Hi,

I was looking for Best lossless codec following are the requirements

1. No Constraint on space
2. Only Quality is important

Ad i choose FLAC as a format to RIP all my CD's (Just completed my 1 month project).

Here are my questions
1. I used Easy CD DA Extractor for FLAC ripping - Is this software known for some problems when converting into FLAC. I choose this because is connects to freedb and gets the titles automatically (No Need of typing)

2. In some cases i used WinAmp.

Did i made the right choice in terms of Codec and ripping Software? (Dont want to do the ripping process again)?

Thanks
Mayank

Please think closer about the terms "lossless" and "quality".

About size and encoding time, TAK is very good. But as it's new, not wide spread. FLAC is most popular. Wavpack (in my case) compresses better.

Most people here use EAC as their ripper, which is probably the best choice. But the advantages are mainly about ripping damaged CDs, so, if your CDs are alright, very likely you have done a good job and do not need to re-irp/encode.

If space doesn't matter, then neither does codec choice. All lossless codecs will be the same. That's why they're lossless.

Thanks a ton for response. But someplace i was reading FLAC does not RIP 16 Bit Audio???

Also on some other forum i remember reading complaints about Easy CD DA Extractor?

Regards
Mayank

Don't go "someplace" man. Stay here. Where people usually know what they are talking about.

Some lossless codecs can compress better than others. For best compatability with DAPs and software media players, I prefer FLAC for lossless audio.

Based on this criteria, there is no "best" lossless codec.

Codec part already answered. As for the ripping software, if you're concerned about accuracy then the answer is no.

Important considerations:

• Usage restrictions
• Future viability
• Compatibility with non-PC hardware
• Encoding/Decoding speed
• Battery life for portables

Most compress within a few percent of each other. Worst case scenario, you're probably looking at an extra CD's worth every 15 GB or so--more realistically, probably 25 GB--so raw compression performance isn't much of a consideration.

FLAC meets the bulleted list in the most balanced fashion. TAK is cutting edge, offering the greatest compression for now but low availability (PC only), restricted use, and questionable viability (no source and no backing entity). WavPack is the middle point, having FLAC's potential but lacking with few hardware options and poor performance in RockBox compared to FLAC.

Personally, I use WavPack due to its fast [de]compression, compression ratio, and, most importantly, its apparently better handling of low sample rate audio files. For whatever reason, FLAC refuses to encode these, and I've tried several versions via several interfaces.

Someone else will have to make a case for Apple Lossless, Monkey's Audio, optimFROG, and Windows Media Audio Lossless, but I don't see the advantages compared to FLAC, WavPack, and/or TAK other than vendor specific hardware support in Apple's and Microsoft's cases.

Who in their right mind would listen to lossless on a portable?

Obviously you've never been to an audiophile show. Even with Apple Lossless those people debate that even more "soul" has been depleted from their iPod music. Ugh. You should have heard the rumblings in the Joseph Audio room.

More realistically, I often deal with with low sample rate recordings that are handled better through WavPack than MP3 and maybe Vorbis, though I haven't tested aoTuV Beta 5. Still, at ~11 kbs and the guarantee I'm not losing even more fidelity, I'm not super motivated to find an alternative to WavPack.

Also, iPods are increasingly the center of home audio setups with those docking stations. Lossless isn't completely out of the question in those scenarios.

I agree. My lossless library is encoded using the Apple Lossless encoder (ALAC) so I have the ability to playback my lossless files on my iPod for portable use. However, I see no point in doing this as ALAC files take up way too much space for portable listening, use more battery power due to the hard drive accessing the larger files, and lossy encoders at bitrates of about 160kbps VBR sound just as good to me.

Is the line-out level from iPods still pitiful?

The docking stations use the iPod's proprietary connector, but I don't know how its level compares to the headphone jack or any standard measure. All I can say is its sound didn't offend, and the DVD movie didn't blow my ears off when he switched to it, though he may have adjusted the volume during the switch.

Well (first post yay) I used to. I tend to care about quality, and when I went on long car trips, or flights and such, I would bring my studio headphones that I use for music listening. I finally decided the large file sizes werent worth it for a car/plane ride every now and then, so I now use 256 AAC w/VBR.

I use apple lossless...why? Because I use Itunes, and its the lossless codec support by the software, and I have like 300GB of hard drive space available :]

The dock is a passive device and the line-out is (or at least used to be) a good 6dB below the standard level. Once you combine this with replaygain the output is a joke.

I use the line out of my iPod in my car and with headphones. 3rd gen iPod 20GB with LAME encoded APS files.

The sound quality and volume level is almost identical to when I insert a CD in my car...
JXL

Edit: Ignore this message....see my next post down below.

Line out or headphone out? (you can't use the line out with headphones)

Check the spec on the line-out. I'm not making this up.

http://forums.ilounge.com/archive/index.php/t-109393.html

Its not just size that makes Lossless on a DAP a bit of overkill, a $200 mp3-player is just not going to have a decent enough DAC, Amp...

Unless you find one with optical-out and spend more on a DAC/Amp combo to make it worthwhile.

I misunderstood the lingo....Sorry about that...
I use the headphone out connected to a balanced male/male Monster cable in my car.
JXL

np.

The older iPods (including the 3G and perhaps later) have series caps on the headphone out which creates noticeable bass-cut when connected to a high impedance input compared to using the line-out.

WMA-L - present on 99% of PC around the world via Windows Media Player which can RIP and play WMA-L.
It also means that when accessing a drive with WMA-L files, Windos can read and write their tags which makes managing your collection easier.
Also, WMA-L suppor in foobar makes transcoding very easy should you need another format.

One could also make a case against WMAL since it can employ DRM, though I'm not sure exactly what Whelkman meant by "Usage restrictions".

EULAs restrictive up front or through back door clauses.

ripping software: EAC (with secure mode) is a better choice for cds that are damaged, but if yours are perfect, there won't be a problem with any other software. EAC supports freeDB too.
listen to your music, and if you find errors from cd extraction, you can rerip those albums. if you discover several of them, you might consider reripping everything, but i really think this is not necessary.
EAC is better on damaged CDs but it can't work wonders either.

lossless codec: even if it turns out you didn't pick the right codec for your needs, you can still convert it to another lossless format. lossless to lessless is still lossless. you can convert between them as much as you want.
your choice: FLAC
as you are not worried about hdd space, you don't need a strong compression, but a factor that nobody in this thread talked about is decoding speed. FLAC is known for having a very good decoding speed (only TAK can offer the same, with higher comression) which means that you don't need a lot of cpu power to play back music. it may matter less on a strong machine, but still, if you don't care about compression, the thing to think about is decoding speed.
as FLAC is the most popular lossless codec you got the best support everywhere you go.
and FLAC is FREE
i think you picked the best codec for your needs

While I've been a longtime FLAC-lover (if for nothing else, it's intergrated ability to verify the integrity of it's datastream), with the recent 'liberation' of ALAC I'm leaning more and more towards ALAC. It's fuly usable on all platforms (OSX, Windows and now the rest too with the new ffmpeg), and on all iPods, which makes it the most ubiquitous lossless codec on earth.

Interesting times

I wouldn't exactly say 'liberated' or 'ubiquitous'... if you mean the ubiquitous according to the number of software and hardware instances that support ALAC then maybe, although because there are probably more copies of WMP out there than ipods or anything else it might actually be WMAL.

but if you're talking kinds of hardware and software, which is indicative of user choice and is more influential, it's no contest. that's partly why nobody is selling ALACs.

Huge capacities are available also for portables which makes them attractive also for lossless lovers. Big advantage: you needn't have a lossless + a lossy archive.
A very personal choice of course.
And since the arrival of lossyWAV (or wavPack lossy which unfortunately is very rarely supported on portables) we can go the middle way which is what I do. With lossyWAV there's also the need for a sufficiently available lossless coodec for portables, and this is where FLAC shines.

With the market share that iPods have in the portable player market and OSX and Windows (which can be used with iTunes) make have in the PC market, ALAC has a pretty good potential imho. Now that it has an FLOSS encoder it only makes it better.

Of course, outside that market, it's different (you've got AppleTV, Airport, but many more devices supporting FLAC) but I don't have any number on how much it is actually used there. From the comforts of my sitting chair it seems that having a FLOSS ALAC encoder that supports that many hard- and software 'instances' as you call it, seems a good thing.

QUOTE(Mayank Jha @ Aug 6 2007, 06:48)

1. No Constraint on space
2. Only Quality is important

Of course, if that's REALLY true, why not just use uncompressed wav? That's the most ubiquitous format of them all, and it takes exactly 0 seconds to encode.

Something tells me that space IS an issue, and there are constraints. And in that case, why not use MP3 or similar lossy? That saves you oodles of space compared to maybe 50% with FLAC or ALAC.

If you can ABX the difference between a -V2 LAME encoded MP3 and the original wav, you deserve to put me in place. Otherwise, explain what you mean by "Only quality is important". To me, Sounds identical + smaller files = higher quality. (Unless you intend to re-encode down the line)

tagging would be a good reason, wav has great tagging capabilities
error robustness, checking for errors, multi channel etc etc lots of reasons to ditch wav

come on, why are you suggesting a lossy codec? there are some many reasons: editing, paranoia , changing the format... lossless is future proof
for example: you encoded to 128mp3 before because you didn't hear the difference, then you get a new (better) sound system and all of a sudden you hear them. or you more develop skill in ABXing.
or you need to go to another codec because some device can't play it, you really don't want to transcode from one lossy codec to another.

Wave is more robust than any lossless codec.

huh? lose a byte out of the middle of a wave file and the decoder is lost; it can't detect it and will play noise until the end unless it's 8-bit mono. lose a byte out of the middle of a flac file and you lose just the frame, the decoder keeps going.

IMHO with bigger storage space and more capable portable players using lossless becomes less and less a problem. My Cowon A3 has 80 GB and can playback FLAC, Apple Lossless, WavPack, TTA and Monkeyaudio (up to -c3000). My iTunes AAC and LAME encodes are transparent for about 90% of my music, but for the remaining rest I can hear a difference between the original and my encodes. I don't want to waste my time with playing with lost of settings and encoders to get a transparent sound for this music too. I'd rather encode to WavPack -hhx6 (which gives usually the best compression that my player can play back) and then forget about it.
But I understand that there are people that care more about filling the player to the last possible bit with music and that to them a little quality trade off in very few cases doesn't matter. Suum cuique

I tried to think of a situation where corruption would result in lost bytes instead of changed bytes. Can you give me a real-world example?

I'm pulling this completely out of my bum, but maybe one can lead to the other, e.g. ... perhaps a flipped bit in the header that causes the decoder to start decoding at the wrong byte location?

-brendan

losing bytes is a common transmission error, but bytes don't have to get lost to cause a problem with wav. even corrupt pcm data of the same length is undetectable, and if it's random data that gets in there you're going to hear full scale noise in a player. in flac you only get dropped frames or silence because the decoder can detect errors.

Yeah, I just haven't seen the type of corruption that results in lost bytes. It's wrong for me to assume that it can't happen. I will say that a few incorrect samples due to bits getting flipped is far more robust than losing thousands of samples, though.

FWIW, I dug up this post by Alex B:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=445438

Zero seconds to encode is technically correct, but it can take longer to rip/decode and write to disk. Why?

Well, due to a fast CPU's encoding speed vs. (even contemporary) disk IO speeds, it is possible it may take less time to write ripped/converted data to a hard drive that has been compressed with FLAC (at a fast setting) than writing pure PCM/WAV data (due to that WAV data being potentially 100s of megabytes larger in size).

This is especially true when ripping/decoding from multiple sources and writing to a single DASD store (e.g. using four fast optical drives with dbpoweramp's batch ripper on a multi-core machine).

-brendan

interesting point wouldn't have thought of that.