ACC -> FLAC

[MiCust]

Hey, this is my first post here and I was wondering if you guys could help me out. I've been using iPod + iTunes for the past few years and my whole collection of music is in ACC format. I've been looking into some new cans and want to prepare my collection by converting to a better format, but have no idea where to start to convert ACC to FLAC. Any help would be much appreciated, and sorry if this has been answered and I somehow missed it, I looked, really!

 

[AlanY]

You can't. AAC is a lossy format; that means information is lost. You can't convert a lossy format to a lossless one, because there's no way to recover the lost information.

 

[makasin]

it may be possible, but you would just be getting a lossless file from a lossy input. Sure you arent losing information in doing this, but some data is already lost and you cant magically recover it as AlanY said

 

[Febs]

Just as a clarification. You can convert a lossy file to lossless. But it is pointless to do so, because you end up with a substantially larger file that sounds exactly the same.

The only reason that it would make sense to convert AAC to FLAC is if you have a player that supports FLAC but not AAC, and you want to be able to convert the AAC files to a format the player supports without losing any quality.

 

[Jaska]

So, in other words, this means it's back to square one with ripping all your CDs again directly to FLAC format if the end result you want is to have lossless files for enhanced listening enjoyment. If your existing files have been encoded well to begin with, having good headphones doesn't necessarily mean you'll get any additional perceived benefit from lossless input files. You might want to start with a couple of your favorite CDs, ripping them into a lossless format (even Apple Lossless if you use iTunes anyway) and doing some ABX testing to see if you can even distinguish between lossy and lossless files. If not, you can save a heap of work

 

[MiCust]

Alright, well this sucks, but thanks for the info everyone.

 

[makasin]

The best method to use is to rip all your stuff in FLAC and put it on an external hard drive or some large storage. Then, transcode it into the lossy format of your choice to be used on mp3 players and listen to the FLACs on the home box.