Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Sound Science › Converting ALAC to 320KBPS AAC. Same quality as CD > 320 AAC?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Converting ALAC to 320KBPS AAC. Same quality as CD > 320 AAC?

post #1 of 31
11/7/12 at 11:01am
Thread Starter 
I have a couple who are friends of mine and I offered to rip all of their CD's for them and set them up with a DAP.

I backed them all up as ALAC and am now in the process of making 320kbs ACC files from the ALAC's. I am wondering if the ACC files are going to lose any additional information by doing it this way? From what I could find in a couple searches I am thinking not but nothing hit on my specific question so I thought I would ask.

Thanks in advance for any replies.


(also am I the only one who though he read that ALAC was made open source by apple under the apache license last month?)
Reply

Head-Fi's Best Sellers

post #2 of 31
11/7/12 at 11:07am
No loss.

I even encoded the same track ten times using AAC 256 and it sounded fine. All this loss stuff is way overstated.
Reply
post #3 of 31
11/7/12 at 11:30am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the quick response. Good to know.
Reply
post #4 of 31
11/7/12 at 11:35am

I believe 320kbps AAC is considered transparent.

Reply
post #5 of 31
11/7/12 at 1:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

No loss.
I even encoded the same track ten times using AAC 256 and it sounded fine. All this loss stuff is way overstated.

Seriously?

 

I would have guessed the file would sound terrible after the 3rd or so time...

Reply
post #6 of 31
11/7/12 at 2:17pm

Neither did I until I tried it.

 

It taught me something very interesting about AAC encoding. If there is enough bitrate to encode the sound, it is perfect. There isn't an overall "muffling" or "veil" added to the sound. It is 100% momentary artifacts. If you use a high enough bitrate, in practice it's as good as lossless. Totally transparent.

Reply
post #7 of 31
11/7/12 at 2:33pm

It may work with AAC but don't try it with MP3, especially not with lower bitrates. Even transcoding a single extra time can cause audible artifacts.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc-holliday View Post

(also am I the only one who though he read that ALAC was made open source by apple under the apache license last month?)

Use the search: http://www.head-fi.org/t/577659/great-news-apple-lossless-audio-codec-alac-now-open-source posted over a year ago.


Edited by xnor - 11/7/12 at 2:35pm
Reply
post #8 of 31
11/7/12 at 4:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by xnor View Post

It may work with AAC but don't try it with MP3, especially not with lower bitrates. Even transcoding a single extra time can cause audible artifacts.

Use the search: http://www.head-fi.org/t/577659/great-news-apple-lossless-audio-codec-alac-now-open-source posted over a year ago.

Thanks for the tip on MP3. Ya I stuck with ACC because everything I have seen indicates it is a superior format.

That's really funny because I just found the article I was referring to on the ALAC open source question. It was from October 2011 not October 2012. Seems I am out of the loop. Makes me wonder why no one seems to support ALAC unless you rockbox. I'm confused. I like rockbox anyway so it's fine.
Reply
post #9 of 31
11/7/12 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc-holliday View Post

That's really funny because I just found the article I was referring to on the ALAC open source question. It was from October 2011 not October 2012. Seems I am out of the loop. Makes me wonder why no one seems to support ALAC unless you rockbox. I'm confused. I like rockbox anyway so it's fine.

Because FLAC encodes/decodes faster, has more different compression options, vorbis tags, better hardware and software support, was open-source years before the apple guys decided to release the source code ...


Edited by xnor - 11/7/12 at 4:33pm
Reply
post #10 of 31
11/7/12 at 4:47pm

A better question is why has Apple not chosen to support FLAC despite it being the dominant lossless compression format.

 

I mean sure there's the branding thing, but I think they've lost potential ipod sales because of it.

Reply
post #11 of 31
11/7/12 at 4:53pm

Flac isn't ideal for using on an iPod. Neither is ALAC. AAC is the format for that... transparent and compact. Apple focuses on AAC because of the iTunes store. If they had to maintain everything on the iTunes store in lossless the bandwidth difference would be monumental.

Reply
post #12 of 31
11/7/12 at 4:58pm

Why isn't it ideal? Any reason other than space?

 

The least they could do is convert it for you when you put it in your ipod.

Reply
post #13 of 31
11/7/12 at 5:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

Flac isn't ideal for using on an iPod. Neither is ALAC. AAC is the format for that... transparent and compact. Apple focuses on AAC because of the iTunes store. If they had to maintain everything on the iTunes store in lossless the bandwidth difference would be monumental.

 

I think the question was why Apple decided to invent its own ALAC instead of using FLAC, which already existed (and also now why they don't support FLAC).  If you're going to support a lossless format, why your own, especially if it's worse?  At least, that's my question.  Maybe I'm missing some information on the timeline, or Apple had some other plans in mind that are abandoned these days... or typical Apple wanting to exert more control on everything.  For downloads, portable use, etc., of course AAC makes sense, and it's also superior to MP3.


Edited by mikeaj - 11/7/12 at 5:01pm
Reply
post #14 of 31
11/7/12 at 5:55pm
  • 4,764 Posts. Joined 11/2011
  • Location: T̵̡̧̪͔̣̩͕͕̯̹̯̼ͨ̂ͮ̓͘ơ̱͚̣̦͎̞͙̘̮͚̒͊̏̓̂͂̿̈́̽ͣ͢͠...
  • Select All Posts By This User
Quote:
Originally Posted by chewy4 View Post

Why isn't it ideal? Any reason other than space?

 

The least they could do is convert it for you when you put it in your ipod.

Takes a large amount of processing power to decode, which isn't ideal for portable devices on batteries. Only thing worst would be APE. 

Reply
post #15 of 31
11/7/12 at 6:11pm

Apple chose to develop ALAC to maintain both lossy and lossless filetypes within the mp4 container. If you're dealing with millions of music files it helps if you can manage metadata between filetypes without any conversion. That and after the initial investment ALAC was kept closed in case Apple decided to sell lossless DRM music.

 

Couple the fact that Apple could also give less of a fig about the open source movement and the end user's non-itunes-managed files.

Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Sound Science

Head-Fi's Best Sellers

Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Sound Science › Converting ALAC to 320KBPS AAC. Same quality as CD > 320 AAC?