Anything lost in converting lossless files?

[Trefor Patten]

I have a huge number of Apple Lossless (ALAC) files ripped when I had a smaller hard drive. Since acquiring a 3 TB NAS, I have no need to rip anything at other than full bitrate. I have noticed a lot of equipment will handle AIFF or WAV but hardly anything that is not designed in Cupertino will play Apple Lossless. My question is this: If you convert ALAC to AIFF is anything lost or damaged, or distorted in any way?

Of course I could dig out all the individual CDs and re-rip them, then change everything to the way I want it (Why does Gracenote insist that traditional English folk music is Country/Folk, but an Irish singer like Christy Moore is 'World' and most bizarrely, that traditional Andean music is 'Reggae'?) but that would take so much longer than highlighting the ALAC files, selecting 'create AIFF version' and letting the computer do its stuff overnight.

Any thoughts?

 

[Anonymous]

Reripping would be a waste of time, being lossless formats. Retagging would indeed be a pain.

Are you sure though that AIFF has the widest support for you? It is not DLNA supported as far as I know.

 

[Anonymous]

If you let iTunes "create an AIFF version" from an ALAC file it should theoretically be the same as ripping in AIFF in the first place. So save yourself some time and let your computer do the work

 

[Anonymous]

AIFF will not have more traction than ALAC (outside the pro audio world, that is). Converting between lossless formats should never be a problem, since no information is lost. However, tagging support for WAV and AIFF is practically non-existent so I would not recommend you go that route. If you really want to move away from apple lossless, then take a look at FLAC which does have proper tagging support.

I have noticed a lot of equipment will handle AIFF or WAV but hardly anything that is not designed in Cupertino will play Apple Lossless.

Then don't buy such equipment?

 

[manicm]

Look, some might disagree with me here, but do NOT transcode anything in iTunes, the resultant file doesn't sound as good. In iTunes I've for example converted WAV files to AIFF and it just doesn't sound as good. Ripping to AIFF directly from CD is great though, and to my ears sounds better than ALAC.

 

[garyw77]

However, tagging support for WAV and AIFF is practically non-existent so I would not recommend you go that route. If you really want to move away from apple lossless, then take a look at FLAC which does have proper tagging support.

Very Strange :?

I have over 100,000 tracks in AIFF lossless all perfectly tagged. Tagging support for AIFF i find perfect, especially when using the superb FREE Kid3 application which makes tagging a breeze.

 

[Alec]

There should be no loss of quality, and if AIFF tags OK, I guess you may aswell go with that.

 

[Dan Turner]

Trefor - I used iTunes to convert a failry large ALAC library to AIFF for pretty much the same reason and I could detect no detrimental effect (that said I couldn't detect any improvement either).

I also find that AIFF files get tagged perfectly (by iTunes that is).

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Anonymous]

I have over 100,000 tracks in AIFF lossless all perfectly tagged. Tagging support for AIFF i find perfect, especially when using the superb FREE Kid3 application which makes tagging a breeze.

I didn't say that you wouldn't be able to tag AIFF, you can tag it in much the same way as WAV (i.e. id3 shoehorned into riff/iXML chunks). But such entensions are non-standard and may not work reliably among different programs/streamers/media devices.

 

[Anonymous]

In the context of AIFF and Apple, if iTunes is putting an id3 tag into a chunk (which they do), then that is as standard as it gets.