Lossless Audio Compression Benchmarks

Bart Massey 2021

This is a benchmark of lossless audio compression quality. (Compression means file size reduction here, not the other thing.)

To run these benchmarks, you'll need to be on a Linux box and install or comment out the compressors used in compression.sh. You can then run python3 ratios.py to get benchmark results.

For current benchmarks, see the bottom of this file.

What's Here

• audio/*.wav: 48KHz 16-bit mono wav files intended to be losslessly compressed with various audio encoders.

• compression.sh: Bourne shell script to run the compressors on the samples.

• ratios.py: Python program to show compression ratios.

Compressors Used

• gzip 1.10 (.gz), xz 5.2.5, zstd 1.4.8: Lossless general-purpose compressors

• flac 1.3.3: Free Lossless Audio Codec

• flacq 0.1.0: Free Lossless Audio Compression by Quartile

• mac 6.21 (.ape): Monkey's Audio Codec

• ffmpeg 4.3.2 alac (.m4a): Apple Lossless Audio Codec

• mp4alsRM23 (.als): MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding (ALS)

• baco: Bad Audio Compressor

• ffmpeg 4.3.2 mp3 (.mp3): MPEG-4 Layer 3 lossy audio codec

Audio Files Provided

All audio tracks are by the benchmark author except

• 00a-01sample.wav: One zero sample.
• 00b-01sec.wav: One second of zero samples.
• 00c-10sec.wav: Ten seconds of zero samples.
• 01a-sine.wav: 1KHz sine wave at -6dB.
• 01b-bigsine.wav: 1KHz sine wave at 0dB.
• 02-overdrive.wav: Sine wave through an overdrive plugin.
• 03-guitar.wav: Acoustic guitar with minor peak clipping.
• 04-guitar-compressed.wav: Guitar with moderate gain compression.
• 05-voice.wav: Recorded speech.
• 06-synth.wav: Soft synthesizer with high-frequency polyphony.

Current Scores

00a-01sample
              00a-01sample.gz:      59  0.78×
              00a-01sample.xz:     104  0.44×
            00a-01sample.zstd:      59  0.78×
            00a-01sample.flac:    8316  0.01×
           00a-01sample.flacq:      65  0.71×
             00a-01sample.ape:     140  0.33×
             00a-01sample.m4a:     737  0.06×
             00a-01sample.als:      83  0.55×
            00a-01sample.baco:      missing
             00a-01sample.mp3:     621  0.07×
00b-01sec
                 00b-01sec.gz:     175 548.82×
                 00b-01sec.xz:     188 510.87×
               00b-01sec.zstd:      65 1477.60×
               00b-01sec.flac:    8438 11.38×
              00b-01sec.flacq:      73 1315.67×
                00b-01sec.ape:     140 686.03×
                00b-01sec.m4a:    1015 94.62×
                00b-01sec.als:      93 1032.73×
               00b-01sec.baco:   14127  6.80×
                00b-01sec.mp3:    8493 11.31×
00c-010sec
                00c-010sec.gz:    1015 945.86×
                00c-010sec.xz:     312 3077.06×
              00c-010sec.zstd:      94 10213.23×
              00c-010sec.flac:    9604 99.96×
             00c-010sec.flacq:      73 13151.29×
               00c-010sec.ape:     140 6857.46×
               00c-010sec.m4a:    3453 278.03×
               00c-010sec.als:     198 4848.71×
              00c-010sec.baco:  124236  7.73×
               00c-010sec.mp3:   80493 11.93×
01a-sine
                  01a-sine.gz:   16045  5.99×
                  01a-sine.xz:   10308  9.32×
                01a-sine.zstd:   13178  7.29×
                01a-sine.flac:   25906  3.71×
               01a-sine.flacq:   23840  4.03×
                 01a-sine.ape:   13956  6.88×
                 01a-sine.m4a:   21844  4.40×
                 01a-sine.als:   10809  8.89×
                01a-sine.baco:   27265  3.52×
                 01a-sine.mp3:    8493 11.31×
01b-bigsine
               01b-bigsine.gz:  150205  6.39×
               01b-bigsine.xz:   88696 10.82×
             01b-bigsine.zstd:  112388  8.54×
             01b-bigsine.flac:  219915  4.37×
            01b-bigsine.flacq:  415821  2.31×
              01b-bigsine.ape:  233724  4.11×
              01b-bigsine.m4a:  436049  2.20×
              01b-bigsine.als:  189797  5.06×
             01b-bigsine.baco:  471218  2.04×
              01b-bigsine.mp3:   80493 11.93×
02-overdrive
              02-overdrive.gz:   16553  5.80×
              02-overdrive.xz:   10556  9.10×
            02-overdrive.zstd:   13610  7.06×
            02-overdrive.flac:   49870  1.93×
           02-overdrive.flacq:   24122  3.98×
             02-overdrive.ape:   22564  4.26×
             02-overdrive.m4a:   48749  1.97×
             02-overdrive.als:   15032  6.39×
            02-overdrive.baco:   62127  1.55×
             02-overdrive.mp3:    8493 11.31×
03-guitar
                 03-guitar.gz: 2434169  1.16×
                 03-guitar.xz: 2030724  1.40×
               03-guitar.zstd: 2340306  1.21×
               03-guitar.flac: 1435625  1.97×
              03-guitar.flacq: 1607627  1.76×
                03-guitar.ape: 1323068  2.14×
                03-guitar.m4a: 1461081  1.94×
                03-guitar.als: 1362739  2.08×
               03-guitar.baco: 2007042  1.41×
                03-guitar.mp3:  236781 11.97×
04-guitar-compressed
      04-guitar-compressed.gz: 2384950  1.05×
      04-guitar-compressed.xz: 2247964  1.11×
    04-guitar-compressed.zstd: 2385191  1.05×
    04-guitar-compressed.flac: 1531895  1.63×
   04-guitar-compressed.flacq: 1662874  1.50×
     04-guitar-compressed.ape: 1426174  1.75×
     04-guitar-compressed.m4a: 1555032  1.61×
     04-guitar-compressed.als: 1459492  1.71×
    04-guitar-compressed.baco: 2038826  1.22×
     04-guitar-compressed.mp3:  208660 11.97×
05-voice
                  05-voice.gz:  392416  1.21×
                  05-voice.xz:  334616  1.42×
                05-voice.zstd:  384952  1.23×
                05-voice.flac:  259370  1.83×
               05-voice.flacq:  293782  1.62×
                 05-voice.ape:  242812  1.96×
                 05-voice.m4a:  255914  1.86×
                 05-voice.als:  254760  1.87×
                05-voice.baco:  342140  1.39×
                 05-voice.mp3:   40173 11.83×
06-synth
                  06-synth.gz:  894143  1.13×
                  06-synth.xz:  845860  1.20×
                06-synth.zstd:  892099  1.14×
                06-synth.flac:  859668  1.18×
               06-synth.flacq:  959109  1.06×
                 06-synth.ape:  604422  1.68×
                 06-synth.m4a:  856003  1.18×
                 06-synth.als:  342257  2.96×
                06-synth.baco:  948205  1.07×
                 06-synth.mp3:   84954 11.93×