FLAC or Apple Lossless?

[KingStyles]

I always rip to flac since itunes only sounds really good on macs. If you are using a pc, you shouldnt use itunes if you want the best sound quality. Try foobar or jriver media center/jukebox because you can use wasabi, asio, etc output plugins to bypass the pc audio for best quality of sound which isnt a option in itunes or windows media center. Jriver media center even lets you to sync with your ipod even though it is probably easier to have everything in itunes and when you open up jriver media center it automaticly imports the files into it. Then you get the audio quality and the convience of the itunes sync.

[DoYouRight]

I have done alot more testing. And honestly there is no audible difference on the same cd. Either one is great, flac is harder to work on ipod, WAV is slightly better than both but larger. Your choice.

[hockeyb213]

how big is wav compared to flac or alac?

[Halluci]

Originally Posted by hockeyb213

how big is wav compared to flac or alac?

Most lossless compression schemes will be slightly more than half the size of the uncompressed .wav file.

[Skylab]

I very rarely use iTunes itself to listen to music. I have all my CDs ripped in Apple Lossless, but the main way that gets played back is either on an iPod, or from my Apple TV (which I use just as a music server) with the sound being outputted from my Rotel DAC.

I like the convenience of Apple Lossless since I am an iPod used. But I download music periodically in FLAC, and then I just use dbpoweramp to convert is to Apple Lossless - very simple process.

[Jaska]

Originally Posted by Skylab

I like the convenience of Apple Lossless since I am an iPod used. But I download music periodically in FLAC, and then I just use dbpoweramp to convert is to Apple Lossless - very simple process.

I use dBpoweramp, too, but listen to my music via my Mac / Apogee Duet setup. I rip all of my CDs to FLAC with dBpoweramp, then send the files over to my Mac to batch convert them to ALAC with Max. While dBpoweramp is probably the best CD ripper out there, the "phony" ALAC codec is not something I trust. Plus, I have a lot of Grateful Dead and other material in HDCD format, and the ALAC codec used by dBpoweramp will only accept 16-bit input. Ripping to FLAC and transcoding to ALAC with Max (Core Audio) is the way to go in this case.

[Kobra]

I used to be a FLAC user, but since I switched over to MAC I've converted all my music to ALAC. I tried to get a good FLAC setup on my MacBook Pro but after some testing with SongBird I gave up and used Max to convert. I'm now using iTunes, wich is has rather good cataloguing of my music library. I haven't noticed any difference in SQ.

[OutdoorXplorer]

Originally Posted by Kobra

I used to be a FLAC user, but since I switched over to MAC I've converted all my music to ALAC. I tried to get a good FLAC setup on my MacBook Pro but after some testing with SongBird I gave up and used Max to convert. I'm now using iTunes, wich is has rather good cataloguing of my music library. I haven't noticed any difference in SQ.

Good choice. I am using Max 0.81 too.

[RedBull]

Originally Posted by ericj

Depends on your intended use. APE compresses better but it's harder to decompress. FLAC makes more sense on portable devices.

This is so very true. My Cowon D2 menu slows down, lagging, when I played APE, but smooth with FLAC.

I used to use FLAC, but recently I convert all of them to ALAC due to classic reason, I use iPod classic

Depending on the FLAC compression level you're going to use, the size different FLAC vs ALAC is negligible (vs hassle) to even to be discussed.

To my ear, they're the same quality since they are both lossless. There are some discussion that one format is better for error handling (I can't remember who wins), but, the fact that I can use iPod's very good line out kills this factor as well.

[crowley]

Used to be a FLAC user, just converted songs to ALAC because of my iPod, but played FLAC on my laptop exclusively. Since I switching to Mac, I've been using ALAC the whole time for ease use with the Mac and iPod

[DoYouRight]

The difference is device, sound quality are same just different size slightly.

Reason being, the apple people copying FLAC sourcecode

[Skylab]

Originally Posted by Jaska

I use dBpoweramp, too, but listen to my music via my Mac / Apogee Duet setup. I rip all of my CDs to FLAC with dBpoweramp, then send the files over to my Mac to batch convert them to ALAC with Max. While dBpoweramp is probably the best CD ripper out there, the "phony" ALAC codec is not something I trust. Plus, I have a lot of Grateful Dead and other material in HDCD format, and the ALAC codec used by dBpoweramp will only accept 16-bit input. Ripping to FLAC and transcoding to ALAC with Max (Core Audio) is the way to go in this case.

Always nice to see another fan of the Grateful Dead on this forum!

Just so you know, the fact that dbpoweramp only handles 16-bit audio isn't a problem for HDCD. HDCD appears just like normal 16-bit data as far as any of these programs are concerned, since the enhanced resolution of HDCD is represented by the HDCD subcode which is buried in the Least Significant Bit. The subcode survives lossless compression (if it didn't, the compression wouldn't be lossless!).

I have taken FLAC files that are HDCD encoded, transcoded them to ALAC using dbpoweramp, imported them into iTunes, moved them to my Apple TV, and when they are fed by the ATV's digital output to my Rotel DAC, the DAC recognizes them as HDCD and properly decodes them. So it all works as it's supposed to

[Jaska]

Originally Posted by Skylab

I have taken FLAC files that are HDCD encoded, transcoded them to ALAC using dbpoweramp, imported them into iTunes, moved them to my Apple TV, and when they are fed by the ATV's digital output to my Rotel DAC, the DAC recognizes them as HDCD and properly decodes them. So it all works as it's supposed to

In your case, this indeed works. In my case, since I'm playing back my files with a Mac through an Apogee Duet, the only way I can get the full benefit of HDCD is to have bulky 24-bit files transcoded from FLAC to ALAC.

[Skylab]

Ahhhhh...gotcha.

[chinesekiwi]

lossless is well, lossless...

Just different algorithms to achieve the same thing.
Only differences are those algorithms, codec support and CPU usage decoding those codecs.
In the last two, FLAC wins. Compression = .APE is better.