FLAC encoders – any difference in output between the command-line tools?
I would like to know if there is any difference in the final output between the various command-line tools for encoding FLAC files, like ffmpeg, sox, the “official” flac etc. In some contexts, I have noticed that it’s recommended to use flac over the others, but given that FLAC represents lossless encoding, am I correct in assuming that they should all produce identical output (given the same options)?
The FLAC encoder has a ton of parameters, so you’ll need to consult with the source code of ffmpeg/sox to see how they use the codec but despite all of this does it really matter? FLAC is a lossless encoder, so even if flac, ffmpeg and sox produce different FLAC files, they will all decode bit perfectly.
FFmpeg will produce a different output (header) as it adds itself to tags unless instructed otherwise.