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RE: Qestions regarding ALAC, J.River, and iPods

Posted by Old Listener (A) on March 25, 2009 at 14:33:45

In Reply to: Qestions regarding ALAC, J.River, and iPods posted by Charles Hansen on March 25, 2009 at 09:06:09:

Your stream of questions illustrates the connection between choices for file format, ripping s/w, tagging and utility s/w, player s/w and portable mp3 players. You need to make a big decision first:

- You can submit to Microsoft and use WMP, WMA lossy and lossless. Good luck.

- You can submit to Apple and use iTunes, iPod, AAC and ALAC or AIFF. You'll have lots of friends but few choices.

- You can go with more open architectures and open file formats. If you make this choice, you have a wide choice of file formats, rippers, tag editors and players. You can still use an iPod.

> One problem is trying to figure out what the best software will be
> *before* downloading and installing.

1. Visit the website for the software and read whatever description there is.

2. Ask questions here and on other forums.

3. Download and install a candidate from 1. and 2. No getting around it.

Once you gain some experience with using rippers, taggers and players, you will begin to identify what is important to you. You will also get a feeling for what sorts of UIs you like and dislike.

Give yourself 2-3 months to play with alternatives before you make a big commitment.

> After researching it, it is clear the dBpoweramp has by far the best
> ripping if you place a high priority on *knowing* that each disc is
> absolutely "bit perfect".

I agree but the differences are not huge. EAC, dBpoweramp and J. River MC produce the same bit stream when ANY of them can rip a CD with confidence. They all tell you when they can't rip with confidence. (You need to use test© in EAC to get the same level of explicit confirmation.) None is a magic bullet to rip problem CDs. Yesterday I came across a problem track on a CD with no visible blemishes. I tried ripping that track with MC, EAC and dBpoweramp with various settings. None could even get to the end of the track.

> My son has an iPod, so for him I need something that can encode and
> decode ALAC. dBpoweramp will encode ALAC without the need for any
> Apple software, which is a very nice feature.

I use dBpoweramp when I need to decode ALAC files. The first time, dBpoweramp prompted me to download a DLL or EXE file created by Apple to do the decoding. a number of s/w players and tag editors use the Apple code to read and write ALAC.

Does your son really care about playing lossless files on his iPod or would mp3 or AAC (mp4a) or AIFF or WAV work for him?

> And so in many ways it makes sense to store my files in ALAC.

I read one requirement. What are the others?

ALAC is a closed format controlled by Apple. The extra size eats up space on an iPod and the extra disk I/O to read ALAC eats up battery power on hard drive iPods.

AIFF is a more open format than ALAC but it has the same problem as WAV files. There isn't a tag format recognized by a wide variety of software. And since it is not compressed, files are 1.5-3 times as large as ALAC files.

MP3 and AAC are open formats that work better on portable MP3 players.

> As near as I can tell, J.River cannot rip files to ALAC. So then
> presumably I would have to use dBpoweramp to rip the discs and
> convert the files to ALAC.

You seem to be focussed on ALAC as the crucial part of your decision making. If you really think that you want to keep your music in ALAC files, stick to iTunes. Otherwise, keeping your music files in ALAC format is a bad idea.

> And I'm not clear that dBpoweramp can even be used as a music player.
> For example, does it *decode* (and play, not just convert) the ALAC
> files that it encodes?

It can play CDs or music files. No UI and no music library. I've never tried to play an ALAC file.


> (and you may not know the answer to this as I don't think you even use
> an iPod)

I do use an 80 GB iPod with 35 - 40 GB of MP3 files. My wife and I selected a subset of our entire library and converted those files from Flac to MP3 mostly in J. River MC. For symphonies and other multi-movement classical music, I used Foobar to combine file and convert to MP3. I put all the MP3 files intended for the iPod in a separare MC library and adjusted the tags to suit the iPod's limitations.

> is once I have everything stored on my computer in ALAC and tagged the
> way I want it, what is the best program to transfer those files to and
> from the iPod. I know that there are many iPod managers, but none of
> the ones I've tried so far seem to be very well thought out.

Most people who use J. River MC just make a playlist in MC containing the files they want on their iPod and sync the iPod to that playlist. They process can convert from Flac or other format to MP3, AAC or WAV on the fly.

Foobar, Media Monkey and other s/w have similar iPod sync capability. One limitation is that Apple is threatening other companies with legal action if they try to control an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

> I would have thought that by now someone would have made a program that
> simply replaces iTunes, doing everything that it does but better and
> faster and with less spyware

iTunes is still the cornerstone of their iPod and iTunes Store businesses. Apple doesn't do open architectures and if necessary they trot out their lawyers.

> I will be able to do what I want with two or three separate programs....

These decisions may be somewhat theoretical to you at this point. What is more important and what is less important will be clearer to you as you get more hands on experience.

Pick a ripper (dBpoweramp or J. River MC), rip to Flac files, getting the tag info you need in the file names and in tags as you rip. You may need to use a tag editor to clean up some tag values. After you get a dozen or so CDs ripped, Import the ripped files into the s/w player and get the UI set up to suit you.

If you want to change file formats later, you can do batch conversions. If you want to change players, that's easy too. If you discover a need that your chosen set of tools doesn't do, add another tool.

I use J. River MC for ripping, tag editing, utility functions and music playback. Integrating the music library database with tagging cuts down typing and greatly reduces errors. I use dBpoweramp once every 2-3 weeks and Foobar when I want to combine files every few months. My routine work flow is all within J.River MC and that is much simpler than using 3 separate tools.

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You will soon be selling a computer product. You will need to have familiarity within your company of the Microsoft WMP and Media Center oriented universe, the Apple iTunes universe and the universe of more open architectures. Your choices may be influenced by your need to spread that familiarity among your key employees.

Bill

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