Lossless Audio Codec Comparison '07

[Tab]

I've just completed and compiled a formal comparison of the major players in the lossless audio arena, including, but not limited to, FLAC, MPEG-4 ALS, and iTunes ALAC. Results, along with pretty chart, here, but also pasted below for your convenience.





La takes the cake, achieving 65.33% compression -- the closest to half off you're going to get. It should also be noted that MPEG-4 ALS is heavily based on LPAC, thus, it makes perfect sense for them to achieve identical results. FLAC, ALS, and ALAC are all pretty much on even footing, and right around the midpoint as far as the results go. I'm still surprised at how terrible bzip2 did. I guess it's just not suited for this kind of data the way it is for text and source code.

If I've left any out, let me know.

Oh, and watch the links in the Codec Comparisons section of the site -- they're not all functioning yet and none of my other comparisons are up yet.

Lossy audio, and lossless/lossy video coming soon.

[3dsnar]

What kind of audio files did you use?
Maybe the performance varies with regard to different sounds?
Please provide more info.
Cheers, 3d

[jagabo]

Conversion times?

[Tab]

Nearly every forum I've posted this in there's been someone asking for times. I didn't test for speed because A. it isn't important to me, B. all codecs were tested on their slowest setting, and C. there's not really any accurate way of doing it.

The audio could be considered Rock/Industrial. Of course results will vary with different types of audio. This was one of the (admittedly few) CD-quality albums I own. I'm going to be introducing a few different types of music in the future.

[3dsnar]

I do not listen to rock/industrial,
so the results are useless for me...
W do not know which is the best codec
for e.g. disco from 80's, classical etc.
In fact, it would be interesting to find out the variations
of the bitrate with regard to various music types.

In other words: you need to perform the tests on a broad range of music genres
or at least provide the names of the source(s) that you used, if you want the results
to be useful.

Cheers, 3d

[piano632]

If you ask me, Monkey's Audio is the best overall lossless compressor when all things are considered. La has no hardware/software support and is very slow at compressing/decompressing. APE files can be played with WinAmp in their compressed state. FLAC is gaining popularity for some reason, but it's compression is only average.

[jagabo]

Who cares about a few percent difference in final file size? Other factors should be your criteria: compatibility, portability, speed, future support, ease of use, etc.

In fact, given that they only reduce the file size by about 1 third, why even bother?

[3dsnar]

Exactly, since the differences are very small, compatibility, speed, and other issues are important. IMHO FLAC is the best, because it is the most popular format. It is supported by some PocketPC software players, and the music that I buy in the internet is also available in FLAC.
Cheers, 3d

[FulciLives]

FLAC is popular I think because the Linux crowd "pushes" it since it is completely open source software. Also I know VLC Media Player (made for many different platforms including Windows and Linux) can play FLAC files without decompressing them first.

Oh and it doesn't hurt that FLAC has been around a long time.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman