How do you save your music? What applications are you using?

[jw8725]

Hi am i right in thinking that FLAC is better than ALAC? I have a mac mini and will use that as source. I'd like to know what is the best method to save music?

 

There is no point me spending an arm and a leg on this if I'm going to be bottlenecked by the music I'm listening to?

 

What applications do you use too?

 

Many thanks all!

 

[mwheelerk]

FLAC and Apple Lossless are both lossless audio codecs and in my opinion there is no audible difference between them though some may disagree with that.

 

You have a Mac Mini and if you are using iTunes it does not support the use of FLAC files so you will use the ALAC (lossless compressed) or you can chose AIFF (uncompressed) format. The issues are simple between these two. AIFF being uncompressed has sizes of 1411 kBps and ALAC will vary in size based on the lossless compression from 500 to 1000 kBps (on average) so file size is a consideration. Some claim to hear a difference between AIFF and ALAC but I cannot.

 

FLAC files may be the only method for some downloads you can purchase and in that case you will need to import those to iTunes using a third party software (free) like MAX or XLD to convert them to ALAC or AIFF. In addition many feel that XLD offers a more consistent and bit perfect rip over iTunes but for my experience I don't see or hear a difference (but don't doubt that others experience a benefit to XLD).

 

BACK UP. REDUNDANT BACK UP. Start your process from the first rip with proper backup in place. I have incremental back ups done using Time Machine. Then, depending on how much work I have done I bring in another hard drive to do a redundant back up weekly or monthly and I store that remotely for protection. Seriously, don't even start the process without having back up program in place.

 

Good luck