Apple Lossless and FLAC v the real deal

[Trefor Patten]

Anybody out there have any opinion on the viability of lossless formats? I had ripped almost all of my CDs to Apple Lossless (Mac-based system) when I ripped a handful to AIFF by mistake. I noticed that the AIFF rips had a little more life to them, or was it that the CDs themselves had better recordings contained in those digits? We are not talking night and day here, just a little extra oomph like you may find with system tweaks like spikes, cables etc. I am not too keen on re-ripping everything if it is not necessary, however, I have a 2TB hard drive so there is space. Any opinions?

 

[The_Lhc]

Unless you've ripped a CD to both AIFF and ALAC and compared them I don't really see how you can say the AIFFs have more life, as you're comparing two different CDs. It's quick enough to try, rip a CD to both formats and see which you prefer.

 

[Trefor Patten]

Yes, sorry. Should have said, I did that and that all other things being equal, felt that full-bitrate had an extra something. I just wondered if others had the same experience because, if so, then re-ripping may be worthwhile.

 

[The_Lhc]

Lossless is full bitrate, it's just compressed, rather than uncompressed.

 

[Lee H]

This is a regular debate. Ultimately though, FLAC is simply a "zipped" lossless format so the quality should remain.

 

[manicm]

We've passed the debate about lossless formats and that they're equivalent, assuming you use a decent ripper ala dbPoweramp if you're comparing ALAC files, as I don't believe iTunes unpacks WAV from ALAC, simply transcodes yet again.

Now with that out of the way, you and I and indeed many others, and manufacturers like Linn and Naim will admit that their equipment might give different results with lossless formats compared to uncompressed formats.

If you trawl the net, you'll find many who indeed prefer AIFF to ALAC. If using iTunes as the ripper I also find ALAC to sound a bit lifeless, and AIFF to be better. What this is down to I don't know or care.

My advice is simple; rip to whatever you think sounds best and ignore everyone else who'll be prone to call you a lunatic.

 

[Anonymous]

If using iTunes as the ripper I also find ALAC to sound a bit lifeless, and AIFF to be better

Quite frankly, if this is true then either iTunes the ripper or i* the player is simply broken. Not that that would surprise me...

 

[Dan Turner]

Some people will tell you there can't possibly be any difference and therefore you're imagining it, but there is a slight difference in what happens when a lossless file is played back in comparison to an uncompressed one, in that the lossless file has to be un-packed as it's played back. Those who believe that there can be a difference heard between these 2 file types (you're certainly not alone) postulate that the increased load on the processor of the replay device, whilst obviously only using a fraction of the processor's capabilities can lead to increased electrical noise which accounts for the difference in sound quality. 2 things to note - 1) I don't think that this has ever ben proven 2) I've not seen any other theories to account for the difference.

Luckily for you there is an easy fix and you don't have to re-rip everything to AIFF. In iTunes (assuming that's what you're using to rip) change your import settings to AIFF, then select all Apple Lossless format tracks in your library (there are view options of file type to help you with this) and then right click and select 'create AIFF version'. This will create a copy of all your tracks in AIFF format. Then you can delete the ALAC originals.

Since the source files are all losslessly compressed this means no data was thrown away as the file was ripped (it was just packed in the most efficient way, just like a zipped document), so the full uncompressed equivalent can be extracted and will be identical to if it had been ripped in AIFF in the first place. Job done, paranoia (whether justified or not) gone. This is exactly what I did for exactly the same reason!

 

[manicm]

Some people will tell you there can't possibly be any difference and therefore you're imagining it, but there is a slight difference in what happens when a lossless file is played back in comparison to an uncompressed one, in that the lossless file has to be un-packed as it's played back. Those who believe that there can be a difference heard between these 2 file types (you're certainly not alone) postulate that the increased load on the processor of the replay device, whilst obviously only using a fraction of the processor's capabilities can lead to increased electrical noise which accounts for the difference in sound quality. 2 things to note - 1) I don't think that this has ever ben proven 2) I've not seen any other theories to account for the difference.

Luckily for you there is an easy fix and you don't have to re-rip everything to AIFF. In iTunes (assuming that's what you're using to rip) change your import settings to AIFF, then select all Apple Lossless format tracks in your library (there are view options of file type to help you with this) and then right click and select 'create AIFF version'. This will create a copy of all your tracks in AIFF format. Then you can delete the ALAC originals.

Since the source files are all losslessly compressed this means no data was thrown away as the file was ripped (it was just packed in the most efficient way, just like a zipped document), so the full uncompressed equivalent can be extracted and will be identical to if it had been ripped in AIFF in the first place. Job done, paranoia (whether justified or not) gone. This is exactly what I did for exactly the same reason!

I simply don't trust iTunes to uncompress files e.g. in iTunes if I rip a WAV -> rip ALAC -> WAV the last WAV frankly sounds worse than the original which tells me iTunes is not unpacking the ALAC but transcoding again. As an investment I would look at dbPoweramp.