Why FLAC?

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

Up to reading this forum, I have never heard of Flac. obviously, it must be very satisfying to a lot of folks. Now, the question is this:

Does it sound as good as wav files? won’t these files take a lot of space? What is the advantage other than perfect sound?

thank you.

2

Well, a good ogg file is transparent to a wav file on a portable player, but adding FLAC will shut some yattering mouths :wink:

Flac as a codec is lossless - after decoding it’s bit to bit identical with the wav file it was made from, but has a lower bitrate than the original (wav files 44,1kHz, 16bit have a bitrate of ~1411kbp, while flac files usually about 800-1000kbps, depending on the file and the level of compression).

3

I’ve got several q’s on this myself! 

Does FLAC give CD quality sound and how much better is it than MP3’s encoded at 320kbps (that’s what I like to use)?

Does it take up more mb’s? Is it better than OGG, if so, why?

4

>Does FLAC give CD quality sound and how much better is it than MP3’s encoded at 320kbps (that’s what I like to use)?

As i’ve said - Flac is bit-perfect, hence it does give you cd quality, but i doubt you’ll hear any difference between mp3@320 using Clip as a source and good headphones.

I also doubt you’ll hear a difference between FLAC and OGG@q10 using Clip as a source, a good headamp and hi-fi phones :wink: After all IT’S JUST AN MP3 PLAYER (very good quality, but still).

>Does it take up more mb’s? Is it better than OGG, if so, why?

Pearl Jam - Daughter @ Flac level 5 -> 25,23MB (63% of original)

Pearl Jam - Daughter @ Ogg q8 -> 6,75MB (17% of original)

5

It’s better if you first understand what lossy and losless formats are. Then which group flac,mp3,off,wav belong to.


Lossy compression is a form of compression that significantly reduce multimedia file size by throwing away information imperceptible to humans.

Human audio perception is not perfect. Lossy compression takes advantage of this characteristics. By selective discarding, much unnecessary information is thrown away. The amount of information discarded is usually adjustable, giving a compromise between small size bad quality and high quality large size.

The downside to this is that waveform reconstructed from compressed information will never exactly match the original waveform.

Popular lossy formats:

* Advanced Audio Coding (AAC, also improperly known as MP4 or M4A)
* AC3
* ATRAC3
* DTS
* MP2
* MP3
* Musepack (also known as MPC, formerly known as MPEGplus or MP+)
* (Ogg) Vorbis
* QDesign
* Speex (speech only)
* VQF
* Windows Media Audio (WMA)


Lossless compression is a compression methodology in which the result of the compression can be restored faithfully, i.e. bit-by-bit identical with the uncompressed data.

In a nutshell, it is somewhat like compressing a Waveform file with ZIP or RAR.

The difference between ‘mere’ ZIP/RAR is that lossless compression algorithms are especially tuned and designed for the characteristics of Waveform data, thus achieving compression far greater than can be achieved by generic compression utilities.

As lossless compression preserves all information of the original Waveform file, audio compressed with lossless compression will unavoidably be larger than audio compressed with lossy compression. However, this disadvantage is more than offset by lossless’ ability to be transcoded(coverted) to other lossless format without any quality degradation.

Popular losless formats:

* Apple Lossless (ALAC)
* Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
* Lossless Audio (LA)
* Lossless Predictive Audio Compression (LPAC)
* Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP)
* Monkey’s Audio (APE)
* OptimFROG
* RK Audio (RKAU)
* Shorten (SHN)
* TAK
* TTA
* WavPack
* WMA lossless

more info at http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org

6

I’d like to point out that sound quality is only one reason for FLAC.  As other have pointed out, high-bitrate Ogg and MP3 can sound just as good, particularly on standard consumer-grade equipment.  With high-bitrate it takes high-end equipment and a trained ear to have a shot at telling the difference.  However, FLAC has some very important benefits as an archive format:

  1. Assuming you got a bit-perfect rip (EAC/dbPoweramp+AccurateRip), you can perfectly recreate the CD from the FLAC files if the original is ever damaged or lost.  You can’t do that with any lossless format.
  2. If you only have lossy files, you can’t transcode to another codec/bitrate without significant additional loss.  With FLAC files I can transcode to as many different formats as I like and change my mind as often as I like.  For example, I use a lower bitrate on my Clip so I can fit a certain number of songs.  On my Fuze I have the same songs, but encoded at a higher bitrate for better quality.   With lossy files you’re pretty much stuck with whatever format you originally chose.  And even if you are willing to accept the additional quaity lost in transcoding, you can only go lower in bitrate, you can never go higher.
  3. Storage always gets bigger and cheaper.  You can fit close to 1500 CDs in FLAC on a 500GB hard drive that costs $70.  So there’s really no cost or storage capacity reason not to use FLAC for your main library.  Plus,  in a few years when we have affordable 250GB flash players, many people who ripped all their CDs to a lossy format might regret that choice. 
    So for me, lossy is great for low-bandwidth streaming or portable applications where limited storage capacity is an issue.  But lossy formats, no matter how high the bitrate, are not appropriate as an archive format.

Now whether FLAC is really that useful on an 8GB player is debatable, but it’s definitely the format of choice for your main library.

7

It’s all good ripping to FLAC on your computer hardrive but then when you want to put it all on your media player you have to re-encode it all again but to something a lot smaller in file size… that can take a while and be very tedious. But what I had to do the other day is re-encode my 320kbps mp3’s into 256kbps to go on my Clip due to lack of storage (2gb is not enough for me now).

I might consider ripping my cd contents to a lossless format on my hardrive in the future but right now I can’t be bothered to go through the whole ripping process again and it would take up about x2 as much space which wouldn’t be good for my HDD…

8

very vaulable info. learned a lot. Thanks  a bunch.

9

@ackers wrote:

It’s all good ripping to FLAC on your computer hardrive but then when you want to put it all on your media player you have to re-encode it all again but to something a lot smaller in file size… that can take a while and be very tedious.

It does take a while when you first loadup your player, but after that it’s really no problem.  When you’re just adding a new album or two, the extra transcode time isn’t very much.  Plus, tools like Winamp make it painless.  You can setup Winamp to automatically transcode on the fly when syncing or manually sending content to the player.

@ackers wrote:

But what I had to do the other day is re-encode my 320kbps mp3’s into 256kbps to go on my Clip due to lack of storage (2gb is not enough for me now).

And this is exactly the problem I mentioned.  Because your 256kbps files were transcoded from already lossy 320kbps files, they are lower quality than 256kbps files encoded directly from a lossless source.  For me this is the number one benefit of FLAC (or lossless in general).

10

I can attest you will hear a remarkable difference in sound quality playing FLAC files on the Clip.  Very noticeable improvement in Percussion, Stereo Imaging, and “Liveness”. When you connect the player to your home stereo it will really jump out at you.

This comes with the price of more MB per track. 

SansaFix

11

>I can attest you will hear a remarkable difference in sound quality playing FLAC files on the Clip.  Very noticeable improvement in Percussion, >Stereo Imaging, and “Liveness”. When you connect the player to your home stereo it will really jump out at you.

Compared to what?

If so I can’t wait to chceck it out (and a shame my 1gb Clip will store only two albums :().

Message Edited by kilarezan on 10-03-2008 09:53 AM

12

Compared to MP3 and WMA encoded files.

13

I couldn’t tell the diffrence between vorbis q8 and flac in the clip (i am using philips shp5400 hp). so i decided to raise the volume to max, and there it was I noticed a little echo in the q8 where the flac didn’t have it.

Message Edited by fighterblast on 10-04-2008 12:48 AM

14

Well, I don’t know if it’s the difference or only an autosuggestion, but it seems to me that there’s a difference between q8 and Flac indeed.

Comparing on Metallica’s All Nightmare Long (GH III ver.) the guitars sound brighter on ogg and have a nice warmer and fuller sound on flac.

Compared using Creative Aurvana Live!

Way to go Sandisk! :slight_smile:

15

I decided I want to give FLAC a go so what do I need to rip my cd’s in FLAC? It looks like my WMP doesn’t do it… does Winamp?

16

WiMP won’t do it, because of the name: Free Lossless Audio Codec.

Here is a cool link to the Genuine Article, FLAC.

Have fun!

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

17

Well, using dBpoweramp is a more convenient solution :wink:

Not only does it support multiple formats, but it also does a great job tagging your files for you and checking if the rip was accurate using suitable databases.

18

Haven’t tried FLAC on the clip (yet) but in general, yes you can hear a difference against ogg/mp3.  Not much for high-quality ogg but it’s there.  To me, it sounds “crisper”.

Also I’ve already encoded my entire library into FLAC and it’s a pain to re-encode to ogg.  I don’t care so much about space- I’m only listening to a small number of things at a time.

This is awesome news- wasn’t expecting until Dec.  THANK YOU SANSA!!! :slight_smile:

Message Edited by sansa4eva on 10-05-2008 09:38 AM

19

FLAC is the best method of archiving your collection.

You needn’t convert the entire library!  Just take the FLAC files and transcode them to OGG, WMA, or MP3 as needed.  The beauty of having FLAC is that it’s lossless, and you have an effectively “pure” source file that can be ripped into any format you desire without degradation.

If you have a favorite track you want to hear in UBER COOL clarity, try loading the source file, which you can now do, directly onto the device.

For the discriminating audiophile, the Clip is the ultimate portable source.

For the c|net reviewer that smugly bemoaned using a “cheap” Clip with a $500 headphone, have a piece of this digital cake!  Actually, browse boards like Head Fi, and you’ll see lots of users connecting their $1000 headphones to nothing BUT a Clip.

Hehehe!  What are we doing today, Pinky?  The same thing as everyday, we aim to rule the world!!

I am going to make a Sansas For World Domination T-shirt.

Enjoy!

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

20

FLAC is lossless which means when its decoded it’s the same as the original bit-for-bit, for mp3 it’s lossy which means when it’s decoded it’s very close to the original. There’s a big difference for me between flac and mp3, notably I can hear more detail and it sounds crispier. Of course it comes at a size price but it usually compress wav to 1/2 the size…hmm I need to get that new Sansa Fuze - more space lol.

Oh and if you’re thinking about converting mp3s to flac, don’t bother because the end quality can only be as good as the source quality, unless you really want everything in flac. You’d need to re-rip it from the CD into flac directly.

I haven’t tested ogg (lossy) yet but ogg should be somewhere between mp3 and flac.

Message Edited by KCE on 10-05-2008 02:12 PM