What level FLAC compression is used by the B2?

[Steve French]

My understanding is FLAC has Level 0 through 8 for compression.  Does anyone know which level the B2 defaults to when FLAC is chosen for the compressed file type?

Thanks

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Steve,

I believe that the B2 used Level 5 compression.  This is widely regarded as the default value, being the best balance between file size and compression/ decompression times.

Regards,

Peter.

[Davywhizz]

Interesting question. dBpoweramp ripping software, which many B2 owners use, recommends FLAC level 5; which is widely seen as the default option.

It's worth restating, in case any readers are concerned, that any FLAC file will play back without compromising audio quality. As Peter suggests, the choice between the levels is about how long the compression process takes and the size of the resulting stored file. 

The higher FLAC levels take much longer for very slight further reductions in file size. FLAC level 8 will take about three times as long as level 5 to compress a track, but the extra saving on storage space is tiny. The higher levels also need more processing power on playback, so there would, for example, be greater battery use on a mobile device. I don't know if that' would be an issue for the B2, but others here are more qualified to comment.

[JFBUK]

As Davy says higher compression levels have very marginal effects on FLAC file size and  have no impact on quality.

What will impact and increase the FLAC file size is if you choose to embed album cover art in the FLAC file.

I typically do embed the art using dBpoweramp to rip, and ran a test to see the impact. My example shows an increase of 107KB per track

This equates to about 1.3Mb for a typical album so a 1000 album collection would be about 1.2 to 1.3 Gb bigger storage wise

If you rip on the B2 its does not embed album art in the FLAC file, but does read and display it on playback in the Web UI/app, if it finds it in the tags,

John

[Steve French]

Thank you all for the quick reply.  It is much appreciated.