Originally Posted by
Radio_head 
Steve Nugent:
EAC is the best ripper IMO because it calibrates to the CD-ROM drive "offsets" and generates a checksum on every track doing multiple reads.
There is a growing body of evidence that ripping with iTunes, particularly to Apple Lossless may compromise the sound quality
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here?
I prefer AIFF and .wav files. If disk is cheap, why bother with 50% compression that you get with a lossless format?
Even though they generate a bit-perfect uncompressed copy, my customers have reported that the lossless CODECs sound different than the same .wav file on playback. My theory is that these CODECs causes significant jitter with real-time playback.
Andreas Koch
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here?
A properly designed DAC makes that all irrelevant as long as we don't lose any bits.
Gordon Rankin:
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here?
Files that are compressed like FLAC and Apple Lossless never sound as good as .wav or AIFF. But it's best to use AIFF as the Meta data is stored in the file and therefore if you lose the hard drive the backup files will be easy to recover. If you have .wav files and loose the drive... good luck you might as well start over.
We have seen the compressed file syndrome on slower computers. The faster they are the harder it is to tell the difference between say an AIFF and Apple Lossless.
Charles Hansen:
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here?This belongs in the "green pen" area. We know that differences exist. We can make hand-waving explanations as to why, but as far as I know, nobody has the "real" answer. Most of high end audio is like that. For example, why do cables sound different? I mean really sound different? Nobody knows, they just make up plausible sounding stories.
Jon Rechbach:
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here? Lossless is lossless as far as we can tell. The only change I can imagine is that the CPU has to work a bit to convert the lossless and there may be some buffer memory access patterns that generate more RF (than straight PCM). I was told that Apple lossless is not lossless for 24 bit data—it compresses to 16 bits. This would not be a good thing.
Daniel Weiss:
4. File formats. Any reason why a .wav, AIFF, or FLAC file is better than say Apple Lossless? Again people suggest a strong preference for one over the others, so something must be going on here? All formats mentioned are capable of playing back the exact original music, bit for bit identical. So no difference. Again, if the DAC used reacts to the computer activity (via jitter or EMI) then there is potentially a difference between decoders. That is not a fault of the format, but rather of the DAC.
