M4A files

[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!!

Cheers

Tommo

 

[jacking]

Are you actually able to play files directly to the receiver from a USB hard drive?

 

[tomlinscote]

yes the drive plugs into the fromt panel and then you can play music files on it, it can play wav, wma, mp3 and m4a apparently, I have tries mp3 and wav which were ok but not the itunes ripped m4a (the PS3 cannot play them either - grr!!)

Tommo

 

[philbirch]

There are several types of m4a files. Lossy and loseless are the main two that are produced by itunes. It could be that your player doesn't recognise one them.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I assume the OP's files are Apple Lossless, which IIRC the '905 can't handle over network.

EDIT: The manual says 'Sampling rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz and bitrates of between 16 and 320 kbps, are supported. Incompatible files cannot be played', so that means AAC files should be fine, but not ALAC (Apple Lossless)

 

[jacking]

What is it with so many manufacturers and ALAC? Is there some sort of prejudice aganst Apple because it's such a successful brand? I've had these issues also and have had to compromise with AAC, but now have my hi-fi set up completely outside of the AV system and use a MacMini to a pair of powered speakers and play via iTunes with the Audirvana plug in and Meridian Explorer DAC. Rather costly I know, but ultimately far more satisfying as i can use most lossleess formats.

 

[John Duncan]

Well, ALAC used to be a closed file format so handling them required manufacturers to use reverse engineering to decode. Since it's gone open source, far more devices are handling it natively.

 

[jacking]

So Apple themselves were to blame then?

 

[John Duncan]

Well I'm not sure I'd call it 'to blame' - it is just the way that it was, but that's changed now.

 

[jacking]

....and for the better. Good info there John.

 

[John Duncan]

And if you want to contribute, the code is here:

http://alac.macosforge.org/