Hi Folks!

I consider switching from APE to FLAC, mainly for speed-reasons. I did a little testing today to find the best compromise between speed and filesize and was very surprised to see only very little differences between levels 4,5,6,7 and 8.

I use Foobar and FLAC v.1.2.1b (MSVC8 Compile from rarewares).

Source: WAV, 16Bit, 44.1 kHz, 11 Files, 569.925.364 Bytes

At Level 4 encoding took about 1m05s, output-filesize is 397.512.736 Bytes, average bitrate 984 kbps.
At Level 5 encoding took about 1m00s, output-filesize is 396.974.931 Bytes, average bitrate 983 kbps.
At Level 6 encoding took about 1m10s, output-filesize is 396.969.391 Bytes, average bitrate 983 kbps.
At Level 7 encoding took about 1m30s, output-filesize is 396.781.359 Bytes, average bitrate 982 kbps.
At Level 8 encoding took about 1m55s, output-filesize is 396.004.079 Bytes, average bitrate 981 kbps.

So while encoding time is increased by ~ 50% on Level 8, filesize is just decreased by 0.4% (compared to level 4) . I didn`t try other Files yet, but I wonder if theres always just that little difference between Levels 4 to 8?

Yep:
http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/lossless/
For that reason -8 isn't the default value, but -5 instead. Personally I go for -6, which is very fast compared to -7 and -8, while the compression differences are negligible in my opinion.

I agree with Junon: -6 seems like the sweet spot to me.

I chose -6 as default because of the embedded difference with -7 and -8. I don' know what -e does exactly, but it slows down the conversion and doesn't give me the better results. So -6, right from the start.



edit:typo

"-e" in the flac cli is "exhaustive search" and takes forever without much gain...

Thanks Guys!

I think, I'll also stick with Level 6.

You only encode once, so I chose level 8.

I agree to this if you either encode a single CD or transcode/update your existing archive to FLAC. But during the process of ripping and archiving a large music collection, the slow -8 algorithm is an unreasonable pain.

Depending on the speed of your PC, level 8 encoding can be quicker than ripping the track in the first place, therefore little or no lag between discs.

I rip with EAC and use the compression queue. During the actual rip, i "rest" the queue (don't know what that option is called in the english EAC version), so no compression during that. After having finished ripping my CDs, I "unrest" the queue and the compression starts. I don't care how long it takes then, because I can use my computer to do other stuff at the same time.

You activate the queue by EAC/Preferences/Tools/Start 1 External Compressor In The Background. But since you don't want to compress while ripping, you rest the queue via Tools/Compression Queue Control Center (then there's only one box to tick/untick). Note the seconds "Tools" menu is left to the "Help" menu, it has nothing to do with EAC/Preferences/Tools.

I use FLAC lv 8
With FLAC 1.1.4. or whats it's name I used to have 2 or 3 files in que.
With FLAC 1.2.0. it's just the last file thats encoding.

I use Burst Mode with Test & Copy.
I have AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz and a 52x NEC CD/DVD ROM.

As with all compressors that have the option, I just use --best. (gzip --best, bzip2 --best, flac --best)
I guess dealing with an 8088 over a decade ago built up my patience for waiting for stuff to complete.