Converting ALAC music files to WAV.

[sshim1121]

Hi guys,

 

I need help. I have ripped off hundreds CDs and saved in ALAC format in my external drive, using iTune. I found that the quality of music saved in WAV format is better than that in ALAC. I want to convert all my music files saved in ALAC to WAV. My concern is this: Is the quality of music in WAV format converted from ALAC the same as the quality of music in WAV format which is saved by ripping off CDs.

 

SS

 

[John]

The converted files will be, in every sense currently currently known to science, identical to files that had been ripped to WAV in the first place. There are those that detect an audible difference. I absolutely do not dispute their accounts, but there is no explanation or theory offered that explain the differences. If it were me I would leave them as ALAC, or failing that batch convert them to WAV. Last resort would be to pay someone else to re-rip them, unless you have lot's of time on your hands. Either way they'll sound the same imho.

 

John.

 

[sshim1121]

Thank you so much. Either way, I will be a lot of work. Do you thinkg that converting to WAV from ALAC take time less than ripping cds to WAV?

 

Sung

 

[I. G.]

ALAC -> WAV is 123x real time for me wit XLD, ripping is obviously much slower.

 

[aljordan]

Charles Hanson wrote the following. I don't think you will have problems as long as your original rips were from CD, but be wary of converting 24 bit ALAC:

 

"If you convert a high-res file to ALAC, iTunes will not convert it back without truncating it to 16 bits."

 

Alan

 

[sshim1121]

Thanks, Alan

 

I tried to convert my music ALAC files to WAV file using Riverpast program. It did not open my ALAC files. The River program said to use QuickTime. Would you let me know which program may convert my ALAC file to WAV files without problem.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Give dbPowerAmp a go.

 

If using iTunes to play back the .wav files I would use iTunes to convert them as otherwise you'll loose all metadata.

 

[ryan_d]

If you've already ripped the cd to ALAC and you convert back to WAV you won't regain the info that was taken out when ripping to ALAC (smaller file size so something has been taken out). Therefore they will sound exactly the same. If you were to re-rip the same cd in WAV you might find a difference but as has already been posted the jury's still out on that one.

 

In saying that I rip in AIFF, which if you are using itunes as your playback engine then for ease and tagging then AIFF is much simpler.

 

Ryan

 

[Audio_ELF]

Sorry but you are completely wrong...

 

A file converted to ALAC (Apple Lossless) then converted to WAV (or AIFF) will have the same information as the original WAV. The whole point of Lossless compression (ALAC, FLAC, etc) is that nothing is lost - it's the same as using Zip to compress a Word document.

 

Sound quality MAY be different when playing back ALAC vs AIFF because of additional processing steps hving to be done in real time.

 

Eloise