[Lil_JV]

LOL! I didn't even know there were levels. Learn something new every day. This would have been good to know when I had my Karma.

 

[lordgibbness]

Yeah, is very useful as it prevent clipping (which results in distortion) and means all your songs/albums will be the same volume without needing to edit the audio data since a value is simply written to the tag.

 

[Scrith]

I use 8, which is pretty much free since the program I use to rip (EAC) can run the encoder as a seperate thread while extracting the audio from the CD.

Also, I'm running a dual-core Athlon 4800, which helps.

 

[mlarn]

On a similar note, Im using EAC to rip to FLAC. Im wondering, however, how to get all the songs ripped BEFORE I encode with the FLAC frontend. In other words, whenever I use EAC, it rips the songs one at a time and then prompts for the FLAC program to compress. So I have to do this 2-step process for each and every song, rather than just doing the ripping (EAC) at once and then the encoding (FLAC) at once. Am I missing an option somewhere in EAC in which to do this, or do you have to do it one song at a time like this?

 

[slwiser]

I use level 5 as my default. The difference for me is not enough to challenge my iHP-140 with the extra processing required for anything higher. The time it takes to get a CD onto my hard drive at level 5 is about 3-4 minutes with my 2.8 ghz P4. At level 8 it takes twice that time. I use DbPowerAmp for ripping and it compares the rip to other rips over the internet to ensure accuracy.

So these are the considerations for anyone to take into account.

1...Processing power on the unit to play the file, in my case it is my iHP-140 or iHP-120.

2...File size for each level...not a real consideration since the difference between level 0 and 8 is really not that much. Note, if I remember right as a rule of thumb the file size a level zero is about 60% of original and the file size of level 8 is about 50%. There are definite differences with different music. Heavy, dense music gets less while light open classical gets much more compression. I have seen as much as 30% compressed file size compared with the original at level 5 for some classical music.

3.. Time it takes to rip to FLAC. Level 1 takes almost no extra time compared with a simply file copy. Level 8 takes some additional compression time as noted above.

 

[Cjattwood]

I use Level 4, the default in dBpowerAMP.

 

[003]

I use 8, my dual core opteron 165 overclocked to 2.8GHz has yet to skip a beat

 

[iSleipnir]

I use 8 just because I only rip a cd one. At least thats the theory (hdd please don't crash, please don't crash, please don't crash)

 

[cerbie]

8. It's fast enough, and EAC is set to queue compression, so it's not a bottleneck (Athlon XP 1.15/1.5v to 2.1GHz/1.7v).

If I get a DAP that needs 'worse' compression, I'll transcode it for it, much like I go to MP3, currently.

mlarn: look in the options (this PC has no EAC), I think under a 'tools' tab, for a checkbox to queue external encoders. It will be a checkbox with an accompanying text box for a number of encoders at once (best is to use the number of CPU cores, I think).

 

[TooNice]

I use 8. My overclocked Opteron takes longer to rip than to encode, even at 8, so there is little reason to settle for anything less.

 

[mlarn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cerbie 8. It's fast enough, and EAC is set to queue compression, so it's not a bottleneck (Athlon XP 1.15/1.5v to 2.1GHz/1.7v). If I get a DAP that needs 'worse' compression, I'll transcode it for it, much like I go to MP3, currently. mlarn: look in the options (this PC has no EAC), I think under a 'tools' tab, for a checkbox to queue external encoders. It will be a checkbox with an accompanying text box for a number of encoders at once (best is to use the number of CPU cores, I think).

Thanks cerbie, I was playing around with the options and finally found it-now it works perfectly.

Now a new question for you all

I am using foobar masstagger to tag the EAC -> FLAC songs and for the life of me cannot figure out how to get the track numbers in there. I have it displayed in foobar (in the preferences -> playlist view it is checked and is there in the playlist view) but can't get it right with the tagging system. Ive tried the "auto track number" and "Add track number" options but can't anything to show up in the playlist view. When I right-click on the song and check out the properties, the track numbers are there, so its just a matter of getting them into the foobar playlist that (I think) is the problem.
Any ideas

Thanks

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlarn On a similar note, Im using EAC to rip to FLAC. Im wondering, however, how to get all the songs ripped BEFORE I encode with the FLAC frontend. In other words, whenever I use EAC, it rips the songs one at a time and then prompts for the FLAC program to compress. So I have to do this 2-step process for each and every song, rather than just doing the ripping (EAC) at once and then the encoding (FLAC) at once. Am I missing an option somewhere in EAC in which to do this, or do you have to do it one song at a time like this?

Yes, something is wrong. You should just have to stick in a CD, open EAC, click the mp3 button(whatever encoder, not only mp3) and a bit later you should have a file full of fully tagged FLAC files.
Read an EAC guide.

I use foobar for ReplayGain, among other things. Its cool how it makes everything the same volume.

 

[fongalv]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser I use level 5 as my default. The difference for me is not enough to challenge my iHP-140 with the extra processing required for anything higher. The time it takes to get a CD onto my hard drive at level 5 is about 3-4 minutes with my 2.8 ghz P4. At level 8 it takes twice that time. I use DbPowerAmp for ripping and it compares the rip to other rips over the internet to ensure accuracy. So these are the considerations for anyone to take into account. 1...Processing power on the unit to play the file, in my case it is my iHP-140 or iHP-120. 2...File size for each level...not a real consideration since the difference between level 0 and 8 is really not that much. Note, if I remember right as a rule of thumb the file size a level zero is about 60% of original and the file size of level 8 is about 50%. There are definite differences with different music. Heavy, dense music gets less while light open classical gets much more compression. I have seen as much as 30% compressed file size compared with the original at level 5 for some classical music. 3.. Time it takes to rip to FLAC. Level 1 takes almost no extra time compared with a simply file copy. Level 8 takes some additional compression time as noted above.

does this equate to more processor required for decoding flac8(compared to flac0) which for portable players means less battery?

 

[ChiasticSlide]

Using a lower compression level won't save you processing power when encoding. As the FLAC FAQ explains:

Quote:

Why do the encoder settings have a big effect on the encoding time but not the decoding time? It's hard to explain without going into the codec design, but to oversimplify, the encoder is looking for functions that approximate the signal. Higher settings make the encoder search more to find better approximations. The functions are themselves encoded in the FLAC file. Decoding only requires computing the one chosen function, and the complexity of the function is very stable. This is by design, to make decoding easier, and is one of the things that makes FLAC easy to implement in hardware.

So it's not going to make much of a difference for battery power chosing level 8 over level 4. The larger file size may actually use more battery power because the hdd has to spin more to read it, as the file occupies more physical space on the platter. However, the difference in file size between a level 4 and an 8 FLAC probably isn't going to make this very noticable. The effect is more pronounced when comparing MP3 to a lossless format.

 

[fongalv]

arh...i see...thanks for the reply...
yea I tested it and the difference between flac0 and flac8 file size is about 20mb for my rips, which aint much but my esrlier rips were in flac8 and only recently did I rip in flac0...I guess Il transcode when I got the time since theres not going to be any degrading...

Thanks!