Sakahara Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 What about AIFF? I've only seen FLAC downloads so far for 24/88 or greater resolution. Is there any reason to convert FLAC to AIFF for any possible future storage/use on Mac? At this time I'm placing all my music files (extracted or downloaded) on a dedicated external drive for use with music server? Also, is a AIFF (16/44) download the same as ripping CD to AIFF (only difference being the SW used)? Has any one noticed degraded sound quality with these downloads? I'd like to stop buying CD's, although good for backup, but I could always immediately burn the downloads to a DVD. Bryston BDP-1, Stereolabs XV Ultra Digital BNC IC, Lampizator L3/Gen3 DAC, solidcoreaudio Silver IC, Thoress F2A11 Integrated, solidcoreaudio Silver Foil Flat Speaker Cables, Thoress FR20CD mkIII Speakers, Entreq Konstantin Power Cords (Furutech FI-25(G) connectors), RSA Haley PC. Tweaks: HiFi Tuning SilverStar Fuses, NOS \'45 Tung-Sol JAN-CTL-12SN7GT Black Round Plates/Bottle (Thoress F2A11), NOS 6N6P Gold Grid (Lampizator). BDP-1 Interface: MPoD - iPad 2/iPhone (Network/Airport Express). Music Formats: AIFF (XLD Extracted Redbook CD - iMac OS X 10.6.7); also FLAC 24/96> downloads. Link to comment
4est Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 FLAC is not well supported on a Mac, and I would convert them to at least ALAC, or maybe AIFF. Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
wgscott Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 FLAC, ALAC, wav, aiff and a bunch of others are lossless and compatible with "high resolution" requirements. Wikipedia lists the following: Waveform audio format - WAV Free Lossless Audio Codec – FLAC Apple Lossless – ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) apt-X – Lossless Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding – ATRAC Audio Lossless Coding – also known as MPEG-4 ALS MPEG-4 SLS – also known as HD-AAC Direct Stream Transfer – DST Dolby TrueHD DTS-HD Master Audio Meridian Lossless Packing – MLP Monkey's Audio – Monkey's Audio APE OptimFROG RealPlayer – RealAudio Lossless Shorten – SHN TTA – True Audio Lossless WavPack – WavPack lossless WMA Lossless – Windows Media Lossless Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hi Sakahara - You may find some useful information in the Frequently Asked Question section of the site or the article on ripping CDs that covers some file format considerations. FAQ -> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/faq CD Ripping -> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-Audiophile-CD-Ripping-Strategy-and-Methodology Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
bdiament Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hi wgscott, "...FLAC, ALAC, wav, aiff and a bunch of others are lossless and compatible with "high resolution" requirements....",/i> AIF and WAV are not "lossless" in the sense that FLAC and ALAC are referred to as such. No "expansion" is required to play AIF or WAV files, as there is no data compression. They are raw PCM. Best regards, Barry www.soundkeeperrecordings.com www.barrydiamentaudio.com Link to comment
4est Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 I was keeping my mouth shut about WAV. Now that it is mentioned, I highly recommend converting some files to AIFF and WAV and comparing them to ALAC and FLAC. I was surprised, you may be too. Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 I frequently refer to AIFF and WAV as lossless as they are 100% lossless. These types don't have lossless compression but they are lossless when compared to the audio version stored in a Compact Disc. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
bdiament Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hi Chris, "...I frequently refer to AIFF and WAV as lossless as they are 100% lossless. These types don't have lossless compression but they are lossless when compared to the audio version stored in a Compact Disc...." Understood - provided the AIF or WAV are higher res than 16/44. At Redbook resolution, they are what is stored on CD. I raised the issue because newbies could easily get confused using the term "lossless" on files where no "loss" is possible because no data has been reduced or compressed. (So, of course AIF and WAV are lossless but not -to my ears- remotely like the same way as FLAC and ALAC.) Personally, I hear a difference between RAW (i.e. AIF or WAV) and so-called "lossless" reduced files (when the latter are expanded during playback). I don't like additional processes going on during listening. That is the reason why I believe playback, even of a 16/44 file on a good computer setup gets closer to the CD master than playback from the CD itself. The latter involves 8:14 demodulation, error correction, tracking, etc., all of which are out of the way for playback of an AIF or WAV from a computer. Just my perspective, of course. Best regards, Barry www.soundkeeperrecordings.com www.barrydiamentaudio.com Link to comment
bdiament Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hi 4est, "...I was keeping my mouth shut about WAV. Now that it is mentioned, I highly recommend converting some files to AIFF and WAV and comparing them to ALAC and FLAC. I was surprised, you may be too..." Interesting. What do you hear? (My own server uses AIF exclusively, the same format in which I record and master.) Best regards, Barry www.soundkeeperrecordings.com www.barrydiamentaudio.com Link to comment
4est Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hey Barry, It has been awhile since I compared them. I still run AIFF as I haven't decided to switch over just yet due to meta tagging issues. In a nutshell, with WAV there seems to be more "ease" to the music- slight bit of extra micro dynamic shading lending a more, dare I say it, organic naturalness. I haven't tested it a lot as I choose not to think too much about what I am missing! Maybe it is just my gear, but a die hard analog enthusiast and longtime vacuum tube dealer friend of mine could pick it out straight away double blind. I can tell from the other room. There is simply no mistaking it. FWIW, I used iTunes to convert A>W then W back to A. We couldn't detect a difference between the AIFFs. Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
bdiament Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Hi Forrest, Oh, you mean AIF vs. WAV? (Are you on a PC? Mac? Other?) I thought you meant AIF or WAV vs. FLAC or ALAC. When you say "we couldn't detect a difference between the AIFFs", do you mean after conversion to WAV and then back again? Best regards, Barry www.soundkeeperrecordings.com www.barrydiamentaudio.com Link to comment
Vade_Forrester Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Sakahara, FLAC and WAV files can be high-resolution and are used mostly with PCs. For Apple, AIFF and ALAC file formats are lossless. WAV and AIFF are uncompressed formats, while ALAC and FLAC are compressed, but no information is lost when compressing or decompressing these files. Software exists that will convert from one format to another. I use dbPoweramp on a PC, and I'm sure the Mac users on this forum will suggest conversion software for the Mac. There are other formats for losslessly compressed files, but the four I've mentioned are the most commonly used for music file servers. Hope this answers your question. Vade Forrester _________________[br]Vade Forrester Link to comment
4est Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 Noticeably different sounding files. I first got interested when someone recommended FLAC over ALAC for a Mac. As you know, most Mac software doesn't work with FLAC. I never tried FLAC because of that, but it got me interested in it. I definitely prefer AIFF over ALAC and prefer WAV over AIFF, but is is not as big of a change. I wish it weren't the case, and it may just be my set up. Hence my suggesting that the OP try it and see. This has been on more than one player, but I have not tried it on iTunes even though I used iTunes for the conversions. If/when I do a batch conversion, I will most likely use Max or XLD. Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
wgscott Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 I wonder if not having to extract metadata and audio from the same file is what accounts for the difference? Link to comment
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