[noxa]

I need a bit of help. Firstly my knowledge of anything not ipod is very limited, and i have only ever ripped music using itunes. My ipod is on it's last legs and i really want a change and i've discovered i really want a warm sound so from what i've read the HM-601 seems a very good option.
 
So here is my very noob question, my itunes library is in aac 256 and aac 320 with a few in apple lossless, i'm happy to re rip my CD's again to a higher quality, BUT what do i do with all my purchased music? I have over 500 songs bought through itunes, if i get the Hifiman will i loose all these songs or will i be able to get these on the 601 somehow.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

I need a bit of help. Firstly my knowledge of anything not ipod is very limited, and i have only ever ripped music using itunes. My ipod is on it's last legs and i really want a change and i've discovered i really want a warm sound so from what i've read the HM-601 seems a very good option.
 
So here is my very noob question, my itunes library is in aac 256 and aac 320 with a few in apple lossless, i'm happy to re rip my CD's again to a higher quality, BUT what do i do with all my purchased music? I have over 500 songs bought through itunes, if i get the Hifiman will i loose all these songs or will i be able to get these on the 601 somehow.

Easy. When you go into your 'Music' folder (I think its the same regardless of PC/Mac), you will see an iTunes folder - your songs live in sub-folders under 'Media'.
 
1. Just copy everything into a folder you will create called 'AAC'
2. Download Foobar2000.
3. Download FLAC to get a 'flac.exe' installed
4. Download the ALAC/AAC plugin for Foobar2K and put the dll in your 'Components' directory under the Foobar2K program files directory
5. Open FB2K, create a new playlist and load your 'AAC' folder
6. Create a folder called 'FLAC' anywhere you want (desktop of wherever)
7. Highlight all of the tunes in your 'AAC' playlist, right-click on them and select 'Convert'
8. Select 'FLAC' for the output format and leave the rest
9. When the conversion starts, it may ask for the location of flac.exe - browse to the aforementioned FLAC installation
10. FB2K will ask you for the folder you want to store your output files in - point it to the 'FLAC' directory you created earlier
11. You will probably get something to the exent that you are about to try to convert lossy files into a lossless format - just click OK
 
On my Core i3, 4GB RAM Win 7 laptop, it absolutely blazes through the conversions. For the sake of a little disk space, you will have FLAC copies of all your iTunes music. I havent had any DRM-related problems with any of my iTunes purchases - I think Apple dropped that a couple of years back.
 
(I would suggest that you start with a single file, do the conversion then try to play the new 'flac' file in Foobar2K - if it recognises and plays it, you should have no trouble with the HM-601. Note that you can also convert to WAV - obviously you cant put the bits 'back', but it will still be a valid 'WAVE sound file')
 

 

[noxa]

Thanks estreeter, thats exactly what i needed. Just to clarify something, when i transfer my itunes purchases to FLAC they won't upgrade or downgrade the sound quality they will just be in a format. I ask this because it seems if you convert a compressed format to a different compressed format you loose some sound quality, but if you convert a compressed format to an uncompressed format you keep the quality of your original compressed song? I hope that makes sense.

 

[Lubanja]

be sure to keep the files in their respective folders. hifiman UI sorts by folders so you will need Artist>Album>music for best navigation.

 

[noxa]

Quote:

be sure to keep the files in their respective folders. hifiman UI sorts by folders so you will need Artist>Album>music for best navigation.
 

 
By this do you mean put each artist within a folder and all the songs from each album in a folder within that folder. And once i have done that for all my music put all of them inside a folder called music.
 
I'm really sorry if i sound a bit naive.

 

[Lubanja]

Quote:

 
By this do you mean put each artist within a folder and all the songs from each album in a folder within that folder. And once i have done that for all my music put all of them inside a folder called music.
 
I'm really sorry if i sound a bit naive.

yep pretty much
 

 

[estreeter]

The sound quality of your new 'FLAC' copy will be exactly the same as it was when it was AAC or whatever. It will simply be a larger file with a '.flac' extension.