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Poll

Which do you prefer

I prefer (.ape) Monkey's Audio
[ 116 ] (35%)
I prefer (.flac) Free Lossless Audio Codec
[ 202 ] (61%)
I prefer another lossless codec
[ 13 ] (3.9%)

Total Members Voted: 481

Topic: APE vs FLAC (Read 52831 times) previous topic - next topic
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APE vs FLAC

And please tell me why
And which settings do you use?

APE vs FLAC

Reply #1
APE -extra high because it's smaller

If flac wouldn't bloat my collection by another 2gb (which I don't have) I'd switch for the speed and compatability.
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

APE vs FLAC

Reply #2
FLAC is perfect for my needs, since it's crossplatform, free software and etree.org uses it. It has been proven "stable" for a long time and I don't care about 1-4% more compression when using lossless.

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #3
For a while dbpoweramp wasn't copying the tags when converting between FLAC and other formats, but
that has been fixed.  I prefer FLAC because it works with my player on Linux.  I use the standard setting
as it is much faster than the high and not much difference in size.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #4
FLAC, 'cos it's fast (encoding, decoding, and seemingly seeking), well supported, well specified, and comes free with warm, fuzzy open feelings.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #5
APE extra-high
The higher compression ratio is what makes it better than FLAC for me. I have archived my entire CD collection on hard disk and APE saved a few GigaBytes of storage space.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #6
I also use APE extra high. Plays smooth on my system and I don't care about encoding and decoding times.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #7
APE too, because of the file size, and because it is widely recognized.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #8
FLAC - it works fine and does everything I need.

Monkey's Audio does that too, except the linux port cannot decode MAC 3.80 files - and I have 200+ cds full of them. That is simply annoying.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #9
Quote
APE extra-high
I have archived my entire CD collection on hard disk and APE saved a few GigaBytes of storage space.

Not that higher compression is a down side, but just how much are you saving per CD?  50 mB? Less? More?
That's about 5 cents.  Life is short.  Time is money.    It might make sense to rip to a fast setting and
at some point transcode to a higher compression in a background/low-priority job.

For now I am generally just using lossless for things that are a pain to rerip, like vinyl.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #10
Quote
Not that higher compression is a down side, but just how much are you saving per CD?  50 mB? Less? More?
That's about 5 cents.  Life is short.  Time is money.    It might make sense to rip to a fast setting and
at some point transcode to a higher compression in a background/low-priority job.

For now I am generally just using lossless for things that are a pain to rerip, like vinyl.

It's not like I sit here watching the encode process, it sits in the background whilst I do other things, so encode speed matters the least to me.  For me, an average album is ~400mb, and on the couple I tested with, I found FLAC cost me an an extra 20mb (5%?) so 50 albums = 1gb wasted..


I forgot to mention, APE coming bundled with a Cool Edit filter that works seemlessly is why I've stuck with APE for my own projects!  I can decode/encode without a single glitch, whereas the FLAC filter is still in need of work it seems..
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

APE vs FLAC

Reply #11
Quote
I found FLAC cost me an an extra 20mb (5%?) so 50 albums = 1gb wasted..

OK, 2 cents/album.

As I said, the main reason I lean to Flac is I can play it on Linux.  If Ape works better with CoolEdir for
you that's a good reason too.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #12
I prefer flac using -8.  It doesn't really bother me too much that ape or other lossless codecs have better compression ratios since flac can do a lot of other things such as streaming, better error correction, cross platform, and encoding and decoding is faster.  I only have maybe like 20 albums or so in lossless so its not a big deal if I don't get the highest compression.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #13
Using Case's cool_flac works perfectly fine for me.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #14
surprised no one mentioned FLAC is streamable?
"Droplets of Yes and No, in an ocean of Maybe"

APE vs FLAC

Reply #15
Flac here.

I haven't use ape much, so I don't feel like judging that codec. I just don't know enough.

What I really like in flac are test-option, it's always nice to know that your archive is ok.  Tags and replaygain are a must, and very easy to do with flac. If I have understood correctly, error-handling is better in flac than in ape. ???. And I really really really want to rip to lossless only once!!!

PS      There is Cool Edit filter for flac, too, at

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/html/other.html

that's the homepage of the maker of "tag", the most popular tagging software (according to a recent HA poll    )

I can put my signature under Freaky's testimonial, well put there.

j

APE vs FLAC

Reply #16
I use APE just because I stumbled on to it first.  For me it's tweedle dum, and tweedle dee.
If I had started using FLAC I'm quite sure I would be equally happy.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #17
Quote
surprised no one mentioned FLAC is streamable?

Monkey's Audio is streamable too.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #18
I use LA, simply because it compresses better than any other one I've seen. For most people the small size difference doesn't matter, but I often end up with less that 100 MB free space on my hard drive so I want to compress it as much as possible.

Edit: Yes, I suppose speed is a BIG disadvantage of LA.
Happiness - The agreeable sensation of contemplating the misery of others.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #19
I use FLAC because it has everything I need: it's free, open, has good compression, fast compression/decompression, robust file format, fine tagging. And since X-Fixer did some awesome work on Winamp 2 FLAC plug-in (by adding GUI, replaygain support and other neat stuff), I'm all set. 

FLAC's default compression is what I use because size isn't that important - I have only about 100 CDs and there's still room for at least 50 albums on my HD (which is 60GB). Considering that I buy a couple of CDs per month and as HDs get cheaper and bigger by the minute, I don't think space is going to be an issue ever again...

APE vs FLAC

Reply #20
I use APE since I had got it running before FLAC(a coinflip thing, they're both lossless so I didn't know what to try first), and I already got used to converting it, ripping to it, etc. I would try FLAC but I don't see why I should switch atm, since even if I had done the dual boot with the penguin again I don't use the computer for music anyway, just ripping/encoding it, for which I'd probably run to the windows partition to do.

I HAVE heard that FLAC doesn't get errors as easily as APE, so I've been reading up on this a bit more.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #21
Quote
Quote
surprised no one mentioned FLAC is streamable?

Monkey's Audio is streamable too.

Ah my mistake. I thought I remembered that being a major distinction. Hrm...maybe I'll think about APE instead then when I get around to archive my CDs.
"Droplets of Yes and No, in an ocean of Maybe"

APE vs FLAC

Reply #22
Quote
Ah my mistake. I thought I remembered that being a major distinction. Hrm...maybe I'll think about APE instead then when I get around to archive my CDs.

Why would this be a major factor in deciding between lossy codecs? Do you usually stream music at megabit rates?

APE vs FLAC

Reply #23
For everyday use, I use Monkey's at the high setting. I think it's a good compromise between speed and size. If I feel geeky, I use optimfrog (of course with (u5t0/\/\ 1337 different command line on each run) which has won my sympathy, dunno why.

Monkey's has another built in bonus: APE tags.

Almost every lossless codec I've seen is interesting on it's own, and since I rarely use lossless compression at all, I do not rely on any format speciffic features anyway. I use lossless for test samples and to temporarily free up some space.

APE vs FLAC

Reply #24
I use Wavepack, very fast encoding and very good compression.