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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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..

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.

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.

Using Case's cool_flac works perfectly fine for me.

surprised no one mentioned FLAC is streamable?

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

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.

Monkey's Audio is streamable too.

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.

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...

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.

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?

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.

I use Wavepack, very fast encoding and very good compression.

I guess the poll should've included other choices like Wavpack, lpac, optimfrog, etc...
I use Monkey's Audio as well. Is there anything similar to .APL for FLAC?

Seeing as all the "other" codecs grouped only have <5%, no point listing them separately

I found the FLAC filter for CoolEd was missing things like setting the compression level, it saves .fla rather than .flac, and I don't trust it until it is labelled as totally safe, I remember the first test giving anomalous file-sizes and it was only furthered by 1 build..

Isn't the difference between FLAC & APE's "error correction" caused by FLAC using frames. If the file corrupts (hard disk sector failure) then only a small part of your FLAC dies, but your APE is ruined. Either way, it's no longer lossless to me (both files are damaged).. but it's an improvement in that you only have to repair a small segment of data. It's no less likely to fail though, unless FLAC includes some kind of algorithm to improve magnetic stability Josh?

FLAC because decoding is faster.

OSS forever! nuff said

What about hardware support? I know FLAC has already got some sort of hardware support. Check out PhatNoise, although very pricy, it is hardware support! What about all the other lossless codecs. Do they already have hardware support of any kind, or any plans for hardware support in the near future?

With the issues concerning using lossy for archival it was impossible to ignore lossless as a solution. Monkey's (normal mode) has the best efficiency which means the whole process of archiving is done faster than any other codec. I am not speaking in terms of using the most current PC's either but of quiet PC's where a slow encoder wastes time and an inefficient encoder wastes space...
edit: ... and wasted space is wasted time because of the increased time burning to disc (and increased number of discs used).

WavPack does have the efficiency factor going for it too and now that it has a FLT being developed it looks even more attractive.

If there was a DVD portable with FLAC that would make my X-mas wishlist.

I suppose a big advantage of Monkey's Audio is Lame support with the modified compile from rarewares. It would be great to see FLAC support too (I assume LA has no chance).

Another plus for FLAC is replay gain support. I don't think APE has that.

Monkeys - it puts its tags at the back of the file - better for updating and more bullet proof.

Absolutely APE, because of the file size...

it does with TEH FOOBAR2000.

Another thread hijacked....

big deal, is only like 20Mb per Image.

Hopefully it'll go the same way as the former one.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/act/...ST/f/17/t/10954

I know, I was just kidding

You're wrong my friend. If you use MA itself for decompressing corrupted file - Yeah ... only part before error
will be decompressed but try Winamp and you will see ...

I personally use APE for it's compression at reasonable speed and for tagging support via Abander TagControl. Also WavPack via it's CEP filter.

I have a few ape's, and no FLAC's. I'm leaning toward FLAC...especially since the Neuros and Rio Pearl should support it (soon?). I just picked a Sony DVD drive, so I should be able to fit at least nine compressed albums on a DVD. In the meantime, I've been simulating lossless encoding quality with vorbis.

xen-uno

I have many GBs of Ape file, but have started using flac now after having some issues with file corruption. I also like the better *nix support, as I am trying to get into that more and a huge majority of my audio files are lossless.

I use WMA, because of compatibility, and it's size. But before that I used APE all the time.

I use APE because they have a monkey and monkey's make me laugh.

FLAC doesn't have a mascot. Boo!

Personally I like Monkey's Audio because it generally has better compression than flac and I'm not worried about compatibility/potential future access/open source issues.

However, I did want to add that I tried Optimfrog with some Audiobooks I was encoding and it was routinely compressing 10-20% better than Monkey's Audio (High) at comparable (same order of magnitude at least) speeds. I was pleasantly surprised...unfortunately, I didn't try flac on those audiobooks for comparison.

My 2 cents worth....

I wouldn't get too concerned about hardware support. With lossless you can transfer losslessly from anything to anything else for the sake of a hardware requirement anyway...

If APE tags are important, both Wavpack and Optifrog support APE via Case's Tag.

Den.

I asked before in the thread but I guess I wasn't too clear. Is there a way to rip entire image into flac and play tracks individually later on? Foobar might do that but it's an exception , is there a way for WinAmp FLAC plugin to do that? Monkey's Audio has specific APL extension files designed for this purpose: Given CUE sheet it produces APL files which are <100 bytes then you can drag & drop those files for individual track playback... That's one damn handy feature I'd say.

Howdy,

I have been using Monkeys Audio since like Version 1. Has always been an excellent piece of software. Plus for me it's the ease of use for the frontend. Compresses nicely, and then I can encode mp3's in a few click out of my ape's...
Also, FLAC's compressions ratio dosen't stack up to MA, extra high mode....

Burgerings

some points...

1. encoding speed: if you are encoding while ripping, encoding speed doesn't really matter as long as it's faster than ripping. it's the decoding speed that counts if you're ever going to play back on anything but a PC.

2. APL for FLAC, or playing FLAC albums as tracks: in winamp2 I think mp3cue works for FLAC also. I expected more players to support playing from embedded cue sheets since the API makes it very easy. it would be pretty easy to do a hack like APL for FLAC but I just haven't gotten around to it and no one else has sent a patch.

3. MAC for the extra compression: for those who gave that reason... if that's the main reason then why not use other codecs that have even higher compression?

Josh

I voted for flac because i can use it on mac and win machines, sometimes I use shorten too.

cheers
f.