Topic: flac vs ape - not sure which to choose (Read 48714 times)

lise · « **on:** January 01, 2012, 02:13:05 pm »

I'm about to rip all my cds to lossless.
I am somewhat familiar with ape, but I know next to nothing about flac except what I've gathered in the last 2 hours of reading.

The only things that really matter to me are:
- tagging
- playing over the network and gizmo
- ease of conversion to mp3 or to another lossless format in case the chosen format becomes obsolete

I gather both formats do all three very well within MC.
Are there any important differences I should look up before committing to one or the other?
I'm tempted to go with ape because it is Matt's, so I gather it is more easily integrated within MC and if there are issues, well, Matt is right there to deal with them. Should this be the thing that makes me go with ape?

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2012, 02:20:41 pm »

Either should be fine and you can always convert later if you change your mind.

Skogkatt · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2012, 01:27:53 am »

My decision to use ape was based on two considerations:

1) I have seen that an average CD compressed in ape is 2-3% smaller in size than the same CD in flac. This means that 1TB hard drive could store 80-120 CDs more if ape is used.
My findings are based on standard compression levels for both formats. Given the prices and sizes of the hard drives available today this consideration might be meaningless but I
don't like to waste capacity for no reason.

2) In my system (through my ears and with my brain) ape sounds better than flac and almost indistinguishable compared to wav: I know, this is a highly controversial debate...and
I don't want to convince anybody, just report my humble findings.

In the end is the user who decides what he/she likes and why. The nice thing about computer based media players is that you can try any combination and decide by your self.

SamuelMaki · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2012, 03:46:42 am »

Quote from: Skogkatt on January 02, 2012, 01:27:53 am

My decision to use ape was based on two considerations:

1) I have seen that an average CD compressed in ape is 2-3% smaller in size than the same CD in flac. This means that 1TB hard drive could store 80-120 CDs more if ape is used.
My findings are based on standard compression levels for both formats. Given the prices and sizes of the hard drives available today this consideration might be meaningless but I
don't like to waste capacity for no reason.

2) In my system (through my ears and with my brain) ape sounds better than flac and almost indistinguishable compared to wav: I know, this is a highly controversial debate...and
I don't want to convince anybody, just report my humble findings.

In the end is the user who decides what he/she likes and why. The nice thing about computer based media players is that you can try any combination and decide by your self.

Thanks for that, I will now rip all my cds to ape instead of flac

But before I rush things too much, can I have more information about ape, and why it is better than flac? I have thought that flac has better error resisting than ape when ripping, but I can be wrong (or ape has developed...). And what about wavpack? Funny thing is that searching via google, I get mixed opinions about SQ... I have always wondered why lossless codecs sounds different on different software/hardware, when they should be bit-identical ?

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2012, 04:20:13 am »

Quote from: Skogkatt on January 02, 2012, 01:27:53 am

...
2) In my system (through my ears and with my brain) ape sounds better than flac and almost indistinguishable compared to wav: I know, this is a highly controversial debate...

Impossible.

Both are lossless and are exactly the same as uncompressed wave. There is no debate possible on lossless formats.

Pretty much the only possibility for a lossless format to sound differently is when your decoder is crap or bugged.

With regards to the original question, if storage means less you might want to consider encoding speed. If both are indistinguishable I would personally go for the fastest encoder. Also look into the parameters the encoders support. Sometimes you can choose a different balance between compression and time (I know Flac has something like that).

Daydream · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2012, 05:19:55 am »

Quote from: InflatableMouse on January 02, 2012, 04:20:13 am

If both are indistinguishable I would personally go for the fastest encoder.

You guys haven't heard of FLACCL?? There is no contest - GPU encoding wins big time. It's "blink and you missed the encoder window". Plain scary fast.

BillT · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2012, 08:09:41 am »

One point in favour of flac coding is that some network players can play the files so the they don't have to be transcoded. No network player, to my knowledge, supports ape directly.

Having used ape for the first 20,000 files, I'm now encoding with flac for this reason.

Skogkatt · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2012, 08:27:37 am »

Quote from: Skogkatt on January 02, 2012, 01:27:53 am

2) In my system (through my ears and with my brain) ape sounds better than flac and almost indistinguishable compared to wav: I know, this is a highly controversial debate...

Quote from: InflatableMouse on January 02, 2012, 04:20:13 am

Impossible.

Both are lossless and are exactly the same as uncompressed wave. There is no debate possible on lossless formats.

Impossible?

It is funny how even an accurate choice of words to indicate a subjective sensation/opinion doesn't help to prevent to be attacked or, worse, be derided.

I think that, while identical at bit level, flac, ape, and wav can sound different: is it an absolute truth? No, it is just my opinion.

Have you ever thought that, when a computer outputs a timing dependent signal such as S/PDIF, the computer itself becomes part of the analog processing?

S/PDIF is usually clocked by an oscillator inside the motherboard or the sound card, goes through several logic devices (CMOS gates) before being presented
to the output connector and these circuits get power from the computer's PSU, the same that supplies power to the CPU.

CPU cycles, number of operations, and temporal distribution of these operations are largely determined by OS, programs running, and type of audio files to be decoded.
The CPU induces perturbations on PC's power supply in form of voltage variations and variable magnetic fields and these perturbations are correlated to CPU activity that doesn't
mean necessarily CPU load %. Even power save mechanisms can influence power supply.

Now, no oscillator and CMOS logic is immune from disturbances on its power supply or EMI induced noises (even mechanical/microphonic as crystal oscillators are based on piezo devices):
those perturbations are reflected on the phase noise of the oscillator and therefore on the jitter present at the S/PDIF output.

Asynchronous USB DAC might be a different story unless the receiver side is not powered from the USB cable and thus from the PC power supply.

Any PC is different in terms of CPU model, PSU, mother board, memory brand, hard drive/s, wiring layout, etc. : with my CDs, my PC coupled with my DAC, my preamp,
my power amp, my listening room, my ears and last but not least my brain, ape sounds better than flac!

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2012, 08:38:23 am »

Quote from: Daydream on January 02, 2012, 05:19:55 am

You guys haven't heard of FLACCL?? There is no contest - GPU encoding wins big time. It's "blink and you missed the encoder window". Plain scary fast.

Holy crap ...

Just did some quick tests...

with -11:
Filename : ed.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:55:36.3600000
Results : 434,11x; 334883396 bytes in 00:00:07.6854395 seconds;

with -7 (default):
Filename : ed.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:55:36.3600000
Results : 984,41x; 345728748 bytes in 00:00:03.3891939 seconds;

with -0:
Filename : ed.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:55:36.3600000
Results : 1039,63x; 345728748 bytes in 00:00:03.2091836 seconds;

With MC17: 47 secs.

Imma gonna make this work with MC

Funny thing is, there is no size diff between -0 and -7 but its .18 secs slower

Between -0 and -11 there's 8.359MB size difference. Roughly meaning you get to store 41 CD's encoded on -11 compared to 40 on encoded on -7 but you'll spend 168 seconds longer on encoding which translates to 49 more CD's you can encode on -0. Choices choices choices

j/k of course

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2012, 08:50:19 am »

Quote from: Skogkatt on January 02, 2012, 08:27:37 am

with my CDs, my PC coupled with my DAC, my preamp,
my power amp, my listening room, my ears and last but not least my brain, ape sounds better than flac!

I still believe that unless something is wrong, it's impossible

.

No offense bud, that's just what I believe. Let's leave it at that and agree we disagree.

Skogkatt · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2012, 09:03:45 am »

Quote from: SamuelMaki on January 02, 2012, 03:46:42 am

Thanks for that, I will now rip all my cds to ape instead of flac But before I rush things too much, can I have more information about ape, and why it is better than flac? I have thought that flac has better error resisting than ape when ripping, but I can be wrong (or ape has developed...). And what about wavpack? Funny thing is that searching via google, I get mixed opinions about SQ... I have always wondered why lossless codecs sounds different on different software/hardware, when they should be bit-identical ?

While I can't answer on error "resilience" capabilities of flac vs. ape, I have seen that wavpack compression is less efficient that both flac and ape.
SQ wise wavpack seems to me on par with ape (my humble and subjective impression) but I didn't take the time to investigate further.

Perhaps you would make a wiser choice if you rip one or two well known CDs in the various formats and compare them side by side: difference can be subtle and might be
more or less evident depending on many factors including how revealing and transparent is your reproduction system.

flac.rules · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2012, 09:18:47 am »

Quote from: Skogkatt on January 02, 2012, 08:27:37 am

Impossible?

It is funny how even an accurate choice of words to indicate a subjective sensation/opinion doesn't help to prevent to be attacked or, worse, be derided.

Are you getting attacked or derided? He mearly stated that there is no possible way (with a few expetions) that the encoding itself makes the difference. That is no personal attack on you. Please don't take the fact that human interpertation of physical forces have flaws when it comes to measuring them objectivly as a personal attack.

Skogkatt · « **Reply #12 on:** January 02, 2012, 09:20:05 am »

Quote from: InflatableMouse on January 02, 2012, 08:50:19 am

I still believe that unless something is wrong, it's impossible .

No offense bud, that's just what I believe. Let's leave it at that and agree we disagree.

I agree on agreeing we disagree.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #13 on:** January 02, 2012, 05:34:56 pm »

You should go with APE. I find that -- compared to flac -- ape has perky highs, tanned and tawny midtones and a full and firm bottom end and perhaps some hints of spice and reasonably tamed tannins. YMMV what with varying longitudes and weenier hearing.

JustinChase · « **Reply #14 on:** January 02, 2012, 06:17:37 pm »

I'm far from an expert, but I've noticed the last couple of years that FLAC is more commonly supported. There are more tools that use/work with FLAC, and some devices now have native support. I suspect that even though Matt seems quite willing to license/give away Monkey's Audio code, the fact that its' "owner" is the lead developer of a pay software company probably limits it's acceptance by other companies.

I personally use APE, since I pretty much use JRiver for everything I need, and it's been great.

I don't know that the potential space savings or rip speed will amount to a substantial factor either way.

As for one sounding better than the other; that should not be the case, lossless is lossless, but others will disagree. I have no dog in that fight, so I won't pretend I really care

My equipment/setup will not highlight any such differences, so it was a matter of convenience for me in choosing APE back in v12.

JimH · « **Reply #15 on:** January 02, 2012, 06:27:46 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin on January 02, 2012, 05:34:56 pm

You should go with APE. I find that -- compared to flac -- ape has perky highs, tanned and tawny midtones and a full and firm bottom end and perhaps some hints of spice and reasonably tamed tannins. YMMV what with varying longitudes and weenier hearing.

Thanks for a good laugh, Tom. I spent the last half hour searching for a picture to use in a reply [insert picture of a monkey in a skirt] but I couldn't find anything that was appropriate and (regrettably) inoffensive.

Matt · « **Reply #16 on:** January 02, 2012, 06:50:24 pm »

I always feel like I should have something smart to add to this discussion, but the leading lossless formats are all good choices.

APE is a little more efficient and FLAC is a little more widely supported. WavPack has the nicest author. All are open, free, and safe choices.

I wrote Monkey's Audio because back then there was no way to store things in a lossless way that allowed real-time playback and tagging. So APE filled a hole and was a lot of fun to write.

It also got me in the door at JRiver, which was a real bit of serendipity. Before Monkey's Audio, I wrote a media player for fun. Now it's my job, and I'm part of a great team

craigmcg · « **Reply #17 on:** January 02, 2012, 09:38:13 pm »

I personally hate taking FLAC from some APE who whines about tannins!

The great thing about lossless formats is that it is easy to transcode losslessly to another format so pick the one the you like- you can always change your mind later!

justsomeguy · « **Reply #18 on:** January 02, 2012, 11:40:52 pm »

I stick with FLAC for my ripped cd's. As others have said, FLAC has at least a small amount of hardware support and I'm hoping that more manufactures adopt it in the future. APE on the other hand, I haven't seen any hardware support at all and most likely never will.

hulkss · « **Reply #19 on:** January 03, 2012, 12:20:03 am »

I had ripped all of my CDs prior to using MC. They are all ALAC (Apple Lossless) files. Moved it all into MC and it seems to work fine.

Vincent Kars · « **Reply #20 on:** January 03, 2012, 04:24:05 am »

Hydrogen is running a poll at the moment
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=85fa8c0191d37ad6c0de9ce76f566aee&showtopic=92660

What are your *main lossless* formats of choice?
FLAC [ 104 ] [64.60%]
WavPack [ 25 ] [15.53%]
TAK [ 13 ] [8.07%]
Apple Lossless (ALAC) [ 8 ] [4.97%]
Monkey's Audio (APE) [ 3 ] [1.86%]
WMA Lossless [ 0 ] [0.00%]
OptimFrog [ 0 ] [0.00%]
other lossless format [ 1 ] [0.62%]
I don't use lossless compression. Only WAV [ 0 ] [0.00%]
I don't use lossless AT ALL! [ 7 ]

jgreen · « **Reply #21 on:** January 03, 2012, 11:31:40 am »

Media Monkey was my first "real" media player. Prior to that I was trying to make do with WMP and/or the player that came with my Audigy box, IIRC. Both were stinkin messes, for different reasons.

Media Monkey was an eye-opener for me, to a new world of digital media. Ironically, I only used it for a few weeks. I was surfing for info on configuring MM when I stumbled on a link to a new player designed by the genius behind ape audio--you know the guy. This new player, J River, had an even odder name than Media Monkey, so I figured I was on the right track. I did a trial download and then bought it within minutes--even though the alternatives were all free. It has been a wild ride ever since, and the naming schemes keep getting odder.

lise · « **Reply #22 on:** January 03, 2012, 01:19:49 pm »

Quote from: jgreen on January 03, 2012, 11:31:40 am

I was surfing for info on configuring MM when I stumbled on a link to a new player designed by the genius behind ape audio--you know the guy.

I'm sure Matt did an awful lot of re-designing, but JRiver's player (Media Jukebox) existed before Matt was hired.
This isn't to take anything away from Matt, but to bestow some of the credit on the original designers (Jim and Nicolay and Gateley perhaps?)

jgreen · « **Reply #23 on:** January 03, 2012, 05:49:20 pm »

Excellent point, Lise; and I assure you I was not trying to redistribute credit here, no matter how much I succeeded at it. Rather, I was just trying to describe the long chain of dumb luck that led me to this great software.

As for Gately, the red-headed stepchild in all this, I hope he forgives me. Truth be known, I don't care who wrote the software, only that I get my feature requests fulfilled on a timely basis. In that Matt seems to be the "bottleneck" (his word, not mine), so if it greases the skids I'm happy to assign him credit for every version of MC back to the Magna Carta.

Hopes this helps!

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Author Topic: flac vs ape - not sure which to choose (Read 48714 times)