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FLAC vs. Apple Lossless - Page 3

post #31 of 43
10/14/09 at 7:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Menisk View Post
Perfect! Thank you.
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post #32 of 43
10/15/09 at 2:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrisG View Post
Okay, I felt compelled to come in here and say this:

Flac Vs Alac, you won't hear a difference, period.

HOWEVER............ ripping original or even copies of original cd's thru itunes to
get ALAC files is a horrible, horrible decision. The software is terrible at it, period.
Scratch here and there and it craps on everything. Even on a perfectly good
CD, the rips just aren't accurate... they don't sound like the CD would.
I was highly dissapointed when I would put ALAC files on my 5th gen Ipod.
Just.. no magic there.

That was until I decided to run EAC in high priority compressed into FLAC files.
Whereas Itunes would dedicate 1 minute to ripping an entire CD, EAC would
spend up to 20-30 minutes carefully reading bit by bit and re-checking everything after.
When the files were finished, I use dbpoweramp to transcode them to ALAC for my
iPod. I also use dbpoweramp's re-check mode to verify all is ok. The result is amazingly
accurate, lossless quality tracks. So good, in fact, that i immediately erased my 100+ cd
collection off my hard drive ripped from itunes and began slowly ripping with EAC.

It's been extremely rewarding. The detail extracted by EAC has brough new life to all of my cd's. I've caught myself riveted listening to cd's I've always thought sounded "awful"
as new layers come up.

Long story short: if you need ALAC, rip thru EAC and transcode to ALAC; you'l be more than pleased you did. Itunes rip = terrible. EAC rip into Alac = Bliss.
I second the guy who said you might have an issue with your CD drive... an audio CD is just digital data, aside from how the ripping software deals with the occasional scratches that are serious enough to cause issues reading the disk, it's all gonna be the same. Either your drive has issues or you have some seriously scratched CDs if you consistently notice a difference in sound quality, depending on which programs rip your music. Do you have a lot of problems with data CDs as well?

The other day I pulled out some CDRs I burnt about 8 years ago, didn't have any issues with the data on them...

To the OP, I rip in ALAC, I haven't had an issue with iTunes having trouble reading almost all of my CDs, and the beauty of the lossless is you can always change it down the road without losing anything. I haven't found the tagging to be lacking at all personally. iTunes makes it easy to batch transcode down to whatever you want on your iPod, and it is nice to have the option to play the lossless directly on your iPod.

Rob
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post #33 of 43
10/15/09 at 7:39pm
go with the ALAC. . Especially if you source with a mac/itunes/ipod/iphone. No reason not to.

If you use a Mac, check out XLD. It's great software to convert any format to any format (well, close), including FLAC>ALAC. It doesn't have a GUI, you just go to prefs first, tell the software where to put the files (where you also can choose to add to itunes library automatically), then just drag all the FLAC files over to the app on the dock...

Good luck!
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post #34 of 43
10/16/09 at 1:49pm
Yeah after my own debate, I like the interface and GUI of iTunes. Not to mention I just got an iPod Classic, so ALAC was the convenient option for me. I really just want to backup everything in lossless and convert everything to 256kbps MP3, as I can't tell the difference between lossless and that type of MP3. But it would also basically make all that time I spent ripping in lossless quite useless lol. I can never decide which format I want to keep....*sigh*.
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post #35 of 43
10/18/09 at 1:10pm
The primary reason I use EAC is AccurateRip - that's would attempt to make the extraction from the source as flawless as possible.

However, if you have scratches or damages on the printed side on your CD its pretty much a goner.

Just FYI the default output for EAC is wav, and its the external compression settings that counts - you can choose integrated option for your choice of output format. Unfortunately ACC loseless doesn't seem to be one of them.

Maybe you want to check AccurateRip site and see one of the integrated software (EAC is one of them) will support conversion to loseless AAC out of box.
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post #36 of 43
10/18/09 at 2:27pm
Most of my library is in ALAC, but are there any other DAPs that can play this format or do I have to convert it to something else when I want to try something not in the ipod family?
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post #37 of 43
10/18/09 at 4:14pm
nope, just ipods. it ls APPLE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODEC,

while i think both codecs are similarly capable of keeping audio in CD quality, i suspect that other factors like that Itunes is worst then EAC for CD ripping, or the DRM and compatability issues when using an apple only format make it much less versatile,

i will rip to FLAC, and i would recommend flac, not becuase the format is better, but becuase the tools to produce it are better and becuase of better compatability,
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post #38 of 43
10/18/09 at 4:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robzr View Post
To the OP, I rip in ALAC, I haven't had an issue with iTunes having trouble reading almost all of my CDs, and the beauty of the lossless is you can always change it down the road without losing anything.
If I understand it correctly, it's not about whether the program can read the disc or not. It's about checking to be sure that the rip is accurate. If you do a simple "burst" rip, it will be very fast, but it isn't likely to be accurate. It's not the same thing as just copying a file from a CD-ROM.
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post #39 of 43
10/19/09 at 12:35am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrisG View Post
Okay, I felt compelled to come in here and say this:

Flac Vs Alac, you won't hear a difference, period.

HOWEVER............ ripping original or even copies of original cd's thru itunes to
get ALAC files is a horrible, horrible decision. The software is terrible at it, period.
Scratch here and there and it craps on everything. Even on a perfectly good
CD, the rips just aren't accurate... they don't sound like the CD would.
I was highly dissapointed when I would put ALAC files on my 5th gen Ipod.
Just.. no magic there.

That was until I decided to run EAC in high priority compressed into FLAC files.
Whereas Itunes would dedicate 1 minute to ripping an entire CD, EAC would
spend up to 20-30 minutes carefully reading bit by bit and re-checking everything after.
When the files were finished, I use dbpoweramp to transcode them to ALAC for my
iPod. I also use dbpoweramp's re-check mode to verify all is ok. The result is amazingly
accurate, lossless quality tracks. So good, in fact, that i immediately erased my 100+ cd
collection off my hard drive ripped from itunes and began slowly ripping with EAC.

It's been extremely rewarding. The detail extracted by EAC has brough new life to all of my cd's. I've caught myself riveted listening to cd's I've always thought sounded "awful"
as new layers come up.

Long story short: if you need ALAC, rip thru EAC and transcode to ALAC; you'l be more than pleased you did. Itunes rip = terrible. EAC rip into Alac = Bliss.
how is ripping with the program "XLD" ?
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post #40 of 43
10/19/09 at 1:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cruizin caleb View Post
how is ripping with the program "XLD" ?
if that person is expounding the greatness of EAC, he/she probably doesn't know anything about OSX possibilities. EAC is Windows, and while most people use it, there are a large and growing number of people who use the other commercial OS (MAC) and other alternatives: Linux, Haiku (kind of a joke), etc.
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post #41 of 43
9/1/10 at 12:33pm

any reason I shouldn't just convert all FLAC to ALAC, line out from my iPod to an amp and call it a day?  I don't see the need to use my clip+ with rockbox and only 8GB of storage when I have my 160GB classic.

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post #42 of 43
9/1/10 at 1:59pm

No reason not to honestly.  There seems to be some opposition to doing that in these forums, but Apple portable devices are pretty damned good, and their line out is very good.  Go for it.
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bscott View Post

any reason I shouldn't just convert all FLAC to ALAC, line out from my iPod to an amp and call it a day?  I don't see the need to use my clip+ with rockbox and only 8GB of storage when I have my 160GB classic.

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post #43 of 43
9/1/10 at 2:12pm

thanks :)  much easier this way, and it'll play on my clip+ as well

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