This post is part 2 of 2 on audio data compression. The first part focused on lossy compression whereby audio quality is decreased and quite a bit of size is reduced. This post will focus on lossless compression whereby quality is retained and some size is reduced.
As I mentioned in the previous post, there are folks out there who are paranoid about their audio. They feel that anything that touches their audio will degrade the quality. These fears are unjustified in the case of lossless audio compression. Whatever goes into lossless compression is exactly what comes out of lossless compression. In fact, with most modern lossless formats, if you were to compress a raw audio file into a lossless format and then uncompress it back, the two files would be exactly the same, bit-for-bit. As a result of this integrity, lossless compression is perfect for applications where quality is more important than space or bandwidth like archiving or transfering masters. Many folks, myself included, keep lossless backups of their CDs so that they can recreate the audio from the source discs should anything happen to the originals. There also is an added benefit of being able convert these lossless files into any lossy format without having to re-rip the source media. It’s very convenient. But, I digress. For pro audio there are two main applications for lossless compression: archiving and the transfer of masters.
