Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase - User contributions [en]

Lossless comparison

2011-02-27T00:42:06Z

Bix: Changed WMAL hardware support from con to pro since it's supported in all Zunes now, making it consistent w/ ALAC in that regard

The '''lossless comparison page''' aims to gather information about lossless codecs available so users can make an informed decision as to what lossless codec to choose for their needs.

== Introduction ==
Given the enormous amount of [[lossless]] audio compressor choices available, it is a very difficult task to choose the one most suited for each person's needs.

Several people only take into consideration compression performance when choosing a codec. But as the following table and article shows, there are several other features worth taking into consideration when making that choice.

For example, users wanting good multiplatform compatibility and robustness (E.G, people sharing live recordings) would favour [[WavPack]] or [[FLAC]]. Another user, looking for the very highest compression available, would go with [[OptimFROG]]. Someone wanting portable support would use [[FLAC]] or [[ALAC]], and so on.

En fin, this is not a matter worth getting too worked up about. If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality.

'''Note:''' for latest comparison of lossless compression, scroll down to the [[Lossless comparison#External links|Links section of this page]].

== Comparison Table ==


{| cellspacing="2" style="text-align:center; border:1px solid blue;"
|width="120px"|'''Features'''
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | FLAC
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | WavPack
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | TAK
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | Monkey's
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | OptimFROG
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | ALAC
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | WMA
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Encoding speed
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Decoding speed
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Compression*
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 58.70%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 58.0%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 57.0%
| style="background: #00FF00" | 55.50%
| style="background: #00FF00" | 54.70%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 58.50%
| style="background: #00FF00" | 56.30%
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Flexibility**
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
|-
|style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Error handling
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Seeking
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
|align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Tagging
| style="background: #00FF00" | Vorbis tags
| style="background: #00FF00" | ID3/APE
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | APEv2 (exp.)
| style="background: #00FF00" | ID3/APE
| style="background: #00FF00" | ID3/APE
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | iTunes
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | ASF
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Hardware support
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #FF9900" | limited
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | limited
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | good
| style="background: #FF9900" | limited
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Software support
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | good
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | good
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | good
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Hybrid/lossy
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Replay Gain
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | sort of
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | RIFF chunks
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Streaming
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Pipe support
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Open source
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes (third-party)
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Multichannel
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | High resolution
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | OS support
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | Win/Linux Wine
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #00FF00" | Win/Mac/Linux
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | Win/Mac
|}

''(table continued below)''

{| cellspacing="2" style="text-align:center; border:1px solid blue;"
|width="120px"|'''Features'''
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | Shorten
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | LA
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | TTA
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | LPAC
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | MPEG-4 ALS
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | MPEG-4 SLS
| width="95px" style="background: #00FFFF" | Real Lossless
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Encoding speed
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Decoding speed
| style="background: #00FF00" | very fast
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | fast
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Compression*
| style="background: #FF9900" | 63.50%
| style="background: #00FF00" | 53.50%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 57.10%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 57.20%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 57.10%
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | ?
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | 57.0%
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Flexibility**
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
|-
|! style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Error handling
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Seeking
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | slow
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Tagging
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | ID3v1
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | ID3
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | proprietary
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Hardware support
| style="background: #FF9900" | limited
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | limited
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Software support
| style="background: #00FF00" | very good
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FFFFFF" | average
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
| style="background: #FF9900" | bad
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Hybrid/lossy
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Replay Gain
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | RIFF chunks
| style="background: #FF9900" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Streaming
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Pipe support
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FFFFFF" |  
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Open source
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | Multichannel
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | High resolution
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #00FF00" | yes
| style="background: #FF9900" | no
|-
| align="left" style="background: #FFFF99" | OS support
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | Win/Linux
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #CCFFCC" | Win/Linux/Sol
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #00FF00" | All
| style="background: #00FF00" | Win/Mac/Linux
|}

<nowiki>*</nowiki> The Compression ratio is calculated with the division of compressed size by uncompressed size * 100. So, lower is better.

Encoding speed, Decoding speed and Compression ratio are based on each encoder's default settings.

<nowiki>**</nowiki> Flexibility refers to the amount of encoding choices offered to the users (Fast/low compression, Slow/high compression and everything inbetween)

These are the most popular lossless codecs, in alphabetical order:

== Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) ==
http://www.apple.com/itunes/import.html

[[ALAC]] is a codec developed by Apple for usage in [[Apple iPod|iPod]] and AirPort Express.

=== ALAC pros ===
* Very fast decoding
* [[Open source]] (encoding and decoding via FFmpeg and [[CueTools|CUETools]], decoding only via [http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html a standalone decoder])
* Hardware support ([[Apple iPod|iPod]], AirPort Express)
* Streaming support
* Tagging support (QT tags)
* Excellent hardware-software-lossy format integration with [[iTunes]]/iPod.
* Supports [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s

=== ALAC cons ===
* Limited software support
* No hybrid/lossy mode

=== ALAC Other features ===
* Fits in the [[MP4]] container
* Can be used with the AirPort Express gadget

== Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) ==
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

[[FLAC]] is a lossless codec developed by Josh Coalson. It's part of the Xiph multimedia portfolio, along with [[Ogg]], [[Vorbis]], [[Speex]] and [[Theora]].

=== FLAC pros ===
* [[Open source]]
* Very fast decoding
* Fast encoding
* Hardware support ([[Rio Karma|Karma]], Phatbox, etc.)
* Very good software support
* Error robustness
* Streaming support
* Supports [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s
* Tagging support (FLAC tags)
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks
* Pipe support
* [[Replay Gain]] compatible

=== FLAC cons ===
* No hybrid/lossy mode

=== FLAC Other features ===
* Supports embedded CUE sheets (with [http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#general__no_cuesheet_tags limitations])
* Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking
* Fits the [[Ogg]] and [[Matroska]] containers

== LosslessAudio (LA) ==
http://www.lossless-audio.com/

[[LA]] is a lossless codec developed by Michael Bevin.

=== LA pros ===
* Very high compression
* Tagging support ([[ID3v1]])
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks
* Pipe support

=== LA cons ===
* Closed source
* Very slow encoding and decoding
* Doesn't support [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s
* No hardware support
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* Bad software support
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

'''''It's important to mention that the LA foobar plugin is buggy and doesn't produce lossless streams!'''''

== Lossless Predictive Audio Coder (LPAC) ==
http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/wer/liebchen/lpac.html

[[Lossless Predictive Audio Coder]] (LPAC) is a lossless codec developed by Tilman Liebchen. Development of it has been halted in favour of development of [[MPEG-4]] ALS.

=== LPAC pros ===
* Reasonable compression ratios
* [[High resolution]] audio support
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks

=== LPAC cons ===
* Closed source
* No error robustness
* Slow seeking
* No tagging
* No [[multichannel]] support
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* No hardware support
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

== Monkey's Audio (APE) ==
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

[[Monkey's Audio]] is a very efficient lossless compressor developed by Matt Ashland.

=== APE pros ===
* [[Open source]]
* High efficiency
* Good software support
* Simple and user friendly. Official GUI provided.
* Java version (multiplatform)
* Tagging support ([[ID3v1]], [[APE tags]])
* [[High resolution]] audio support
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks (only in the GUI encoder)
* Pipe support (only in a [http://www.etree.org/shnutils/shntool/ special] version)

=== APE cons ===
* No [[multichannel]] support
* No error robustness
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* Limited hardware support ([http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/17/gemei-x-21-offers-ape-support/ Gemei X21])
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

=== APE Other features ===
* Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking
* Supports APL image link files (similar to CUE sheets)

== MPEG-4 SLS ==
MPEG-4 SLS allows audio encoding from lossless scalable to [[AAC]].

=== SLS pros ===
* Transcoding to standard AAC or any higher lossy bitrate at the speed of copying a file
* Scalable decoding from lossless, to any bitrate down to the AAC core track
* Best lossless compression available when you count the AAC track (~5% gain over any other lossless compression + AAC)
* [[High resolution]] audio support
* Multi channel audio support
* [[Open source]] (MPEG-4 Reference code)
* Embedded in standard MP4 files, so supports same tagging and Replay Gain features as AAC does.

=== SLS cons ===
* No usable software available yet
* Pure lossless compression not the best there is
* Seems to be slow in encoding and decoding, but we have to wait for released software

=== SLS Other features ===
* Transform based lossless codec with optional LC AAC core track

== OptimFROG (OFR) ==
http://losslessaudiocompression.com/

[[OptimFROG]] is a lossless format developed by Florin Ghido to become the champion in audio compression.

=== OFR pros ===
* Very high compression
* Good software support
* Error robustness
* Streaming support
* Supports [[high resolution]]s
* Hybrid/lossy mode
* Tagging support ([[ID3]], [[APE tags]])
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks
* [[Replay Gain]] compatible

=== OFR cons ===
* Closed source
* No [[multichannel]] audio support
* No hardware support
* Quite slow decoding

=== OFR Other features ===
* Supports 32bit float streams
* Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking

== RealAudio Lossless (RAL) ==
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/codecs/realaudio.html

RealAudio lossless is the lossless codec developed by Real Networks for their multimedia portfolio

=== RAL pros ===
* Very fast decoding
* Streaming support
* Tagging support (proprietary)

=== RAL cons ===
* Closed source
* No [[multichannel]] and [[high resolution]] audio support
* Little software support (Real Player)
* No hardware support
* Compression efficiency not on par with other lossless codecs
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* No pipe support
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

== Shorten (SHN) ==
http://www.etree.org/shnutils/shorten/

[[Shorten]] is a very old and featureless lossless codec developed by Tony Robinson at SoftSound.

=== SHN pros ===
* [[Open source]]
* Fast decoding
* Very good software support
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks
* Pipe support

=== SHN cons ===
* Quite inefficient
* No [[multichannel]] or [[high resolution]] audio support
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* No error robustness
* Not streamable
* No hardware support
* No native tagging
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

== True Audio (TTA) ==
http://www.true-audio.com/

[[TTA]] is a new lossless codec developed by a team of russian programmers.

=== TTA pros ===
* [[Open source]]
* Good efficiency
* Hardware support (obscure DVD player)
* Supports [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s
* Tagging support ([[ID3]])
* [[Replay Gain]] compatible
* Error robustness

=== TTA cons ===
* No streaming support
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* Doesn't support [[RIFF]] chunks
* No pipe support

=== TTA Other features ===
* Fits the [[Matroska]] container

== WavPack (WV) ==
http://www.wavpack.com/

[[WavPack]] is a fast and featureful lossless codec developed by David Bryant.

=== WV pros ===
* [[Open source]]
* Very fast decoding
* Very fast encoding
* Good efficiency
* Error robustness
* Streaming support
* Hardware support ([http://www.rockbox.org/ RockBox])
* Supports [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s
* Hybrid/lossy mode
* Tagging support ([[ID3v1]], [[APE tags]])
* Supports [[RIFF]] chunks
* Ability to create self extracting files for Win32 platform
* Pipe support
* Good software support
* [[Replay Gain]] compatible

=== WV cons ===
* Limited hardware player support

=== WV Other features ===
* Supports 32bit float streams
* Supports embedded CUE sheets
* Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking
* Can encode in both symmetrical and assymmetrical modes.
* Fits the [[Matroska]] container

== Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) ==
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/codecs/audio.aspx

WMA Lossless is the lossless codec developed by Microsoft to be featured in their Windows Media codec portfolio.

=== WMAL pros ===
* Streaming support
* Very good software support
* Hardware support (All Microsoft Zunes though older models may need firmware updates, also supported by some non-Microsoft devices like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabeat Gigabeat V and S line from Toshiba].
* Supports [[multichannel]] audio and [[high resolution]]s.
* Tagging support (proprietary)
* Pipe support

=== WMAL cons ===
* Closed source
* No hybrid/lossy mode
* Doesn't support [[RIFF]] chunks
* Doesn't support [[Replay Gain]]

=== WMAL Other features ===
* Fits the [[ASF]] container

== Oddball Formats ==
There are several old lossless formats that aren't being featured in the article above. Reasons are: lack of widespread support, lack of features, bad efficiency and, most importantly, it seems no one is really interested in them.

Most of those would have disappeared by now, but they are being preserved for posterity at [[User:Rjamorim|rjamorim]]'s [http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/ ReallyRareWares]

=== Advanced Digital Audio (ADA) ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/ada.html

=== Bonk ===
* http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/bonk

=== Marian's a-Pac ===
* http://www.marian.de/en/downloads#APAC
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/apac.html

=== AudioZip ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/audiozip.html

=== Dakx WAV ===
* http://www.dakx.com/
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/daxwav.html

=== Entis Lab MIO ===
* http://www.entis.gr.jp/eri/frame.html
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/mio.html

=== LiteWave ===
* http://www.clearjump.com/products/LiteWave.html
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/litewave.html

=== Pegasus SPS ===
* http://www.krishnasoft.com/sps.htm
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/pegasussps.html

=== RK Audio (RKAU) ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/split2000.html

=== Sonarc ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/sonarc.html

=== VocPack ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/vocpack.html

=== WavArc ===
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/wavarc.html

=== WaveZip/MUSICompress ===
* http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/sndspace/
* http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/wavezip.html

== See also ==
* [[Lossless]]

== External links ==
=== Other lossless compressions comparisons ===
''Sorted based on last '''update''' date.''

* [http://uclc.info/LossLess.pdf Johan De Bock's speed oriented comparison] - best choices speedwise are indicated in green, mostly electronic music (last updated 2006-07-22)
* [http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/lossless.htm Hans Heijden's] -- used as reference to build the table (last updated 2006-07-07)
* [http://synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/lossless/ Synthetic Soul's comparison] (last update 2007-07-28)
* [http://synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/josef/ Josef Pohm's comparison, hosted by Synthetic Soul] (last update 2006-05-29)
* [http://www.bobulous.org.uk/misc/lossless_audio_2006.html Bobulous' lossless audio comparison] — a look at six lossless formats in terms of speed and file size (last updated 2006-05-22)
* [http://uclc.info/lossless_audio_compression_test.htm Johan De Bock's size oriented comparison] - aimed only at the maximum compression setting for each codec (based on a somewhat limited set of samples, however) (last updated 2006-05-19)
* [http://guruboolez.free.fr/lossless/ Guruboolez'] -- comparing only classical music (last updated 2005-02-27)
* [http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm Speek's] (last updated 2005-02-07)

=== More on lossless compressions ===
* [http://losslessaudioblog.com/ The Lossless Audio Blog] - by windmiller, is a reliable and complete source of news about lossless compression.
* Go to the [http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=33226 Hydrogenaudio thread] to discuss this article.

[[Category:Guides]]

Vinyl Mastering

2010-09-07T17:20:06Z

Bix:

=Does vinyl intrinsically require a superior master than CD?=

There's this idea floating around that vinyl records must have intrinsically different masterings than CDs of the same material. There's both a kernel of truth to this, and a few gigantic myths.

CDs have only one (extremely strong) restriction on how loud they can be cut - the digital peak level, 0dbFS - and (almost) anything that doesn't violate that restriction is permissible. Vinyl manufacturing has many different restrictions, and they are all rather loose, in that the restrictions can be sometimes relaxed.
* The grooves can actually overlap each other if they are too loud. This can be alleviated by spacing the grooves further apart.
* If the groove "moves" quickly enough - its velocity is high enough - some turntable cartridges will be unable to track the groove, and a skip results.
* Just like the voice coils in a speaker can burn up if enough energy is dumped into them, the voice coils on a cutter head can burn up if the signal is of a high enough power. (The amplifiers range into the hundreds of watts and the coils themselves are liquid- or helium-cooled, depending on who you ask, so the powers involved here really are quite substantial.) The historical solution to this is a special limiterthat squashes the high frequencies in the music if the cutting head temperature exceeded some threshold. Clearly not a high-fidelity solution (and many mastering engineers do not use them nowadays).
* Excessive stereo bass content (bass in one channel or another) can compromise tracking or even make the cutting head jump out of the groove. This is sometimes solved with an elliptical filter, which sums bass frequencies to mono. Again, not all mastering engineers use this.

None of these restrictions explicitly say "hypercompressed, distorting music cannot be cut onto vinyl". Rather, that music may be more difficult to cut and play back than other music.

=How many different ways can a CD master differ from a vinyl master?=
# The CD and vinyl masters might just be exactly the same: the same signal that goes on the ADC goes on the cutting head.
# Acceleration limiting might be used on the vinyl master.
# Elliptic filtering (bass sums to mono) might be used on the vinyl master.
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a 24-bit version of the CD master. (However, the high noise content of vinyl generally makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a higher-sampling-rate version of the CD master. (However, the demonstrated inaudibility of frequencies above 20khz makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be EQ'd differently to account for equalization differences in the cutting head, electronics, or playback devices.
# Finally, the vinyl master ''might'' be sourced from a master with less dynamic range compression or limiting than the CD master. '''This is the only distinction between a vinyl an CD master that is meaningful''' - in the sense that information exists on the vinyl master, in terms of reduced compression, that does not exist on the CD master.

=How do you know if a vinyl master is audibly superior than the CD master?=

You ask the mastering engineer what he did. Other that, that, generally, '''you don't know'''. There are certainly many ''wrong'' ways to determine this, which can lead to false positives and false negatives.
* Many people look at large-scale waveform plots, like those available in Audacity and Audition, and compare the waveforms across the entire piece of music. '''This does not work'''. The distortions present in vinyl - everything from subsample delays in the recording process to phase errors in the analog electronics to tracking and tracing distortion - ensure that even if the vinyl is cut with the exact same master as the CD, the peaks will be considerably higher, even during regions of gross clipping. Thus this technique is generally not acceptable, even though it is by far the most popular.
* RMS loudness estimates, such as the industry standard RMS figure and ReplayGain, are ineffective because they require a reference level to compare the vinyl and CD versions against. No such reference level exists.
* Experimental dynamic range estimators, such as pfpf and SparkleMeter, are useful in teasing out substantial differences in dynamic range, and may be quite useful in estimating when they become audible, rather than . pfpf, in particular, is designed to be immune to moderate levels of clipping distortion, under the expectation that clipping is either going to be inaudible or going to affect the timbral character of the music, not the dynamic range.

The one consistently accepted method of showing reduced compression is to show the individual samples in a clipped waveform against the same waveform in a different master that is not clipped. But again, this method is not foolproof: Various distortions can mask the clipping so that it is not consistently at the signal peak, yet still retains its characteristic distortion. However, clipping may not exist obviously in hypercompressed music, and even if a difference exists, it very well may not be audible.

=Is less compressed music always of a superior quality?=
Sometimes. Low levels of clipping and hard limiting (perhaps up to 3db!) are surprisingly inaudible. Excessive dynamic range is generally contrary to many peoples' listening habits and situations; few people will tolerate the full dynamic range of a symphony orchestra in their living rooms, or the full loudness of a live rock band. Modern music listeners consistently perceive less compressed music as being drier in tone and less pleasing to the ear than modern mastering styles.

That said, just like speaking in different tones and loudnesses of voice is considered more emotional and human than speaking monotonically, music with a wider dynamic range is generally perceived as being more emotional than music with a tight dynamic range. And once the dynamic range is crushed out of the music, it generally cannot be added back in at a later time. The information representing by the dynamic range is effectively destroyed. These factors, as well as the diverse other factors mentioned in discussions of the "Loudness War", ultimately reduce the value of modern-mastered records in many peoples' view.

=Some known examples: Vinyl releases with a different master than the CD=
Bob Katz has stated that all of his vinyl masters are sourced from a mix "prior to any of the peak limiting or any additional loudness makers other than the ones there for esthetic purposes."

Steve Hoffman's work is ''generally'' known for distinctly different masterings compared to equivalent CD releases. His mastering of ZZ Top's ''Tres Hombres'' includes diverse changes, including a much less compressed drum track. His mastering of the White Stripes's ''Icky Thump'' is also well praised for being distinctly different (and better) than the CD release.

=Some known counterexamples: Vinyl releases with same/similar hypercompressed master as on CD=
This is a list of vinyl/CD releases, where the CD release has been considered compressed or clipped for a popular music audience, and the vinyl master has been proven to be sourced from digital audio equal in compression/clipping content to that of the CD master. This list excludes albums whose CD releases are considered relatively uncompressed or unclipped.

It does '''not''' mean the CD master necessarily sounds poor - some CDs referenced here have been highly commended for their sound quality - but it ''does'' mean that, for any of these records, if one considers the CD to be 'hypercompressed', one ought to also consider the LP to be hypercompressed as well, so preferring LP over CD for that reason would be foolish.

* [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/1706712-post20.html Foo Fighters, ''In Your Honor'' 45rpm 4LP. Steve Berson, Total Sonic Mastering]: Sourced from 24/96 digital masters, which differ from CD masters only in choice of output format. Hypercompression/clipping which existed on CD also existed on LP master. Emphasis added:
<blockquote>When I cut the vinyl DMM masters for the first "special edition" release of the 45rpm 4-LP set for the Foo Fighters "In Your Honor" album the producers made a big deal out of wanting to have an "audiophile" release and made sure that I could work from 24bit/96kHz source (which I was able to do at Europadisk due to SAWStudio sending to a matched pair of Lavry Blues that went to both the pitch depth computer and the cutting head) and that I did as close to a flat transfer from these as possible.
'''I was disappointed to find that the high res files I received ... had been heavily clipped as they were the same files (just prior to SRC and dithering) that the CD master was made from.''' </blockquote>
* Metallica, ''Death Magnetic''. [http://audiamorous.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallicas-death-magnetic-clips-on-both.html Visually confirmed], and [http://www.metallicabb.com/index.php?showtopic=85317&st=0 strongly hinted at] by Ted Jensen, who mentions that the mixes were clipped. No word from vinyl mastering engineer Kevin Gray. As the mix itself was clipped, it is highly anticipated that the vinyl release is of the same master as the CD. Jensen:
<blockquote>In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one...</blockquote>
* Soundgarden "Down on the Upside", as admitted at http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/502795-soundgardens-down-upside-vinyl.html. At least one other record mastered by Collins is also implied as being sourced from CD masters. Two things about Collins's work are worth pointing out:
# He was [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5507275-post1.html specifically commended] for the sound quality of the vinyl release before he pointed out that it was sourced from CD.
# He [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5511973-post15.html claims] that a Stereophile reviewer once commended him in the same way about a separate record, and refused to believe that the vinyl was in fact sourced from 16/44. (emphasis added)
<blockquote>I once had a reviewer from Stereophile call and was raving, raving I tell you, about the sound of an LP done the same way: I sent my eq'd CD master and someone else cut the lacquer. 
"''The depth, the detail, the microdynamics are beyond compare, it's just more proof of the superiority of analog.''" 
"But it was cut from a 16 bit digtial source." 
"''Impossible''." 
"I was at the session." 
"''Don't you tell me what I'm hearing!''" 
"Uh, I gotta get back to work......."</blockquote>
* Pete Lyman, Infrasonic Sound, [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5512418-post17.html same "Down on the Upside" thread as above], comments on how CD sources form the majority of his business in cutting records, and points out that 16-bit digital delay lines have been used since the 80s, and quite possibly for most records released since then (emphasis added):
<blockquote>'''I cut about 10 sides a week, most of them from a 16/44.1 source.''' If the source material sounds good and doesn't have excessive high end issues or phase issues, it should sound fine, if not better. '''I doubt most people could tell the difference between the same material cut at 16 bit and 24 bit. Most records (at lease since DAT/digital surpassed analog mixdown options)have gone thru some conversion during the cutting. I think it would shock quite a few people to know that those "analog" records they love so much probably passed thru a 16 bit digital delay line on their way to the cutting head.''' But, quite a few of us are opting to bypass that sort of delay and do it in the workstation thru a second set of converters, eliminating a stage of conversion.</blockquote>

=Vinyl releases suspected of being of different masters than the CD=
* REM, ''Accelerate''
* Battles, ''Mirrored''
** Clips, but at a different (lower) level than the CD (!)
* Slayer, ''Christ Illusion''
* Depeche Mode, All new releases since 1997.

=Vinyl releases suspected of being the same master as the CD=
* The Decemberists, ''The Crane Wife''
* REM, ''Accelerate''
** Commentary is very divisive. Some people believe the vinyl is clearly superior to the CD, and some people abhor the vinyl as sounding hypercompressed.
* Autechre: ''Untilted'', ''Chiastic Slide'', ''Gantz Graf'' (and probably all others)
* Shellac: ''Excellent Italian Greyhound'' (and probably all others)
* Of Montreal, ''Hissing Fauna: Are You The Destroyer?''

Vinyl Mastering

2010-08-26T19:19:15Z

Bix: Whoops, fixed.

=Does vinyl intrinsically require a superior master than CD?=

There's this idea floating around that vinyl records must have intrinsically different masterings than CDs of the same material. There's both a kernel of truth to this, and a few gigantic myths.

CDs have only one (extremely strong) restriction on how loud they can be cut - the digital peak level, 0dbFS - and (almost) anything that doesn't violate that restriction is permissible. Vinyl manufacturing has many different restrictions, and they are all rather loose, in that the restrictions can be sometimes relaxed.
* The grooves can actually overlap each other if they are too loud. This can be alleviated by spacing the grooves further apart.
* If the groove "moves" quickly enough - its velocity is high enough - some turntable cartridges will be unable to track the groove, and a skip results.
* Just like the voice coils in a speaker can burn up if enough energy is dumped into them, the voice coils on a cutter head can burn up if the signal is of a high enough power. (The amplifiers range into the hundreds of watts and the coils themselves are liquid- or helium-cooled, depending on who you ask, so the powers involved here really are quite substantial.) The historical solution to this is a special limiterthat squashes the high frequencies in the music if the cutting head temperature exceeded some threshold. Clearly not a high-fidelity solution (and many mastering engineers do not use them nowadays).
* Excessive stereo bass content (bass in one channel or another) can compromise tracking or even make the cutting head jump out of the groove. This is sometimes solved with an elliptical filter, which sums bass frequencies to mono. Again, not all mastering engineers use this.

None of these restrictions explicitly say "hypercompressed, distorting music cannot be cut onto vinyl". Rather, that music may be more difficult to cut and play back than other music.

=How many different ways can a CD master differ from a vinyl master?=
# The CD and vinyl masters might just be exactly the same: the same signal that goes on the ADC goes on the cutting head.
# Acceleration limiting might be used on the vinyl master.
# Elliptic filtering (bass sums to mono) might be used on the vinyl master.
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a 24-bit version of the CD master. (However, the high noise content of vinyl generally makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a higher-sampling-rate version of the CD master. (However, the demonstrated inaudibility of frequencies above 20khz makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be EQ'd differently to account for equalization differences in the cutting head, electronics, or playback devices.
# Finally, the vinyl master ''might'' be sourced from a master with less dynamic range compression or limiting than the CD master. '''This is the only distinction between a vinyl an CD master that is meaningful''' - in the sense that information exists on the vinyl master, in terms of reduced compression, that does not exist on the CD master.

=How do you know if a vinyl master is audibly superior than the CD master?=

You ask the mastering engineer what he did. Other that, that, generally, '''you don't know'''. There are certainly many ''wrong'' ways to determine this, which can lead to false positives and false negatives.
* Many people look at large-scale waveform plots, like those available in Audacity and Audition, and compare the waveforms across the entire piece of music. '''This does not work'''. The distortions present in vinyl - everything from subsample delays in the recording process to phase errors in the analog electronics to tracking and tracing distortion - ensure that even if the vinyl is cut with the exact same master as the CD, the peaks will be considerably higher, even during regions of gross clipping. Thus this technique is generally not acceptable, even though it is by far the most popular.
* RMS loudness estimates, such as the industry standard RMS figure and ReplayGain, are ineffective because they require a reference level to compare the vinyl and CD versions against. No such reference level exists.
* Experimental dynamic range estimators, such as pfpf and SparkleMeter, are useful in teasing out substantial differences in dynamic range, and may be quite useful in estimating when they become audible, rather than . pfpf, in particular, is designed to be immune to moderate levels of clipping distortion, under the expectation that clipping is either going to be inaudible or going to affect the timbral character of the music, not the dynamic range.

The one consistently accepted method of showing reduced compression is to show the individual samples in a clipped waveform against the same waveform in a different master that is not clipped. But again, this method is not foolproof: Various distortions can mask the clipping so that it is not consistently at the signal peak, yet still retains its characteristic distortion. However, clipping may not exist obviously in hypercompressed music, and even if a difference exists, it very well may not be audible.

=Is less compressed music always of a superior quality?=
Sometimes. Low levels of clipping and hard limiting (perhaps up to 3db!) are surprisingly inaudible. Excessive dynamic range is generally contrary to many peoples' listening habits and situations; few people will tolerate the full dynamic range of a symphony orchestra in their living rooms, or the full loudness of a live rock band. Modern music listeners consistently perceive less compressed music as being drier in tone and less pleasing to the ear than modern mastering styles.

That said, just like speaking in different tones and loudnesses of voice is considered more emotional and human than speaking monotonically, music with a wider dynamic range is generally perceived as being more emotional than music with a tight dynamic range. And once the dynamic range is crushed out of the music, it generally cannot be added back in at a later time. The information representing by the dynamic range is effectively destroyed. These factors, as well as the diverse other factors mentioned in discussions of the "Loudness War", ultimately reduce the value of modern-mastered records in many peoples' view.

=Some known examples: Vinyl releases with a different master than the CD=
Bob Katz has stated that all of his vinyl masters are sourced from a mix "prior to any of the peak limiting or any additional loudness makers other than the ones there for esthetic purposes."

Steve Hoffman's work is ''generally'' known for distinctly different masterings compared to equivalent CD releases. His mastering of ZZ Top's ''Tres Hombres'' includes diverse changes, including a much less compressed drum track. His mastering of the White Stripes's ''Icky Thump'' is also well praised for being distinctly different (and better) than the CD release.

=Some known counterexamples: Vinyl releases with same/similar hypercompressed master as on CD=
This is a list of vinyl/CD releases, where the CD release has been considered compressed or clipped for a popular music audience, and the vinyl master has been proven to be sourced from digital audio equal in compression/clipping content to that of the CD master. This list excludes albums whose CD releases are considered relatively uncompressed or unclipped.

It does '''not''' mean the CD master necessarily sounds poor - some CDs referenced here have been highly commended for their sound quality - but it ''does'' mean that, for any of these records, if one considers the CD to be 'hypercompressed', one ought to also consider the LP to be hypercompressed as well, so preferring LP over CD for that reason would be foolish.

* [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/1706712-post20.html Foo Fighters, ''In Your Honor'' 45rpm 4LP. Steve Berson, Total Sonic Mastering]: Sourced from 24/96 digital masters, which differ from CD masters only in choice of output format. Hypercompression/clipping which existed on CD also existed on LP master. Emphasis added:
<blockquote>When I cut the vinyl DMM masters for the first "special edition" release of the 45rpm 4-LP set for the Foo Fighters "In Your Honor" album the producers made a big deal out of wanting to have an "audiophile" release and made sure that I could work from 24bit/96kHz source (which I was able to do at Europadisk due to SAWStudio sending to a matched pair of Lavry Blues that went to both the pitch depth computer and the cutting head) and that I did as close to a flat transfer from these as possible.
'''I was disappointed to find that the high res files I received ... had been heavily clipped as they were the same files (just prior to SRC and dithering) that the CD master was made from.''' </blockquote>
* Metallica, ''Death Magnetic''. [http://audiamorous.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallicas-death-magnetic-clips-on-both.html Visually confirmed], and [http://www.metallicabb.com/index.php?showtopic=85317&st=0 strongly hinted at] by Ted Jensen, who mentions that the mixes were clipped. No word from vinyl mastering engineer Kevin Gray. As the mix itself was clipped, it is highly anticipated that the vinyl release is of the same master as the CD. Jensen:
<blockquote>In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one...</blockquote>
* Soundgarden "Down on the Upside", as admitted at http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/502795-soundgardens-down-upside-vinyl.html. At least one other record mastered by Collins is also implied as being sourced from CD masters. Two things about Collins's work are worth pointing out:
# He was [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5507275-post1.html specifically commended] for the sound quality of the vinyl release before he pointed out that it was sourced from CD.
# He [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5511973-post15.html claims] that a Stereophile reviewer once commended him in the same way about a separate record, and refused to believe that the vinyl was in fact sourced from 16/44. (emphasis added)
<blockquote>I once had a reviewer from Stereophile call and was raving, raving I tell you, about the sound of an LP done the same way: I sent my eq'd CD master and someone else cut the lacquer. 
"''The depth, the detail, the microdynamics are beyond compare, it's just more proof of the superiority of analog.''" 
"But it was cut from a 16 bit digtial source." 
"''Impossible''." 
"I was at the session." 
"''Don't you tell me what I'm hearing!''" 
"Uh, I gotta get back to work......."</blockquote>
* Pete Lyman, Infrasonic Sound, [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5512418-post17.html same "Down on the Upside" thread as above], comments on how CD sources form the majority of his business in cutting records, and points out that 16-bit digital delay lines have been used since the 80s, and quite possibly for most records released since then (emphasis added):
<blockquote>'''I cut about 10 sides a week, most of them from a 16/44.1 source.''' If the source material sounds good and doesn't have excessive high end issues or phase issues, it should sound fine, if not better. '''I doubt most people could tell the difference between the same material cut at 16 bit and 24 bit. Most records (at lease since DAT/digital surpassed analog mixdown options)have gone thru some conversion during the cutting. I think it would shock quite a few people to know that those "analog" records they love so much probably passed thru a 16 bit digital delay line on their way to the cutting head.''' But, quite a few of us are opting to bypass that sort of delay and do it in the workstation thru a second set of converters, eliminating a stage of conversion.</blockquote>

=Vinyl releases suspected of being of different masters than the CD=
* REM, ''Accelerate''
* Battles, ''Mirrored''
** Clips, but at a different (lower) level than the CD (!)
* Slayer, ''Christ Illusion''
* Depeche Mode: All new releases since 1997.

=Vinyl releases suspected of being the same master as the CD=
* The Decemberists, ''The Crane Wife''
* REM, ''Accelerate''
** Commentary is very divisive. Some people believe the vinyl is clearly superior to the CD, and some people abhor the vinyl as sounding hypercompressed.
* Autechre: ''Untilted'', ''Chiastic Slide'', ''Gantz Graf'' (and probably all others)
* Shellac: ''Excellent Italian Greyhound'' (and probably all others)
* Of Montreal, ''Hissing Fauna: Are You The Destroyer?''

Vinyl Mastering

2010-08-26T19:18:42Z

Bix: /* Vinyl releases suspected of being the same master as the CD */

=Does vinyl intrinsically require a superior master than CD?=

There's this idea floating around that vinyl records must have intrinsically different masterings than CDs of the same material. There's both a kernel of truth to this, and a few gigantic myths.

CDs have only one (extremely strong) restriction on how loud they can be cut - the digital peak level, 0dbFS - and (almost) anything that doesn't violate that restriction is permissible. Vinyl manufacturing has many different restrictions, and they are all rather loose, in that the restrictions can be sometimes relaxed.
* The grooves can actually overlap each other if they are too loud. This can be alleviated by spacing the grooves further apart.
* If the groove "moves" quickly enough - its velocity is high enough - some turntable cartridges will be unable to track the groove, and a skip results.
* Just like the voice coils in a speaker can burn up if enough energy is dumped into them, the voice coils on a cutter head can burn up if the signal is of a high enough power. (The amplifiers range into the hundreds of watts and the coils themselves are liquid- or helium-cooled, depending on who you ask, so the powers involved here really are quite substantial.) The historical solution to this is a special limiterthat squashes the high frequencies in the music if the cutting head temperature exceeded some threshold. Clearly not a high-fidelity solution (and many mastering engineers do not use them nowadays).
* Excessive stereo bass content (bass in one channel or another) can compromise tracking or even make the cutting head jump out of the groove. This is sometimes solved with an elliptical filter, which sums bass frequencies to mono. Again, not all mastering engineers use this.

None of these restrictions explicitly say "hypercompressed, distorting music cannot be cut onto vinyl". Rather, that music may be more difficult to cut and play back than other music.

=How many different ways can a CD master differ from a vinyl master?=
# The CD and vinyl masters might just be exactly the same: the same signal that goes on the ADC goes on the cutting head.
# Acceleration limiting might be used on the vinyl master.
# Elliptic filtering (bass sums to mono) might be used on the vinyl master.
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a 24-bit version of the CD master. (However, the high noise content of vinyl generally makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be sourced from a higher-sampling-rate version of the CD master. (However, the demonstrated inaudibility of frequencies above 20khz makes this a meaningless distinction.)
# The vinyl master may be EQ'd differently to account for equalization differences in the cutting head, electronics, or playback devices.
# Finally, the vinyl master ''might'' be sourced from a master with less dynamic range compression or limiting than the CD master. '''This is the only distinction between a vinyl an CD master that is meaningful''' - in the sense that information exists on the vinyl master, in terms of reduced compression, that does not exist on the CD master.

=How do you know if a vinyl master is audibly superior than the CD master?=

You ask the mastering engineer what he did. Other that, that, generally, '''you don't know'''. There are certainly many ''wrong'' ways to determine this, which can lead to false positives and false negatives.
* Many people look at large-scale waveform plots, like those available in Audacity and Audition, and compare the waveforms across the entire piece of music. '''This does not work'''. The distortions present in vinyl - everything from subsample delays in the recording process to phase errors in the analog electronics to tracking and tracing distortion - ensure that even if the vinyl is cut with the exact same master as the CD, the peaks will be considerably higher, even during regions of gross clipping. Thus this technique is generally not acceptable, even though it is by far the most popular.
* RMS loudness estimates, such as the industry standard RMS figure and ReplayGain, are ineffective because they require a reference level to compare the vinyl and CD versions against. No such reference level exists.
* Experimental dynamic range estimators, such as pfpf and SparkleMeter, are useful in teasing out substantial differences in dynamic range, and may be quite useful in estimating when they become audible, rather than . pfpf, in particular, is designed to be immune to moderate levels of clipping distortion, under the expectation that clipping is either going to be inaudible or going to affect the timbral character of the music, not the dynamic range.

The one consistently accepted method of showing reduced compression is to show the individual samples in a clipped waveform against the same waveform in a different master that is not clipped. But again, this method is not foolproof: Various distortions can mask the clipping so that it is not consistently at the signal peak, yet still retains its characteristic distortion. However, clipping may not exist obviously in hypercompressed music, and even if a difference exists, it very well may not be audible.

=Is less compressed music always of a superior quality?=
Sometimes. Low levels of clipping and hard limiting (perhaps up to 3db!) are surprisingly inaudible. Excessive dynamic range is generally contrary to many peoples' listening habits and situations; few people will tolerate the full dynamic range of a symphony orchestra in their living rooms, or the full loudness of a live rock band. Modern music listeners consistently perceive less compressed music as being drier in tone and less pleasing to the ear than modern mastering styles.

That said, just like speaking in different tones and loudnesses of voice is considered more emotional and human than speaking monotonically, music with a wider dynamic range is generally perceived as being more emotional than music with a tight dynamic range. And once the dynamic range is crushed out of the music, it generally cannot be added back in at a later time. The information representing by the dynamic range is effectively destroyed. These factors, as well as the diverse other factors mentioned in discussions of the "Loudness War", ultimately reduce the value of modern-mastered records in many peoples' view.

=Some known examples: Vinyl releases with a different master than the CD=
Bob Katz has stated that all of his vinyl masters are sourced from a mix "prior to any of the peak limiting or any additional loudness makers other than the ones there for esthetic purposes."

Steve Hoffman's work is ''generally'' known for distinctly different masterings compared to equivalent CD releases. His mastering of ZZ Top's ''Tres Hombres'' includes diverse changes, including a much less compressed drum track. His mastering of the White Stripes's ''Icky Thump'' is also well praised for being distinctly different (and better) than the CD release.

=Some known counterexamples: Vinyl releases with same/similar hypercompressed master as on CD=
This is a list of vinyl/CD releases, where the CD release has been considered compressed or clipped for a popular music audience, and the vinyl master has been proven to be sourced from digital audio equal in compression/clipping content to that of the CD master. This list excludes albums whose CD releases are considered relatively uncompressed or unclipped.

It does '''not''' mean the CD master necessarily sounds poor - some CDs referenced here have been highly commended for their sound quality - but it ''does'' mean that, for any of these records, if one considers the CD to be 'hypercompressed', one ought to also consider the LP to be hypercompressed as well, so preferring LP over CD for that reason would be foolish.

* [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/1706712-post20.html Foo Fighters, ''In Your Honor'' 45rpm 4LP. Steve Berson, Total Sonic Mastering]: Sourced from 24/96 digital masters, which differ from CD masters only in choice of output format. Hypercompression/clipping which existed on CD also existed on LP master. Emphasis added:
<blockquote>When I cut the vinyl DMM masters for the first "special edition" release of the 45rpm 4-LP set for the Foo Fighters "In Your Honor" album the producers made a big deal out of wanting to have an "audiophile" release and made sure that I could work from 24bit/96kHz source (which I was able to do at Europadisk due to SAWStudio sending to a matched pair of Lavry Blues that went to both the pitch depth computer and the cutting head) and that I did as close to a flat transfer from these as possible.
'''I was disappointed to find that the high res files I received ... had been heavily clipped as they were the same files (just prior to SRC and dithering) that the CD master was made from.''' </blockquote>
* Metallica, ''Death Magnetic''. [http://audiamorous.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallicas-death-magnetic-clips-on-both.html Visually confirmed], and [http://www.metallicabb.com/index.php?showtopic=85317&st=0 strongly hinted at] by Ted Jensen, who mentions that the mixes were clipped. No word from vinyl mastering engineer Kevin Gray. As the mix itself was clipped, it is highly anticipated that the vinyl release is of the same master as the CD. Jensen:
<blockquote>In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one...</blockquote>
* Soundgarden "Down on the Upside", as admitted at http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/502795-soundgardens-down-upside-vinyl.html. At least one other record mastered by Collins is also implied as being sourced from CD masters. Two things about Collins's work are worth pointing out:
# He was [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5507275-post1.html specifically commended] for the sound quality of the vinyl release before he pointed out that it was sourced from CD.
# He [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5511973-post15.html claims] that a Stereophile reviewer once commended him in the same way about a separate record, and refused to believe that the vinyl was in fact sourced from 16/44. (emphasis added)
<blockquote>I once had a reviewer from Stereophile call and was raving, raving I tell you, about the sound of an LP done the same way: I sent my eq'd CD master and someone else cut the lacquer. 
"''The depth, the detail, the microdynamics are beyond compare, it's just more proof of the superiority of analog.''" 
"But it was cut from a 16 bit digtial source." 
"''Impossible''." 
"I was at the session." 
"''Don't you tell me what I'm hearing!''" 
"Uh, I gotta get back to work......."</blockquote>
* Pete Lyman, Infrasonic Sound, [http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5512418-post17.html same "Down on the Upside" thread as above], comments on how CD sources form the majority of his business in cutting records, and points out that 16-bit digital delay lines have been used since the 80s, and quite possibly for most records released since then (emphasis added):
<blockquote>'''I cut about 10 sides a week, most of them from a 16/44.1 source.''' If the source material sounds good and doesn't have excessive high end issues or phase issues, it should sound fine, if not better. '''I doubt most people could tell the difference between the same material cut at 16 bit and 24 bit. Most records (at lease since DAT/digital surpassed analog mixdown options)have gone thru some conversion during the cutting. I think it would shock quite a few people to know that those "analog" records they love so much probably passed thru a 16 bit digital delay line on their way to the cutting head.''' But, quite a few of us are opting to bypass that sort of delay and do it in the workstation thru a second set of converters, eliminating a stage of conversion.</blockquote>

=Vinyl releases suspected of being of different masters than the CD=
* REM, ''Accelerate''
* Battles, ''Mirrored''
** Clips, but at a different (lower) level than the CD (!)
* Slayer, ''Christ Illusion''

=Vinyl releases suspected of being the same master as the CD=
* The Decemberists, ''The Crane Wife''
* REM, ''Accelerate''
** Commentary is very divisive. Some people believe the vinyl is clearly superior to the CD, and some people abhor the vinyl as sounding hypercompressed.
* Autechre: ''Untilted'', ''Chiastic Slide'', ''Gantz Graf'' (and probably all others)
* Shellac: ''Excellent Italian Greyhound'' (and probably all others)
* Of Montreal, ''Hissing Fauna: Are You The Destroyer?''
* Depeche Mode: All new releases since 1997.