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In Reply to: Flac??? posted by chgolatin2@yahoo.com on March 29, 2007 at 08:17:30:
As others have said, Lossless compression is compression in which nothing is lost during the compression process. MP3 is "LOSSY" it compresses by losing bits. Bits that can never be retrieved. The idea being you won't notice what's missing. But you do.FLAC stands for FREE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODAC and is "Free". ALAC is APPLE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODAC and is "free" with iTunes. So, if you've got iTunes you've got ALAC.
In general most people agree that lossless is lossless and so FLAC and ALAC are both fine formats. Some don't want anything to do with iTunes so they are more in the FLAC camp. Also, some people want to use "Exact Audio Copy" or EAC to rip their CDs and since EAC can't encode with ALAC they prefer FLAC.
I use iTunes and ALAC because it's lossless. It sounds good. It works in both iPods and in my computer audio system. iTunes handles it easily and it does all the tagging and album Artwork without any hassles.
What you use is up to you and your preferences.
By the way, I have a 30 gig Ipod and I use ALAC files on the Ipod. I get about 1000 ALAC songs on my Ipod. So, you see it takes a lot more space than MP3s.
Follow Ups:
EAC allows you to convert ripped WAVs into lossless formats like FLAC, APE, Wavpack an so on via an external encoder program (which you specify). Unfortunately, no program that I know of other than iTunes supports ALAC encoding, and you cannot choose iTunes ALAC encoding as a post-ripping option from within EAC.However, dBpowerAMP Music Converter (plus the right plug-ins) can convert from FLAC, APE, Wavpack, et al into each other, and incidentally ALAC (through iTunes encoding, which is automatically called up via the corresponding plug-in). You also have the choice of retaining any id tag information internal to the music file.
Therefore, you can make top-quality rips in EAC and automatically encode into APE or FLAC in the same step, use an id tag editor to enter tag information, and then use dBpowerAMP Music Converter as a post-processor to get ALAC files for the iTunes library and iPod.
A bit extra work, but it gives you quality as well as versatility.
nt
It will, but I don't see any special meaning in doing so.My goal is to combine the acknowledged ripping quality of EAC with the convenience of iTunes and iPod-compatible lossless files.
The special meaning in iTunes converting ALAC to WAV is that I'm not locked into Apple for everything. Because once it is in WAV it can be turned into anything any time.Plus, I'm running a Mac Mini for my music server and there are Mac programs like EAC that are able to convert ALAC to FLAC or just about any other music format you can name.
I think that EAC is a quality ripper, but it's not very convenient to use. Make that... I think EAC is actually inconvenient to use.
At least I agree with your goal of not being locked in Apple for everything, but using EAC and WAV files as the starting point already allows you do exactly that.The only time that I use iTunes for converting ALAC into WAV is when I need iTunes on OSX to rip copy-protected CDs that otherwise would be a PITA to rip on a Windows computer (although EAC 0.95 beta 3 rather than beta 4 is reputedly capable of ripping copy-protected music CDs). iTunes (on both Windows and OSX) is useful as the APE/FLAC-> ALAC converter (albeit needing to be controlled by dBpowerAMP if you want to retain file tagging information) and as a conduit for getting the ALAC files onto iPods.
A lossless format like APE, FLAC, Wavpack etc is more useful for archiving than WAV (or AIFF), as WAV and AIFF do not support internal file tagging, while most lossless formats do. If you also have dBpowerAMP, even using ALAC for archiving isn't a bad idea, as dBpowerAMP allows you to convert from ALAC into APE, FLAC, WavPack or pretty much any other file format that you may need (including WAV).
Regarding EAC, admittedly you need to spend a little time reading and implementing the instructions (experimenting with the Filename tab in Options is particularly useful, as it allows you to adjust how the cuesheets are written), but setting up EAC is a one-time chore. Once it is set up, you don't need to keep on fiddling with it.
For greater flexibility, EAC's cuesheets are also usable in a number of other music playback and CD burning programs, and if that's not enough, you can easily edit cuesheets in a text editor.
One program that also deserves mention is CD Wave Editor, which can split up a WAV image into individual files (with WAV, FLAC, APE output options) as defined by the cuesheet.
He's right. If you are already doing iTunes and iPod and love it, stick with ALAC. No need to go outside your current platform.If you want state of the art sound, there's more software and more work to do. Then you should consider Flac, other players, sound cards etc. But it doesn't sound like that's your game, so use ALAC and enjoy the increased fidelity!
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