24/96 can it be converted to Apple Lossless?? HD Tracks question. - Page 2

Sorry, krmathis is right. It's the sample rate.

So is there anything yet on the market to allow playing HD Tracks 24/96 Content through the ipod if used like a hard drive to export it bit perfect my Benchmark DAC 1 pre???
by Tunes

No, don't think so.
Cause not only don't the iPod support 24-bit/96Khz audio streams, but iTunes will prevent you from loading these files onto the iPod in the first place.

But since you're using a DAC1 Pre, why not play the files directly from your computer? Not going the iPod route at all..

I have a related question; if wandering into the Mac world seems too off topic, just let me know and I'll decamp into my own thread.

I also appear to have successfully converted some HDTracks 96kHz/24bit tracks to Apple Lossless format using Max. In Max, I picked one of the MPEG4 Audio output formats and then specified Apple Lossless as one of that format's options. When I drag the converted tracks into iTunes and choose Get Info, they indicate Apple Lossless and 96kHz/24bit (with bit rates in the 3K range!).

I have set 96/24 in Audio MIDI Setup for output. Restarted iTunes. Some DACs I have indicate the sample rate on the front -- those that do show 96 when I send them optical data from my MacBook Pro.

And of course, Paquito D'Rivera's "Portraits of Cuba" and the stunningly recorded McCoy Tyner "New York Reunion" sound amazing. But they sound amzaing at 44kHz, too (I've long owned the Tyner album and have used it as a reference when listening to different systems), so I'm just wondering if we're sure that iTunes is really passing along an unaltered stream to the DAC, rather than converting it in some way. I'll point out that if I play a 44kHz track and set the output to 96kHz in MIDI Setup, my DACs light up at 96kHz, too.

The Benchmark site's wiki has some useful documents on setting up computers for high-def audio, but they are ageing.

I'd appreciate any other pointers to documentation on 96/24 configuration for Macs and XP/Vista folks are aware of. Would make a great sticky topic if it were accurate....

Another way: Use Max to convert your 96/24 FLAC files to 96/24 AIFF. Import to iTunes. Convert to Apple Lossless in iTunes. You end up with 96/24 Apple Lossless files. Which still won't play on an iPod.

Lornecherry: Have you tried your iTransport with a Rockboxed iPod?

Or use one of the 3rd. party iPod managers, to verify that the iPod really can't play those 24-bit/96KHz files.

Its most probably correct, that iTunes restrict us since the iPod don't support it. But would be nice to verify for sure.
No 3rd. part manager in mind, but YamiPod may do the trick. Yet another iPod manager - Home

The stock iPod Classic can not play anything (ALAC, AAC, WAV) higher than 16/48.

XLD is a nice tool to make these conversions too:

X Lossless Decoder: Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X

Thanks so much for this post...

Just some quick background. I've just recently gone 100% digital with my CD collection (ALAC) using a Mac Mini (intel) with a PS Audio DL III with Stage IV Cullen Circuits modification (supports 24 bit 96 khz/192 khz digital content (source material). Anyway, I've been getting some 24 bit / 96khz FLAC files from HDtracks.com and was going crazy trying to use Max to convert them to ALAC 24 bit / 96khz but that app, as you already stated, fails the task miserably. I did some googling and stumbled upon your post here at head-fi.org and was elated to find your solution (FLAC -> WAV -> ALAC) worked like a charm! My only caveat is that the ID3 tag info and artwork do not get carried over by Max when doing the initial conversion from FLAC to WAV Other than that, your solution worked perfectly. So thank you!

Best,

Stuart

stulevine. Welcome to Head-Fi!
Nice to see that you found your way here, and that my post helped you out. I reported the issue to the 'Max' developer long time ago, but don't know what the current status is.

Tags will get lost during decoding to WAV, but thats a small price to pay for keeping the audio data intact. By the way, FLAC most often hold 'Vorbis comments' and not ID3 tags..

I don't understand why you had to go to WAV first -- perhaps I'm missing something.

I converted a 24/96 HDTracks FLAC album in one step using Max on OSX with the mpg4/Apple Lossless setting in the Formats preferences.

The result shows up in iTunes as 24/96 Apple Lossless.

My DACs sync at 96 when I play it. But they sync at 96 when I play anything if I have 96 set in the Audio MIDI Setup utility, thus my post # 19 above...