[stark23x]

I tested 4 tracks today.

Gear:
3G iPod > Sik Imp > Custom Headsave interconnect > Headsave MiniMe > Shure E5s

Songs:

Seal: Killer (Seal 1994)
Godsmack: Touche (The Other Side)
Diana Krall, S'wonderful (Live in Paris)
Armin Van Buuren, The Sound of Goodbye

File formats: WAV, MP3s (--alt preset extreme) and the new Apple Lossless

Results: Most tracks compressed with AL about 30-60%, depending on the track. Two thirds larger than the MP3, but...you can hear a distinct improvement in quality. Each AL and WAV sounded identical, but the MP3 I could pick out most of the time. When discussing this stuff, it's hard not to sound redundant and pompous, but all the usual adjectives apply to AL: deeper extension, more detail, exactly like the source. Whatever your source sounds like, the AL file will match.

I would say that Apple's new AL format is a winner as far as quality goes. I would have preferred a format that I can use in other applications, like FLAC, but as far as quality of sound is concerned...I think AL is a winner. Could be deadly to the Rio Karma, which was *just* starting to get attention outside audiophiledom for it's lossless feature.

 

[bangraman]

Interesting. If I can find the time I'll run a test with two iPods switched between ~256K VBR and AL.

 

[Oliver :)]

I just encoded Paquito D'Rivera "Tropicana Nights" (excellent SACD from Chesky BTW, go get it if you like Cuban Jazz) to AL, and while my desktop setup (just some JBL Creatures) is not pointing out much difference between AL and 320kbps AAC (AL being overall more pronounced, I'd say) at a short listen, I am pleasantly surprised at the speed.
Importing the redbook layer took only about 20-30 seconds per song on my old iBook 600, so hardly any slower than just importing AIFF. AAC takes twice the time or even more.
Playback on both iBook and iPod was instant, no noticable delay for decoding or anything. I wonder how the iPod will get along with files over 30MB though.
If it works well I will need a new external HD soon...

 

[Cor]

Quote:

I would say that Apple's new AL format is a winner as far as quality goes. I would have preferred a format that I can use in other applications, like FLAC, but as far as quality of sound is concerned...

Well, if it's lossless then it's a no brainer. It's precisely the same quality as the original PCM. No better. No worse. You could compress and decompress a wav and do a bit-compare to double check if apple's lossless really is lossless, but I highly doubt it isn't. The perps at apple may be a bunch of paranoid control freaks but they're not slobbering morons!

30-60% sounds like it's pretty much in line with FLAC and monkey audio. So what have we got? Yet another proprietary lossless codec. Hooray! (Personally, I wish they'd just built FLAC or APE support into the iPod.) At least we have lossless support for the iPod... Finally. Now it's up to third parties to write winamp/foobar plugins, etc. so it's actually a practical choice instead of a PITA to deal with. (I am *not* maintaining two lossless copies of my playlist just so I can have one for winamp/foobar at home and one for the iPod on the go!) Does anyone know when we can expect those, if at all? Apple can be a bit stingy with their source...

 

[pank2002]

There'll be plugins at some point, for sure, but right now they (the develpoers) have to figuere out What AL is... There's a discussion at hydrogen audio about the topic. Some guy reported that the files was exacly one meg bigger then FLAC. Also, the extension says m4a (or whatever Apple use for aac extension) but there is currently no lossless aac format... well, there's one, but it haven't been standarized yet.
Next time I'll get a bigger iPod (as in <15gig.) Currently I won't be able to use losseless as I have nearly no space left. I need a new harddrive too...

 

[iamdone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pank2002 There'll be plugins at some point, for sure, but right now they (the develpoers) have to figuere out What AL is... There's a discussion at hydrogen audio about the topic. Some guy reported that the files was exacly one meg bigger then FLAC. Also, the extension says m4a (or whatever Apple use for aac extension) but there is currently no lossless aac format... well, there's one, but it haven't been standarized yet. Next time I'll get a bigger iPod (as in <15gig.) Currently I won't be able to use losseless as I have nearly no space left. I need a new harddrive too...

Here my bet on what it is:

http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/forschu...s/mpeg4als.html

I found someone on macrumors posted this. Look at the iTunes logo at the top. Looks like Apple may be released MPEG4 lossless earlier than expected.

 

[iamdone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver I wonder how the iPod will get along with files over 30MB though.

I've been using AIFF files with no problems skipping at all. The only problem I had was a file that was 50 minutes continuous. If you stopped it and came back to the song after it powered down, it would start skipping when it powered back up. Never had this problem with normal songs though.

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamdone Here my bet on what it is: http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/forschu...s/mpeg4als.html

Dead link.

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamdone I've been using AIFF files with no problems skipping at all. The only problem I had was a file that was 50 minutes continuous. If you stopped it and came back to the song after it powered down, it would start skipping when it powered back up. Never had this problem with normal songs though.

Well, tested it on my commute today, and I had one tiny little skip in about 90 minutes. Of course I did no A/B on the go, but I was under the impression that sound was noticably better than 320kbps AAC, more depth, more detail. I will have to do A/B, as the idea that I could be able to distinguish to this degree *on the subway* is a bit frightening

but I guess it will be even more evident at home. There goes all my cash, I will have to get an imp for line-out, I will have to get a bigger harddrive soon (only 8GB left...so about 30 albums... ah, well)... and of course at some point my iPod will hold only a about 60 albums again

I will make some more AL imports and have a look at the impact on the battery.

 

[pank2002]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver Dead link.

right here:
http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/forschun.../mpeg4als.html

But I don't think is standerized and stuff yet...

 

[kugino]

too bad 2G ipods are excluded from this...

but it's a good way to save HD space on my laptop and still get quality music. i did a simple a/b comparison last night of a 320 mp3 (--alt preset insane...i think that's the highest bitrate, right?) and AL of james taylor's "something in the way she moves." they sound very similar (either the mp3 encoding is very good or AL isn't very good...or the original recording isn't very good), but you can tell AL from subtle differences like how long a note is held before it dissolves and a more subjective measure, how full it sounds. tracks imported relatively quickly on my slow machine - about 8x on my 500mhz g4 tibook.

 

[iamdone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kugino tracks imported relatively quickly on my slow machine - about 8x on my 500mhz g4 tibook.

8x is quick. I'm getting about 30-32x on 2.53g pc. This is just about a faction slower than importing to AIFF (about 34x). AAC convert from AIFF at 17x. I don't know if it wound be ever slower from the cd-rom.

 

[gort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kugino about 8x on my 500mhz g4 tibook.

Your drive is the bottleneck. My 500 G3 iBook with external CDRW drive can rip AL at 12x sustained peak.

 

[tbdoah]

I agree. Most of the songs on my iPod are wav, 256 vbr - 320, a few AAC. I had initially started off using AAC, then switch to wav and mp3 because of the higher quality.

Now that lossless has come out, needless to say I'v already started re-encoding my library, and so far I'm happy with the results - more detail being the main highlight of my move to lossless.

 

[downingp]

Would you say the move to lossless is definitely worth re-encoding all your music from alt preset extreme to lossless?