flac default is -l8 (but says -l5)

$ ls -l a.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 rootboy None 30587804 Jan  7 23:00 a.wav

$ flac -v
flac 1.2.1

$ type flac
flac is hashed (/usr/bin/flac)

$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-5.1 DFBJ7M51 1.5.24(0.156/4/2) 2007-01-31 10:57 i686 Cygwin

$ flac -f a.wav
a.wav: wrote 16323314 bytes, ratio=0.534

$ flac -l8 -f a.wav
a.wav: wrote 16323314 bytes, ratio=0.534

$ flac -l5 -f a.wav
a.wav: wrote 16398095 bytes, ratio=0.536

$ flac
...
flac - Command-line FLAC encoder/decoder version 1.2.1
  -# is -0 (fastest compression) to -8 (highest compression); -5 is the default

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a side question is: -l8 is slower to encode but how about on decode? i notice
on both my winblows (winamp) and linux (xmms) box if there are a
few things going on other than sound playing that i'll hear small delay at
track transition (but then if i go back to same transition again it goes away
since file now in file cache i guess - so i wonder if a quick workaround would
be to do a "head" on all the files you are going to play?)