FLAC vs Apple LossLess - Page 5  

Quote:

Originally Posted by jvandyk 

Who cares? ALAC every bit as good as FLAC and works on everything. I don't need to read a comparison between two lossless formats. I already know FLAC doesn't work on Apple.

 

As for high quality hardware playback, I don't use a phone or an ipod. But enjor your Android....

I'm sure enjoying my android (not a phone).

Quote:

Originally Posted by jvandyk 

Who cares? ALAC every bit as good as FLAC and works on everything. I don't need to read a comparison between two lossless formats. I already know FLAC doesn't work on Apple.

 

As for high quality hardware playback, I don't use a phone or an ipod. But enjor your Android....

Im assuming you are exaggerating by saying that ALAC works on 'everything'.

Just checked again and it does not work with my Cowon J3 (a popular player here).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulkoudai 

Im assuming you are exaggerating by saying that ALAC works on 'everything'.

 

Just checked again and it does not work with my Cowon J3 (a popular player here).

ALAC is now open source but it is not supported by everything and to be honest why should it be? It was originally created by APPLE so they could have their own personal Lossless codec. Most of these companies will not support Apple just as Apple will not support them. Let's be honest here why should they support an Apple Codec as it would be supporting their competition. :) While FLAC, APE are completely open source and were originally created to be so (unlike ALAC).

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

ALAC is now open source but it is not supported by everything and to be honest why should it be? It was originally created by APPLE so they could have their own personal Lossless codec. Most of these companies will not support Apple just as Apple will not support them. Let's be honest here why should they support an Apple Codec as it would be supporting their competition. :) While FLAC, APE are completely open source and were originally created to be so (unlike ALAC).

I would really like it if my J3 supported ALAC.

That means I don't have to keep a FLAC folder and just manage all my music in iTunes.

Or (easier solution) Apple could just support FLAC...a codec that is supported by almost every other players and the most popular lossless codec.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulkoudai 

I would really like it if my J3 supported ALAC.

 

That means I don't have to keep a FLAC folder and just manage all my music in iTunes.

 

Or (easier solution) Apple could just support FLAC...a codec that is supported by almost every other players and the most popular lossless codec.

That's my point :).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulkoudai 

Im assuming you are exaggerating by saying that ALAC works on 'everything'.

 

Just checked again and it does not work with my Cowon J3 (a popular player here).

Every music playback/library manager program works with ALAC. I cannot think of one that doesn't. Foobar, Mediamonkey, JRiver (The best!), Winamp (a great free program), and everything else. That's what I'm referring to. If a portable device doesn't read it, a simple program like Winamp will transcode the files automatically on the fly. Even the free version of Winamp does this. And like the other poster, I'm sure that a huge majority of people manage their music libraries in itunes, which does not use FLAC. It's really obvious ALAC is the best choice IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulkoudai 

I would really like it if my J3 supported ALAC.

 

That means I don't have to keep a FLAC folder and just manage all my music in iTunes.

 

Or (easier solution) Apple could just support FLAC...a codec that is supported by almost every other players and the most popular lossless codec.

FLAC is not supported by a majority of players owned. Apple. Your J3 will be fine if you sync with a program that transcodes ALAC while syncing. Winamp does if for free too. I manage my library with itunes but use JRiver for everything else (playback, syncing etc). For $50, it is an absolute bargain for anybody concerned with high quality/ music server based music. The reason I use itunes for the library manager is because I like it best. I have ripped to ALAC for probably 3 years now too..400gb or so. These files work on ANY player I connect (JRiver will transcode to my Sansa on the fly).

Quote:

Originally Posted by jvandyk 

FLAC is not supported by a majority of players owned. Apple. Your J3 will be fine if you sync with a program that transcodes ALAC while syncing. Winamp does if for free too. I manage my library with itunes but use JRiver for everything else (playback, syncing etc). For $50, it is an absolute bargain for anybody concerned with high quality/ music server based music. The reason I use itunes for the library manager is because I like it best. I have ripped to ALAC for probably 3 years now too..400gb or so. These files work on ANY player I connect (JRiver will transcode to my Sansa on the fly).

I prefer media monkey gold to Jriver. Especially for creating playlists and syncing them. Jriver never carries over the changes and I have to manually do them although I already done so in Media Monkey.

Just FYI, Apple do indeed create their versions of different types of software as in the past, their ability to improve their products has been hijacked by companies being slow to update their software. In the past, they had to delay major Mac OS releases because the makers of third party components wouldn't work efficiently with them. That's why they even own their own aluminium mines and farm out important component sourcing and manufacturing to multiple companies. The people inside Apple don't sit around thinking "How can we lock users in" but indeed do spend their time working hard to produce the best possible products and user experience. Their attitude is that if their products are the best possible, then people will buy them.

As for FLAC support, it's probably not a priority for them. If you send enough messages via their feedback form, they might consider supporting it, but as it isn't a standardised format (as far as I know) the chances are not big.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Just FYI, Apple do indeed create their versions of different types of software as in the past, their ability to improve their products has been hijacked by companies being slow to update their software. In the past, they had to delay major Mac OS releases because the makers of third party components wouldn't work efficiently with them. That's why they even own their own aluminium mines and farm out important component sourcing and manufacturing to multiple companies. The people inside Apple don't sit around thinking "How can we lock users in" but indeed do spend their time working hard to produce the best possible products and user experience. Their attitude is that if their products are the best possible, then people will buy them.

 

As for FLAC support, it's probably not a priority for them. If you send enough messages via their feedback form, they might consider supporting it, but as it isn't a standardised format (as far as I know) the chances are not big.

You have to admit though Currawong FLAC is much more common among audio users in general even over ALAC. There is no comparison in this regard. It has always been open-source unlike ALAC which became open source last year? The majority of users using a lossless codec will be using FLAC the majority of the time. Even songs I've aquired in ALAC have all been blown back up to WAV and converted to FLAC. I just won't have different formats lingering in my library. Even my mp3s just sitting and collecting dust these days :).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Just FYI, Apple do indeed create their versions of different types of software as in the past, their ability to improve their products has been hijacked by companies being slow to update their software. In the past, they had to delay major Mac OS releases because the makers of third party components wouldn't work efficiently with them. That's why they even own their own aluminium mines and farm out important component sourcing and manufacturing to multiple companies. The people inside Apple don't sit around thinking "How can we lock users in" but indeed do spend their time working hard to produce the best possible products and user experience. Their attitude is that if their products are the best possible, then people will buy them.

 

As for FLAC support, it's probably not a priority for them. If you send enough messages via their feedback form, they might consider supporting it, but as it isn't a standardised format (as far as I know) the chances are not big.

You better believe it's not a priority for them! In fact, it's a strategic decision not to support FLAC, and there is only one reason for that decision. Apple doesn't sell FLAC in the iTunes store. It has nothing to do with them not getting enough messages. iTunes has been a huge profit center for Apple for a long time, and in fact, they have been very careful to do everything possible to keep their users buying content from iTunes. To think that Apple doesn't try to lock users into using the iTunes store is simply naive. Apple has no desire to support FLAC because they have no desire to encourage users to purchase something that they don't sell. Apple, Google, Amazon, and others are all locked in a battle to sell digital content from their stores. Why would Apple want to support FLAC on their devices when that would only encourage Apple users to purchase music from somewhere like HDTracks instead of purchasing from iTunes? Apple is a gigantic corporation with vast resources and they could support FLAC in a heartbeat if they wanted to, but they have made a decision not to support it and there is nothing accidental about that decision. For them to support it from a technical standpoint would be a piece of cake for them. Apple doesn't want to support FLAC because Apple is in the extremely profitable business of selling digital content, and they don't sell FLAC content!

Having said all that, things can change over time in business. It's possible that FLAC will become so popular that eventually Apple will decide they need to support it in order not to lose hardware sales. If that day ever comes, you will know it because suddenly FLAC will become available in the iTunes store.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 

 

I prefer media monkey gold to Jriver. Especially for creating playlists and syncing them. Jriver never carries over the changes and I have to manually do them although I already done so in Media Monkey.

I like Media Monkey 4 now. The first runs of it were crash city though. But it does have WASAPI finally. JRiver runs WASAPI event style though and is far more versatile in terms of sample rate changing on the fly etc.. If you use an outboard 24 bit soundcard and/or external DAC, JRiver has the tools the others don't. No more stopping and switching output format with 24 bit and retaining WASAPI output!!! Only other program I know that does this is Amarra ($700!)

And JRiver is the only one with a decent digital volume control too (64 bit processing). It also has memory playback.

For people looking to play bitperfect 100% of the time and using 24 bit, JRiver is the ticket.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jvandyk 

I like Media Monkey 4 now. The first runs of it were crash city though. But it does have WASAPI finally. JRiver runs WASAPI event style though and is far more versatile in terms of sample rate changing on the fly etc.. If you use an outboard 24 bit soundcard and/or external DAC, JRiver has the tools the others don't. No more stopping and switching output format with 24 bit and retaining WASAPI output!!! Only other program I know that does this is Amarra ($700!)

 

And JRiver is the only one with a decent digital volume control too (64 bit processing). It also has memory playback.

 

For people looking to play bitperfect 100% of the time and using 24 bit, JRiver is the ticket.

Oh and something else I REALLY like about JRiver, it has onboard upsampling and downsampling. If your DAC/card doesn't do 88.2k, you can upsample to 96k and stay in WASAPI mode.

Same with all of the 16/44.1 redbook. You can set it to upsample to 24/96k and retain WASAPI! A beautiful thing!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smeckles 

Very debatable topic.  Ask 50 people, you'll likely get almost that many opinions.

 

Is it worth it?  I don't know - you tell me.  Rip a few tracks you know very well in both AAC and FLAC and listen on your system.  Can you tell the difference?  If not, then it's not worth it.  Pretty simple, really.

Most of my stuff on my Mac is ALAC, most of the music on my PC is FLAC (aside from the oodles of crappy .MP3's I have... urgh)

Bit for Bit > FLAC and ALAC seem to be fairly identical as files and identical to my ears. 

ALAC files are a little bit bigger if you like your super HR album art. 

I buy music in FLAC and then use the £1 application "FlacTunes" from the app store, it makes another lossless copy of a lossless file and makes it iTunes compatible. 

There was an old program called "Fluke" which played FLACs through iTunes. (only on OS X pre Lion (10.7) )

The forever awesome Allesandro Cortini released his Sonoio "Red" album with a dual-download of FLAC and ALAC.  

PC-wise, foobar2000 is still the way to go IMHO but as you have an iPod Touch; ALAC is probably where you want to pitch your tent.