd-24-96 . Some time after I purchased, they replaced the initial (CDDA) upload by a 96/24 "Straight from the original master", and still ALAC is 48/24. (Tagged "Lavf58.45.100", which also is used in more recent releases, but not tagged - revealed by MediaInfo.)
Someone in there thinks that ALAC users are too dumb to understand incompatibilities ... ? Is there any iOS thing that chokes on 96 kHz?

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Porcus on
ALAC seems to be capped at 48 kHz.
No, it's not.

Actually there's one limitation here.
samplerate field in the AudioSampleEntry box in ISOBMFF is insanely defined as 16.16 fixed point. Therefore it's maximum value is 65535.
This is not ALAC specific, and applies to any other audio codecs as described in here:
https://github.com/xiph/flac/blob/master/doc/isoflac.txt#L156

It's not that you cannot store 96Hz audio stream in MP4.
You just cannot rely on the samplerate field in the AudioSampleEntry.
As for ALAC, there's another box named ALACSpcecificBox where correct sample rate is stored.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #31 –
Quote from: nu774 on
Quote from: Porcus on
ALAC seems to be capped at 48 kHz.
No, it's not.
Apologies. I meant: "Apparently, Bandcamp caps their ALACs at 48 kHz"

refalac handles this publicity stunt file of 768 kHz/24 bit most-noise-and-then-a-little-music just fine: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122179.msg1011846.html#msg1011846  (the line ending in ".m4a", just a tad weaker than flac -5, but better than Monkey's "High").
Edit: also 32-bit integer - but not with ffmpeg, which will decimate to 24 bit when encoding to ALAC.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #32 –
WavPack ftw!

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #33 –
My car plays Wavpack , Via BT and poweramp player.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #34 –
Voted for ALAC bc I only use apple products for now but I really wish ALAC had a better compression algorithm like Flac (lvl 8 ) does (even though is minimal but its still there)

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #35 –
I regularly use WMA lossless because I edit music for someone that only uses iTunes... That cannot convert flac, but will always auto convert wma.
Processed audio in java and python.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #36 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
This is definitely a support issue. EVERYTHING supports FLAC (except iOS devices).

iOS supports FLAC, macOS supports FLAC. For some reason they can't display the embedded album art. What doesn't support FLAC is the Apple Music app.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #37 –
Quote from: For Serious on
I regularly use WMA lossless because I edit music for someone that only uses iTunes... That cannot convert flac, but will always auto convert wma.
WMAL isn't guaranteed to be lossless ... https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=121732

Not surprising that iTunes is too retarded to support FLAC, but it "must" support ALAC? At least it isn't half as bad as WMAL. Well if you "edit" files you might not worry so much about losslessness, but ...

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #38 –
What about FLAC in MP4 container?
Opus VBR 256 + SoX

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #39 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: For Serious on
I regularly use WMA lossless because I edit music for someone that only uses iTunes... That cannot convert flac, but will always auto convert wma.
WMAL isn't guaranteed to be lossless ... https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=121732

Not surprising that iTunes is too retarded to support FLAC, but it "must" support ALAC? At least it isn't half as bad as WMAL. Well if you "edit" files you might not worry so much about losslessness, but ...

WMAL is lossless, but no wonder that you like to give wrong and false half-truths around to innocent users as usual.
Its just that for long time WMAL decoder in ffmpeg did not export initial padding and last padding, and thus produced wrong output at start/end of audio. Also some other incompetent devs from MS broke their decoder several times.

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #40 –
Oh mycroft is falling back to old habits[1] ... I suggest anyone considering WMAL take a look at the thread given, and the links therein, for example
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,117275.0.html
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?39459-WMA-Lossless-Encoder-is-BROKEN <--- it is the Windows component that fails, dBpoweramp uses that.
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,117300.new.html

If you cannot trust Windows to treat WMAL losslessly, you cannot trust Windows to encode your files to WMAL.
Yes ffmpeg can decode WMAL - and for the last few years it seems to handle it well - but without the original, who knows whether the audio that got into the file was encoded losslessly in the first place.
As for ffmpeg cannot be trusted to remux WMAL.

1 footnote on mycroft's habit of misinforming, and leave to someone else to give the sources.
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,124169.msg1027598.html#msg1027598 - the file encoded wrong with ffmpeg 6.0, after mycroft denied there being any issues.
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,121478.msg1015597.html#msg1015597 - refuses to give version even when most recent ffplay was bugging out
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122094.msg1008201.html#msg1008201 and no reply, after having blamed user's ffmpeg version ... but sure, does not give one of his own.
And enlightening users? Not today, Satan: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123585.msg1021485.html#msg1021485 ↵

Re: 2023 Lossless format poll

Reply #41 –
Offline playback is all FLAC, since even 1TB+ SSD storage now is so cheap.
Streaming playback I don't really care for the codec unless its so bad it sounds like a cellphone speaker.