[1117]

I have never used FLAC before, and I am about to rip my CD collection so I can start using it for playback through my new equipment (no MP3 debates, please). Anyway, what I don't understand is that, if FLAC is lossless, why are there different settings?

I just don't understand this. Can someone explain please?

 

[Jaska]

You can read all about the different settings on the FLAC homepage. For the most part, they have to do with the speed of encoding and level of compression. I always use maximum compression (-8), and the -V switch is important in my opinion to make sure that the output audio matches the source audio.

 

[Febs]

Higher levels of compression take longer to encode. With some lossless codecs, I think that higher levels of compression may take more CPU to decode, but I don't remember offhand if this is true for FLAC. Unlike MP3 or other lossy codecs, the level of compression use does not change the encoded audio data in any way.

 

[sejarzo]

In my experience, the ultimate file size when compression level 8 is chosen versus the default level 5 is almost negligible. Likewise, the time to rip using either EAC or dBpoweramp is almost the same regardless of that setting--level 8 really hasn't increased ripping time more than a few seconds per CD.

 

[1117]

Thanks, guys!

Well, in the near future, I might build a small pc to be my "audio" pc. I don't want to shell out money for another OS, so here I'm off now to research on FLAC support for Ubuntu. Hope it exists!

 

[krmathis]

There are different setting, so you can choose which part of the algorithm to activate. Higher setting (8) mean longer encoding time and smaller files, while lower setting (1) mean shorter encoding time and bigger files. They will all contain the exact same lossless audio data.