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[pieeyed]

Just wondering about when making flac files as with all previous media center versions I always used compression level 0. Now I see in M.C 19 that it is recommended to use compression level 6. Is there any advantage to using level 6 other than saving disk space?

[RoderickGI]

No.

But there is a slight disadvantage to using level 6, if the file can be compressed by that amount, in that it will take very slightly longer to create the file. It won't take appreciably longer to decompress the file though, and it will take less time to read it from disk.

Well actually, I guess that last point was another advantage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC#Compression_levels

[pieeyed]

Thanks for the reply RoderickGI. That is kind of what I thought. I wondered why they would recommend level 6, thought maybe it would produce a better sounding recording. I guess I will stick with the compression level 0 when making flac files.

[Hendrik]

The sound will be exactly the same. Level 6 will just be smaller.

[astromo]

Aagh .. been scouring the interweb for this piece of studious investigation:
http://www.audiograaf.nl/losslesstest/Lossless%20audio%20codec%20comparison%20-%20revision%203.pdf
Little did I know that it has evolved to Rev 3. Some edifying data to make some informed decisions (provided it's reliable ..  ? ).

Finally found the above link in amongst this lot:
http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison#Other_lossless_compressions_comparisons
where there's additional investigation by other players.

Based on the reference at the top, I've opted for max compression when ripping to lossless format. Hopefully I'm reading the results right but it appears that over a certain compression level threshold, there's very little change in decoding speed but there is further advantage to be had in maximising file size compression. I tick the box within MC to employ memory playback, so I figure that decoding speed is not an issue provided I've got spare RAM at my fingertips.

Feel free to point out the error of my ways.

[glynor]

Decoding speed is really not an issue with FLAC on any modern CPU.  Period.

You are FAR more likely to be bottlenecked by the source storage, unless it is a SSD or ultra-fast array.

NOTE: If you look at that PDF in the Test Setup, he's using an AMD A4-3400, which was a low-end, ~$60, dual-core, AMD Llano part designed for ultralights and netbooks, introduced in September 2011.  And, his charts are only showing percentage utilization of a single CPU core.

A A4-3400 gets absolutely BLOWN AWAY by even the lowest-end Core i3 now.  Even then, because AMD has been struggling for years since Intel switched to the Core architecture and Tick-Tock.

So... Differences are pretty exaggerated in that.

[astromo]

Decoding speed is really not an issue with FLAC on any modern CPU.  Period.

Noted. Thanks for that. I had not appreciated the hardware issues. You've confirmed my gut feel.. Nice.