Questions about converting 24/96 flac to aiff

[Cmcmurphy22]

If I convert hdtracks 24/96 from flac to aiff using xld on my macbook pro , will I lose any resolution if I am playing back through iTunes?

 

I am new to computer hifi and just got an iNova which I love, but I am needing some good info on optimizing my system.

 

Also, would it be better to be running pure music instead and just playing the flac file without converting?

 

Thanks,

Coleman

 

[bafonso]

They're equivalent lossless formats, so it's the same. One thing you lose with aiff is album art and metadata. You could just go alac route where you get to keep all that :-)

 

iTunes does not necessarily play bit perfect so pure music (or audirvana free, bitperfect, etc) will be potentially safer options to make sure you are not changing the original sound.

 

[goldsdad]

"One thing you lose with aiff is album art and metadata. You could just go alac route where you get to keep all that"

 

No, AIFF does support embedded art and metadata. WAV does not (except in special circumstances that can be ignored here). XLD will faithfully convert FLAC to AIFF with embedded art and metadata. AIFF is not compressed, so it will be about 70% larger than the HDTracks losslessly compressed FLAC.

 

ALAC also supports embedded art and metadata with a compressed file size similar to FLAC. There are occasional problems involving ALAC files and some analysis and editing software. For playback, though, ALAC seems to be fine.