flac compression/size discrepancies

[nelce]

please check your email! thanks!

[JJZolx]

I'm stumped. I have a hard time getting away from the mono/stereo theory, though.

I re-encoded both versions of both tracks and came up with exactly the same compression ratios that you see.

I viewed the WAV forms in EAC (Tools.. Process WAV..) and they look identical. None of them appear highly compressed, nor do they reach 100% peak. Comparing the WAV files byte for byte, they're not identical, but that could be explained in a number of ways. They could be different pressings, meaning that disk offsets aren't identical, or one or the other CD drive's offset setting could be wrong in EAC. I even ran ReplayGain on them and came up with identical numerical values for each pair of files.

Do you have the EAC logs for your rips and theirs? Post them in a zip file, if so. Do you use AccurateRip in EAC and do your logs say whether or not your rips matches the AR database?

Do you have another computer on which you could rip the same CDs, or another CD drive? I'm wondering if you may be getting only one channel or (I don't know how) a mono mix from the CD drive.

[Wombat]

Now that becomes interesting! Can you check both versions really use all bits?
You may PM me the link also

[Henry66]

Does the bigger file have a massive image tag embedded?
Check it with MP3tag.

[JJZolx]

Does the bigger file have a massive image tag embedded?
Check it with MP3tag.

No, it doesn't. It would have to be a 12MB image.

And when they're decoded and re-encoded from WAV they have no tags at all.

[nelce]

I'm stumped. I have a hard time getting away from the mono/stereo theory, though.

I re-encoded both versions of both tracks and came up with exactly the same compression ratios that you see.

I viewed the WAV forms in EAC (Tools.. Process WAV..) and they look identical. None of them appear highly compressed, nor do they reach 100% peak. Comparing the WAV files byte for byte, they're not identical, but that could be explained in a number of ways. They could be different pressings, meaning that disk offsets aren't identical, or one or the other CD drive's offset setting could be wrong in EAC. I even ran ReplayGain on them and came up with identical numerical values for each pair of files.

Do you have the EAC logs for your rips and theirs? Post them in a zip file, if so. Do you use AccurateRip in EAC and do your logs say whether or not your rips matches the AR database?

Do you have another computer on which you could rip the same CDs, or another CD drive? I'm wondering if you may be getting only one channel or (I don't know how) a mono mix from the CD drive.

Thanks for analyzing the files! I did attempt to use AccurateRip for both of the different CD rips, but it ended up not being a match and it suggested that perhaps I had a different press of the CD. I do have a log for the rips and I will post them in a bit.

I was at my parents' house and tried to rip a different album altogether (since I only had one CD there) and the rips actually ended up coinciding with an uploaded flac (the source that I've been getting all these downloaded flacs from) in terms of size and compression. Now that I am home, I'm going to perform the same rip on my computer and see what I come up with! Will let you guys know!

[nelce]

Ok...interestingly enough, I ripped the same CD/same song on two different computers with the same flac settings inputted in the "additional command line options" and ended up two different sized files. The one ripped at my parents' house was about 26mb, the one ripped at my house is 14mb. The one at my parents' house was confirmed by AccurateRip to be accurate, whereas the one at my house was unable to be confirmed. I'm not sure what's going on at all, but I am going to try to uninstall EAC and FLAC altogether and reinstall and try again...

[nelce]

So I uninstalled EAC and reinstalled. Reripped the same track I ripped at my parents' house. Still can't get AccurateRip to agree that it's accurately ripped. The size of the file is still small (14mb)...

What's going on here?!

[Wombat]

Thanks for the links. Are you deaf guys? One version is pure mono and the other one is stereo. No wonder it compresses different.
I only wonder how it comes this song is mono on a cd.

[JJZolx]

I would guess something wrong with the CD drive, or possibly driver software on your PC. What happens if you play the file in EAC? Do you hear both channels?