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Poll

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

FLAC
[ 325 ] (55%)
WAVPACK
[ 222 ] (37.6%)
Neither, I use another losless codec
[ 44 ] (7.4%)

Total Members Voted: 718

Topic: Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK? (Read 91665 times) previous topic - next topic
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Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #75
I thought that Matroska was better suited to A/V needs to begin with, and never considered it strictly for my audio files.  Is this an incorrect assumption?
voted 'Most likely to veer your thread' three straight years!

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #76
FLAC because I'm used to it.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #77
Wavpack - better compression and hybrid mode

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #78
I mostly use Wavpack, not so much for music archiving per se but for my own loops and samples backups. Wavpack doesn't remove the rather exotic but very useful RIFF subchunks which are created by some audio software(loop tempo, loop pitch etc...)

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #79
WavPack for speed, compression and hybrid mode.
WavPack 5.6.0 -b384hx6cmv / qaac64 2.80 -V 100

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #80
Wavpack because of its perfect cue-sheet support and because bryant is such a friendly guy.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #81
past : FLAC for fast decoding.
now : WavPack for better performance (encoding speed, compression).

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #82
FLAC.. just because I'm keeping all albums in matroska containers.
Yes, I know that matroska theoretically supports wavpack... but somehow I always get errors when I try mux in wavpack audio.. tried few times and had no time to look deep into that issue.

 

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #83
WavPack. Best efficiency, ie. decoding speed vs size.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #84
As usual, I tried them all. Optim, APE, FLAC, WV etc. I settled on WavPack - best overall speed vs decode speed vs size. I'd normally have said APE but at maximum compress, it decodes like an absolute dog.

This is only for my very favourite albums. For everything else I have, MusePack.

Dhry

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #85
Newbie here & a virgin post!

Wavpack rip to image with cuesheet & log embedded.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #86
FLAC. I just havnt given any thought to it... And FLAC seems to be the standard format people distribute lossless in.

So, basically the reason I also use MP3: It's the standard.
And if you believe theres not a chance to die...

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #87

I find the emphasis on speed and compression somewhat odd, given the difference between the two seem pretty insignificant.  Looking 5 years ahead, storage prices will be cheap enough to hold all your music in lossless format (in which case, why even have lossy?).  The more important issue to me is a standards setting issue. 

- Will there be devices to support it on your home stereo?
- Is the format supported by a portable player? Car?
- Can you purchase music in that format?

This standards war is already being fought out by Microsoft and Apple, two formidable players.  I just hope that some non-drm technology will be available as well.  But this will happen only if there is a big enough market for the lossless format, whether that be FLAC or WavPack. 

So right now, I believe FLAC is better in each of the departments above, so I use FLAC. 

If it ain't, someone let me know before I finish burning all my CD's to FLAC.


I subscribe fully to your text.
This is the reason, why I changed in my Lossless career from Flac to wavpack to flac again. Wavpack is technically of better overall performance than flac, but flac got recently some major hardware device support by real companies.
But you and me don't need to worry, if you have your music  Losslessly as Wavpack or Flac, you made nothing wrong, in the case, one or the other format might be implemented in your next hardware device, you can transcode easily and quite (more or less) quickly.


I switched from monkeys audio to FLAC because of the above reasons.  I think that the licensing restrictions are less for FLAC and will therefore become more popular.  Also, foobar 0.91 has good embeded cue sheet support for CD image rips.  No offense to Wavpack...I haven't tried it.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #88
Using Wavpack. One thing surprised me yesterday though.

I compressed a .wav file to .wv, maximum compression (using Dbpoweramp-with their most recent .wavpack support--I believe the newest wavpack, 4.31.

Then I decompressed the .wv file back to .wav, in a different folder, also with dbpa.

The resulting .wav file (from the decompressed .wv) was not the same size as the original .wav file! It was listed in Windows Explorer as being 1 kb smaller.

Not a significant size difference, and I could not hear a difference, in hearing the beginning of each file. Yet, it makes me wonder---did something get lost in the "lossless" compression of the .wav to .wv, that made it a different size when uncompressed back to .wav?

I'm wondering whether it is safe to delete the original .wavs, and think I still have that music in full lossless format? Is lossless not always completely loss-free? What could have accounted for that difference in 1 KB?

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #89
moi. A lossless encoder only compress the PCM data, not the actual container (WAVE or AIFF).
Meaning that when its decoded the actual filesize may differ from the original, but the content should be identical.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #90
moi. A lossless encoder only compress the PCM data, not the actual container (WAVE or AIFF).
Meaning that when its decoded the actual filesize may differ from the original, but the content should be identical.


But since it is the same container (.wav), why would the file size be different? 

Is there any way to test whether the content is identical? (Just to ease my mind before deleting the original .wav files. 

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #91

moi. A lossless encoder only compress the PCM data, not the actual container (WAVE or AIFF).
Meaning that when its decoded the actual filesize may differ from the original, but the content should be identical.


But since it is the same container (.wav), why would the file size be different? 

Is there any way to test whether the content is identical? (Just to ease my mind before deleting the original .wav files. 


You could bitcompare the files using foobar.


moi. A lossless encoder only compress the PCM data, not the actual container (WAVE or AIFF).
Meaning that when its decoded the actual filesize may differ from the original, but the content should be identical.


But since it is the same container (.wav), why would the file size be different? 

Is there any way to test whether the content is identical? (Just to ease my mind before deleting the original .wav files. 


You could bitcompare the files using foobar.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #92
moi. A lossless encoder only compress the PCM data, not the actual container (WAVE or AIFF).
Meaning that when its decoded the actual filesize may differ from the original, but the content should be identical.


Hrm... but WavPack DOES store the container when compressing a file. That's how it supports custom RIFF tags in WAV.

I wonder if dbPowerAMP is ignoring that information and writing default RIFF headers to the file instead.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #93
Hrm... but WavPack DOES store the container when compressing a file. That's how it supports custom RIFF tags in WAV.
Ooops, I didn't know that.
I thought all lossless encoders compressed the PCM stream only, but I was wrong. 


Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #95
Both: FLAC for compatability these days though and I have no need to use hybrid lossy either. 
budding I.T professional

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #96
Wavpack for me ...
...although I like FLAC too. I like them both because they are open source.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #97
WMA lossless with no particular reason. Anyway it's very fast at coding/decoding and compresses better than FLAC - I haven't had the time to try WAVPack though.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #98
I'm about to change over from Monkey's Audio to WavPack. It's all about compression for me. WavPack high seems to be almost as good as Monkey's Audio at -3000, which is what I've always used. Decode speed is pretty nice with WavPack too, about twice as fast, so that doesn't hurt either. FLAC is a really good format too in my opinion, but the small difference in compression per album adds up to quite a bit when you have a lot of them lol. That equals many gigabytes saved in my case.

Do you use FLAC or WAVPACK?

Reply #99
I use FLAC (for lossless and Vorbis for lossy) 'cause i love Xiph's product philosophy.