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Topic: FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp (Read 15850 times) previous topic - next topic
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FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Hey guys,

I'm wanting to convert some albums to OGG straight from FLAC to put on my portable player, but with the best possible settings in dbpoweramp. So what slider setting should I use, and what setting in the Frequency and Channels box?

I usually always converted to mp3 V0. So is there a V0'ish quality with OGG? I pretty much know nothing about this format. But...I did read that OGG is supposed to have a superior sound over MP3, and in a smaller file size? Hope that's true.

I just converted an album to V0(slider all the way to the right on dbpoweramp, estimated bitrate 240kbps), and the album size came out to 61MB. Then, I took the same album and converted to OGG. And I slid the slider all the way to the right(estimated bitrate 500kbps, -q1 setting, under vbr setting), and the album came out to 119MB. So that's obviously not the setting that I'm wanting since the file size is so big. My bitrate setting was too high I'm guessing.

I tried one more time with the slider down to estimated bitrate of 224kbps(-q0.7 setting under vbr setting), and the file size came out to 55MB. So I'm guessing this is more along the lines of the setting that I'm wanting? Or would it be possible to go down to an even lower bitrate for smaller file size, but not really having to sacrifice sound quality?

Basically I'm wanting a setting with good sound quality, but with a small file size.

Thanks for any help.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #1
Lame -V0 is basically 256kbps VBR AFAIK. -q8 in Vorbis should then be the same bitrate (also 256kbps VBR). You may or may not get lower file sizes since you are using the same bitrate, however if anything the quality will likely be better with Vorbis. If you want the same quality, you'll have to do some ABX (blind listening) tests to see which bitrate in Vorbis will give you the same sound same quality as MP3 (likely -q6 or -q7).

EDIT: AFAIK dbpoweramp does not use the latest Vorbis encoder (which is aoTuV b5.7). You can download oggdropXPd V.1.9.0 using aoTuVb5.7 here

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #2
But...I did read that OGG is supposed to have a superior sound over MP3, and in a smaller file size? Hope that's true.

There may be some truth to that statement at low bit rates (depending on who you ask or which listening test you read), but at ~256 kbps vbr it is highly unlikely that you will hear any difference between them, or between lossy and lossless. I would stick with mp3 for compatibility.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #3
Go for q5.0, which averages out around 160kbps. This should produce transparent quality.
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #4
Thank you for responses guys. I really appreciate the help. I"ll start with q5.0(actually it's -q0.5 on dbpoweramp) like The Seeker suggested, and then do a couple listening test with some other bitrates like Xanikseo suggested.

And thank you pdq. As for compatibility, the new portable player I'll be getting supports OGG, so that's why I though I would give this format a go. See how it compares to MP3. I'm sure my ears won't be able to differentiate from most higher bitrates on a portable player. But if my ears aren't going to notice a difference, on the portable player, between say MP3 V0 and OGG 160, then I would rather pick OGG 160 for the smaller file size. With these portable players it's all about cramming as much music you can on it as possible, but still having a good quality to my ears.

Would anyone have any suggestions for what settings I should put in the Frequency and Channels boxes? There is also a Finer Quality Resolution box right under the slider(EDIT: Oh I see, ticking this box just enables you to pinpoint the exact bitrate, for example if you want something between 160 and 170, you can tick this box and pick something like 168). Would you guys recommend ticking this box?

Thanks for the help everyone.

EDIT: Yeah, q5 definitely gives me a much smaller file size. I'll throw this on my player when it arrives. If to my ears it sounds just like the usual mp3 V0 that I throw on there, then I'll stick with that.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #5
just for the record, are you confident that your ears can distinguish VBR mp3 averaging around 160kbps (Lame V4)?
Let alone in portable environment?
I'd be interested to see at what level you are able to ABX.

ogg is probably slightly better than Lame mp3 at similar bitrate, but the diff is slim and hard to tell at any statistically significant level.

whatever the case, if you're keeping a library of FLAC files, you don't need to worry about archive quality of your mp3 or ogg files. Go V3 or V4 for mp3, or q5 for ogg vorbis.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #6
Just in case you don't know:

If you intend to test different bitrates, make sure to convert from the FLAC file every time. Do not re-encode successively from 256 to 192 to 160 to 144 to 128 to 108 to 96, as you must then expect quality loss (i.e. artifacts audible at a frequency where a conversion from lossless source would be transparent).


FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #7
Oops...actually the title should have been FLAC to OGG with Foobar. What exactly should I download off of Rarewares to convert to OGG with Foobar? Should I still get the oggdrop with aotuvb that Xanikseo suggested, or something else?

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: Actually the oggdropXPd V.1.9.0 using libVorbis v1.3.1.exe doesn't appear in Foobar when I try to convert. So I tried Oggenc2.87 using libVorbis v1.3.1.exe, and that does appear.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #8
Thank you for responses guys. I really appreciate the help. I"ll start with q5.0(actually it's -q0.5 on dbpoweramp)


???? On my computer with  dbpoweramp the menu reads:  "Quality 5  (estimated bitrate: 160 Kbps)"

Quote
Would anyone have any suggestions for what settings I should put in the Frequency and Channels boxes?


Match what your source files are, most likely 44.1 khz and 2 channels.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #9
I know this is an old topic, but I just wanted to give a quick thanks to the ones that gave me help.

I've been listening to Vorbis q5 exclusively since June, and this format/bitrate sounds excellent. When listening on a portable device I always chose mp3 either v0 or 320kbps. But to my ears, this 160kbps vorbis doesn't sound any worst than v0 or 320kbps. I'm getting excellent sounding tracks and also am saving a bunch of space. I should have switched to vorbis years ago, and it baffles me that vorbis isn't the more popular choice(I'm guessing because there's more compatibility with mp3).

Anyways, thanks for the help the guys. It's been much appreciated.

By the way, just out of curiosity, up above Xanikseo said to use oggdropXPd V.1.9.0 using aoTuVb5.7 as my latest vorbis encoder. Is there anything wrong with Oggenc2.85 using aoTuVb5.7? Just wanting to know the difference between the two.




FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #10
I respect your decision, but question whether you've performed ABX between mp3 and lossless at lower settings such as -V3 or -V4 which gets you abound 160kbps.  I wouldn't have brought this up, except that you seem to imply that you need a higher bitrate with mp3 than with Vorbis in order to get excellent sound.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #11
Wow what a coincidence that I checked up on ogg today .

There shouldn't really be a difference to oggenc and oggdropXPd, they are just different front-ends, ie they just allow you to use the same encoder in different ways, one using it's own graphical interface (oggdropXPd) and the other not (oggenc). Basically as long whatever you choose to use is using AoTuV b5.7 to encode the audio, the sound quality will be the same. Personally I use oggenc with aotuv b5.7 as I use linux and it supports encoding directly from flac.


FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #13
Wow what a coincidence that I checked up on ogg today .

There shouldn't really be a difference to oggenc and oggdropXPd, they are just different front-ends, ie they just allow you to use the same encoder in different ways, one using it's own graphical interface (oggdropXPd) and the other not (oggenc). Basically as long whatever you choose to use is using AoTuV b5.7 to encode the audio, the sound quality will be the same. Personally I use oggenc with aotuv b5.7 as I use linux and it supports encoding directly from flac.


Thanks for clearing that up for me.  And actually I use Linux too, and I use a script to do all my lossless to ogg conversions(which by the way I've recently went down to q2, I did many ABX's between q5 and q2 and I could very rarely tell a difference only when I strained, Vorbis is a beautiful thing). Which I use AoTuV b5.7 for.

But there are sometimes that I need to down sample a 24/96 rip to 16/44, and that's when Foobar comes into use(as I'm not aware of any Linux scripts that will do this for me, but maybe I've been blind). So I wasn't really sure if I had to use oggenc over oggdropXPd or vice versa. But it's good to know there's not much a difference between the two.

Thanks for the help.

FLAC to OGG with dbpoweramp

Reply #14
You can actually use oggenc to down sample. Decreasing bit depth isn't necessary as vorbis effectively has a bit depth of about 26bits anyway (can't remember exactly) - plus the higher the bit depth of the source, the easier it is to encode to a smaller file size I think.

I personally usually use 48kHz as it just halves the sample rate and keeps things simple, plus my DAPs all support up to 48kHz anyways.
oggenc in.flac -q2 --resample 48000

but of course 44.1 also works, but it would probably increase file size and still be of lower quality.
oggenc in.flac -q2 --resample 44100

I actually use q2 too on my portable devices with low space , any artifacts, which are quite hard to detect anyway when I'm using basic equipment, are usually sorta "analogue" and not irritating.