Are all m4a files the same type?

[tomlinscote]

 

[tomlinscote]

Hi all,

Trying to play some itunes ripped music on my Onkyo 905 receiver using a USB hard drive. The user manual says that the Onkyo can play .m4a files and the HDD has .m4a files that I used itunes to create from CD but the files cannot be played.

My qn is are there different forms of .m4a files and if so are the itunes ones coded in some special Apple way so I cannot play them using the receiver meaning I will have to re-rip to a format the receiver can play ie wav, or do I buy a Sonos and use it to decode the files which would also mean buying a NAS as the HDD with the music on is USB - both options would annoy me to say the least!!

I realise this is not strictly a HIFI forum issue but this is the more active of the forums so I posted it here (as well as on the computer section) in case you guys can help too.

Cheers

Tommo

 

[Crocodile]

I believe M4A can contain either lossy AAC or lossless ALAC. Maybe the Onkyo can only play AAC & you have ALAC?

Edit - p111 of the manual says the maximum supported bit rate is 320k so that would exclude lossless.

 

[tomlinscote]

I feared as much but it also says on the same page that it can only handle wav files of 16kbps too, but it can play wavs of 1411kbps (I think thats the standard for wavs??) with no probs. How bluddy annoying!!!!

Tommo

 

[Crocodile]

I guess something was lost in translation & they meant 16 bit depth. If the M4As are lossless then you could always batch convert to WAV, but obviously there'd be a hit on HDD space. You'd also probably lose metadata.

Other than that, you're looking at a streamer