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FLAC vs Apple Lossless: Is There a Difference?

post #1 of 27
5/26/06 at 1:04am
Thread Starter 
Before I go to the trouble of installing Rockbox (so that I can use FLAC on my Nano), does anyone have an opinion as to whether there is a noticeable difference b/w Apple Lossless and FLAC? Thanks.
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post #2 of 27
5/26/06 at 2:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffreybowman2k
Before I go to the trouble of installing Rockbox (so that I can use FLAC on my Nano), does anyone have an opinion as to whether there is a noticeable difference b/w Apple Lossless and FLAC? Thanks.
No need for intros between us

Lossless formats are just compressed differently; in no way should they sound different. If they do, it is a placebo effect.
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post #3 of 27
5/26/06 at 2:52am
when I tried flac briefly it sounded different than apple lossless. Not really the quality but more of the volume. Made everything sound a little off to me. Just my 2 cents. I might just be crazy or I wasn't converting correctly.
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post #4 of 27
5/26/06 at 2:54am
Well, yeah, the volume WILL differ depending on the the program used, sometimes drastically.
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post #5 of 27
5/26/06 at 11:49am
Thread Starter 
Ok. Let me try a slightly different question: any noticeable SQ difference b/w lossless and WAV? Can't imagine that this could sound different except to the most discriminating ear, if that.
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post #6 of 27
5/26/06 at 12:25pm
There should be no difference, theoretically, as they are both lossless formats. However, it all depends on the quality of the decoders being used. This is where differences should occur.
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post #7 of 27
5/26/06 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
so if i am using itunes, apple lossless and wav should sound the same or close enough that there is no reason to use up the incremental space with WAV files?
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post #8 of 27
5/26/06 at 12:49pm
No reason to use wav for playback purpose.
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post #9 of 27
5/26/06 at 2:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffreybowman2k
so if i am using itunes, apple lossless and wav should sound the same or close enough that there is no reason to use up the incremental space with WAV files?
Right. I have tested Apple Lossless (ALAC) and it proved to be 100% bit accurate with the original WAV files, such that WAV>ALAC>WAV produces the identical WAV file after the encode/decode cycle. So ALAC is truly bit accurate, and should (and does) sound exactly like the WAV files.

So does FLAC of course, but if you are an iTunes user, ALAC is a zillion times more convenient than FLAC. And since you can always transcode (losslessly) from ALAC to FLAC (using dbpoweramp), there is also no risk in using ALAC that you are "stuck" with it. It's a great archival format, as well as providing the highest possible quality playback where CD is the source.

One note: FLAC will higher higher data rates than CD, up to 96kHz/24bit, whereas to my knowledge ALAC will handle at most 48kHz/16bit.
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post #10 of 27
11/20/10 at 12:19am

They are exactly the same, with no loss compared to the original CD files.

I put a 1411kbps .aiff into audacity, then a FLAC version of the exact same song, and inverted the FLAC. So when when the aiff have a signal going up to +4dB than the FLAC has a -4dB so played together they sould be 0 or complete silence and the noise you hear is the difference between those.

I found that Apple Lossless and FLAC was completely silent compared the the aiff.

and all the mp3 files had more or less noise compared the aiff. (comparing the mp3 and other lossless or uncompressed files I found that the mp3 had a latency, but it's a quick fix by dragging the whole track a little back so every sample matches the aiff.)

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post #11 of 27
11/20/10 at 3:00am

You bumped a thread from 2006 to say that? Deary me. 

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post #12 of 27
11/20/10 at 3:41am

flac is better as it's open source, replaygain is open source, and it's able to be played on multiple pieces of equipment. Although alac is supported on non Apple gear, it's a bit more closed in.

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post #13 of 27
11/20/10 at 5:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hero Kid View Post

You bumped a thread from 2006 to say that? Deary me. 



Well, I could start a new thread.

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post #14 of 27
11/20/10 at 6:29am

Hey can you upload a short piece of track please, flac vs mp3 with -db and +db, I would really like to hear only the difference.

 

Can you really hear random highs and lows or details that are lost in mp3? Or is the difference is just static?


Edited by kargi - 11/20/10 at 6:56am
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post #15 of 27
11/20/10 at 9:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kargi View Post

Hey can you upload a short piece of track please, flac vs mp3 with -db and +db, I would really like to hear only the difference.

 

Can you really hear random highs and lows or details that are lost in mp3? Or is the difference is just static?



Yes, I'd love to upload some files that I made, but I don't know how to upload files here. 

Can you please tell me how could I share .aiff files?

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