Hi i have seen that the dbPowerAmp ripping and encoding software supports a new so-called "FLAC uncompressed" format, e.g. http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-true i know only the normal flac compression levels from 0 to 8. have i missed an option on the flac comamnd line tool or how could i achieve that on the linux command line flac tool ? greets KoS
On 8 March 2012 06:15, Martin Kos <martin at kos.li> wrote:> i have seen that the dbPowerAmp ripping and encoding software supports a > new so-called "FLAC uncompressed" formatI expect this is just encoding every block as 'SUBFRAME_VERBATIM'. I'm not aware of a switch on the normal flac encoder to do this, but it would be straightforward to add. This feature already exists in the format because there are occassional input blocks where the compression algorithm produces larger output than the input, so it's better just to store the equivalent data untransformed. File compression tools like gzip have a similar mode. I wouldn't worry about it though. It's unfortunate the dbPowerAmp developers want to take advantage of the subset of customer who don't understand what 'lossless' means. -r
On Thu, Mar 08, 2012 at 09:50:20AM -0800, giles at thaumas.net wrote:> I wouldn't worry about it though. It's unfortunate the dbPowerAmp > developers want to take advantage of the subset of customer who don't > understand what 'lossless' means.I read some of the articles on www.audiostream.com earlier, and some of those linked from it. I can't understand the "uncompressed is better than lossless" notion either. At least with CD playback, a CD-R copy is going to be more prone to jitter (and added gaps from poorly configured rip/burn software) which does affect the sound, but comparing FLAC and WAV on exactly the same hardware should yield no difference in audio. On systems where the I/O is the bottleneck (for example, a smartphone app or hardware player with slow storage) there can be a higher risk of buffer underruns with uncompressed source material. And with a low powered CPU, there should be more of a risk of underruns with tighter compression ratios. This could explain why some audiophiles have heard better results with looser FLAC compression on the same device. But on modern (and reasonably powered) hardware, there should be no practical difference at all. -- -Dec. --- "Mosaic is going to be on every computer in the world." - Marc Andreessen, 1994
Martin Kos wrote:> Hi > > i have seen that the dbPowerAmp ripping and encoding software supports a > new so-called "FLAC uncompressed" format, e.g. > > http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-trueWow, check this comment: http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-true#comment-488728 To quote: "Less compression sounded slightly better than more compression." I'm sure that was a highly scientific experiment. Erik -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Erik de Castro Lopo http://www.mega-nerd.com/
Hi On 08.03.2012 18:50, Ralph Giles wrote:>> i have seen that the dbPowerAmp ripping and encoding software >> supports a new so-called "FLAC uncompressed" format > > I expect this is just encoding every block as 'SUBFRAME_VERBATIM'. > I'm not aware of a switch on the normal flac encoder to do this, but > it would be straightforward to add. This feature already exists in > the format because there are occassional input blocks where the > compression algorithm produces larger output than the input, so it's > better just to store the equivalent data untransformed. File > compression tools like gzip have a similar mode.thanks for the details, interesting to know.> I wouldn't worry about it though. It's unfortunate the dbPowerAmp > developers want to take advantage of the subset of customer who > don't understand what 'lossless' means.yeah i know. if the size of the media doesn't matter, but metadata should be included, than this would be a possibility. i myself don't believe that there is a hearable difference if you play a lossless file (as it is byte-wise the same), but if some customers are willing to pay for something where they think they can hear a difference, than why not? :-) greets KoS
>> i have seen that the dbPowerAmp ripping and encoding software supports a >> new so-called "FLAC uncompressed" format, e.g. >> >> http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-true > > Wow, check this comment: > > ? ?http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-true#comment-488728 > > To quote: > > ? ?"Less compression sounded slightly better than more compression." > > I'm sure that was a highly scientific experiment. > > ErikYou missed this gem, from the same post: "[...] allowing me to easily hear differences between different levels of flac compression and uncompressed wav so the time came to convert all those heavily compressed flac files to a more revealing format." And I realized (again) why I don't spend much time on head-fi.org anymore. Hey, anyone wants to buy my gold-plated USB cables? Only $300! Sarcastically yours, Martin