ENCODER ON I-TUNES?

Lugs

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Jul 28, 2007
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Hi all.

After a lot of procrastination I've decided to go with I-tunes as thats what everyone else seems to be using and like. I even bought one of the little ones to play with.

So my question is what encoder do I use?

The choice is

AAC
AIFF
Apple lossless
MP3
WAV

No sign of FLAC on choices which is what I thought was the best one?

Furthermore

Advice on
Stereo Bit Rate
Sample Rate.
Variable bit rate

I want the best sound output for an eventual TOR streamer that I've yet to test / buy as yet to replace cdp.

Thanks and regards

Lugs.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Short Answer - Apple Lossless. Its theÿequivalentÿof FLAC and is lossless, it sounds as good as the CD yet doesn't use nearly as much space as WAV.ÿ

ÿ

If you are willing to sacrifice some of the quality so you can fit more music on your computer then I'd say AAC and choose 256kbps VBR and sample rate should be left alone. Really though, Apple Lossless if at all possible and it does everything for you so you can't change any of the options you listed even if you wanted to. ÿ
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I just quickly re-read what I wrote and noticed that I didn't explain why or the differences and since it sounds as though this is new to you, it may be something you've never dealt with. I'm sure What Hi Fi probably has this explained but as a quick and dirty comparrison.ÿ

WAV - uncompressed audio, perfect bit for bit copy but huge storage space wise

AIFF - uncompressed audio, used often by audio editing software by pro's and again its huge size

Apple Lossless (FLAC too) - losslessly compressed so when decoded (played back in other words) is an exact copy of the CD and sounds just as good as far as quality. Big adavatage over the above two, it uses about half the space on the computer/iPod & sounds as good

AAC (aka mp4) - lossy compressed, can sound very good and uses very little hard drive/iPod space but on a good hifi you can tell a difference compared to Apple Lossless. Basically a newer version of mp3, a 128kbps AAC file will sound better than a 128kbps mp3. People often think of it as the Apple format because they use it for iTunes and sell songs in AAC, though they didn't develop it and Sony uses it for the PS3 too for exampleÿ

ÿmp3 - lossy compressed - can sound good and uses very little space. The only advantage in my eyes in mp3's favour now that we have AAC, is that every single player and software can play it. Its an older version, has been around a while and simply wont die as people are used to it and it can sound pretty close to a CD at 320kbps. I haven't ripped to mp3 in probably 3 years nowÿ

To give an idea, a 3 minute Diana Krall song encoded with Apple Lossless on my computer uses 16MB and a 3 minute Carly Simon song in 192kbps AAC takes up 4.6MB. Don't pay any attention to how many songs Apple says you can fit on the iPod as they use AAC 128kbps 4 minute songs to give a guess. Now you know the differences and can make a choice as to what you feel is best for you as far as quality/space/number of songs on your iPod (and yes, this just took me 6 minutes to write so I clearly have to much time on my hands tonight!!!!).

ÿ
 

Lugs

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Thanks v.much. However can I ask the question of compatibility? Can for instance apple lossless play on other media sources. Lets pretend I have £4500 burning a hole in my pocket and I buy that new Naim HDX, will the naim player read the apple files? If I'm asking stupid questions I apologise it's just that I have 1000's of cd's to work my way through and don't really fancy doing it more than once. I really liked the idea of that RS3 thing from previous thread I wrote but responses didn't really inspire confidence for the investment required for basically a hard drive.
 

John Duncan

Well-known member
No, given that specific example, since the Naim will not play Aplpe Lossless - WAV, FLAC, AAC, MP3 and WMA, but not Apple. However, plenty of others will - Squeezebox, Airport Express, Apple TV for example - and no reason why the HDX shouldn't with a future firmware upgrade. Even if not, the conversion of your entire library from Apple Lossless to WAV is a straightforward one-off process - whether you could then get it on the hard disk of your HDX is another issue, you might be stuck with streaming.

I'd also argue that there should be no need for a disk-based player like the HDX when you already have your music ripped elsewhere on the network - there are plenty of diskless streamers out there, including audiophile ones (Squeezebox Transporter springs to mind, with more to come, no doubt). Whether or not they quite match the HDX is the £4,500 question.

Note that all of the lossless codecs have their own issues - I'd argue the compatibility of FLAC is pretty poor as well, though not because of the file format per se, more to do with usage.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
No, as John said though I think as good as the Naim is, its a product solving a problem that never existed. As you say, you want to rip all your CD's once and never again. That's why its a very good idea to rip them to Apple Lossless. If, in the future you buy a product that doesn't play back Apple Lossless (as of now, Apple dominates this field though and there is a large selection of products from Apple and other companies that play back Apple Lossless) you can convert them to another lossless codec such as FLAC very easily and you haven't lost any quality because your simply switching from one lossless codec to another.ÿ

For example, I buy some music from LINN in 24/96 FLAC format, but use iTunes as my media library. iTunes does not play back FLAC as you've already discovered, so I use an application called MAX (free) to covert the LINN purchased 24/96 FLAC files to Apple Lossless 24/96 files. It is very easy to do, and because they are not lossy codec's the files sound just as good.

ÿ

I know it can get confusing with all these codecs. Apple is using their codecs, Windows has its own lossy and Lossless codecs, and then there is FLAC. Truth be told, sound quality wise all lossless codecs are about as good as each other since they are lossless and its very easy to switch between them. The best way is to rip all your CD's to your computer or NAS (NAS is another discussion) and then stream it to your expensive hi fi. For sound quality sake, and since you use iPod and in my opinion itunes has the best interface, use iTunes which means using Apple Lossless. Personally I use an Airport Express which has a digital out which is connected to a DAC (soon to be replaced with Cambridge Audio's new product) and then from the DAC to my stereo. This way you get CD quality sound with all the benefits of ripping the music to your computer like instant access to 1000's of CD's. If you went the NAIM product route, firstly its stunningly expensive but mostly you will have to re-rip all your music or at least have another copy on the NAIM and its just not necessary. As John pointed out, if you don't want to use the products I've mentioned above, the Transporter is also excellent but either way you will want the songs on your computer in a lossless format as it gives you the most options (even giving the option ofÿtransferringÿthem to that NAIM product if you absolutely had to give them £4500)! Last comment, once you have ripped all those CD's, back up the computer/NAS it is very, very important to do. ÿ
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Yeah John, I love Max and use it almost daily. Enough that I felt obligated to donate some money. It can be a little overwhelming at first just because it has so many options for output. Go into the preferences and select MPEG4 Audio (apple lossless) in the formats menu. It can convert just about any format to any other format, including some I've never even heard of. The other great feature is that it is an excellent ripper. iTunes can do a great job too of course, but Max can be set up as a comparison ripper with full paranoia so that it makes sure it gets an exact perfect rip of the CD. A fantastic littleÿapplicationÿfor Mac users, although I'm sure Windoze users have something similar available to them. Its also very quick at both conversion and ripping which is a nice bonus..
 

PJPro

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If you are desperate for FLAC, what you are able to do is have a Foobar2000, FLAC, EAC back-end with an iTunes front end.

I mentioned this and provided a link in this post. I haven't tried this myself so don't know if it actually works!
 

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