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iTunes file format trickery
- Thread starter maxanton
- Start date
So. Much. Misinformation.
Audio CDs don't contain "files" they contain a continuous stream of information not dissimilar to the groove on a vinyl record. A computer uses a file system so interprets an audio CD as files so that it can make sense of the content.
Converting AAC to MP3 is the best way to make it sound worse. Any lossy compressed file converted to any other lossy compressed file loses more data in conversion. There are plenty of audio players on the android store that play all file formats so this isn't necessary anyway.
FLAC and ALAC are containers for compressed music without losing any digital data. Much like ZIP or RAR for all other file types. This is why the files are indistinguishable to your ears from a CD or a WAV rip - they literally come out of the speakers the same.
The weak link in your listening (besides your ears that aren't as good as you think they are) are your speakers. Digital audio, being digital, cannot be made better or worse through the choice of software unless you are using the software's EQ or some other processing that filters the sound, in which case perhaps one is better than another. iTunes plays music just fine. And is quite useful if you use an iPhone or iPod.
Your hardware (soundcard) and speakers are far and away the biggest influence on what comes out. If you have cheap headphones or speakers, or even better, laptop speakers, then you won't get anything better than "alright sound" even if you listen to a CD directly. Like bass amps and speakers, your soundcard and speakers will colour the sound coming through them unless you spent hundreds on flat response gear.
The only real benefit to lossless compression on a computer is to have a 1:1 archive of a CD whilst saving some space through FLAC or equivalent compression. As your computer highly likely can't playback those files properly (due to your speakers) there is little point to it. And if you have the CD... Then you have a 1:1 version of it right there.
Audio CDs don't contain "files" they contain a continuous stream of information not dissimilar to the groove on a vinyl record. A computer uses a file system so interprets an audio CD as files so that it can make sense of the content.
Converting AAC to MP3 is the best way to make it sound worse. Any lossy compressed file converted to any other lossy compressed file loses more data in conversion. There are plenty of audio players on the android store that play all file formats so this isn't necessary anyway.
FLAC and ALAC are containers for compressed music without losing any digital data. Much like ZIP or RAR for all other file types. This is why the files are indistinguishable to your ears from a CD or a WAV rip - they literally come out of the speakers the same.
The weak link in your listening (besides your ears that aren't as good as you think they are) are your speakers. Digital audio, being digital, cannot be made better or worse through the choice of software unless you are using the software's EQ or some other processing that filters the sound, in which case perhaps one is better than another. iTunes plays music just fine. And is quite useful if you use an iPhone or iPod.
Your hardware (soundcard) and speakers are far and away the biggest influence on what comes out. If you have cheap headphones or speakers, or even better, laptop speakers, then you won't get anything better than "alright sound" even if you listen to a CD directly. Like bass amps and speakers, your soundcard and speakers will colour the sound coming through them unless you spent hundreds on flat response gear.
The only real benefit to lossless compression on a computer is to have a 1:1 archive of a CD whilst saving some space through FLAC or equivalent compression. As your computer highly likely can't playback those files properly (due to your speakers) there is little point to it. And if you have the CD... Then you have a 1:1 version of it right there.
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From the things I've read on multiple forums, FLAC & ALAC unpack & sound the same as wav. So to answer you question yes you can burn your FLAC file to CD & rip to ALAC & the result should be the same as playing a cd. However don't 'down' convert to aac or mp3 before burning to cd.
In addition I've read, it's slightly easier for a pc to unpack/convert FLAC files than ALAC before playing as audio - although most modern pcs have more than enough processing power & therefore shouldn't be an issue with ALAC.
convert away !!
In addition I've read, it's slightly easier for a pc to unpack/convert FLAC files than ALAC before playing as audio - although most modern pcs have more than enough processing power & therefore shouldn't be an issue with ALAC.
convert away !!
I've downloaded a free little program called All2MP3, it can convert any sound format into MP3.
Toast Titanium can also import FLAC files and export them as AIFF, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC & Ogg Vorbis.
I generally convert everything I play on my computer into high rate AAC, because it sounds better than MP3 to me.
My teachers in a multimedia course said that AIFF was a preferable uncompressed sound format above WAV, because of the sound quality and the the bit arrangement.
The format of the sound files on your CD may vary, depending on it's age.
Original CD's use uncompressed sound formats anyway, FLAC is one of them.
My 2005 iPod instruction stated that AAC 256 kbps bitrate at 44,100 kHz gave the best compressed sound quality/playability.
Toast Titanium can also import FLAC files and export them as AIFF, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC & Ogg Vorbis.
I generally convert everything I play on my computer into high rate AAC, because it sounds better than MP3 to me.
My teachers in a multimedia course said that AIFF was a preferable uncompressed sound format above WAV, because of the sound quality and the the bit arrangement.
The format of the sound files on your CD may vary, depending on it's age.
Original CD's use uncompressed sound formats anyway, FLAC is one of them.
My 2005 iPod instruction stated that AAC 256 kbps bitrate at 44,100 kHz gave the best compressed sound quality/playability.
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I have not read the rest of the thread, so I apologize if this is just a repetition...
Anything I download in the FLAC format, I convert it into AIFF using a free application called XLD. Of course, this is valid if you would like to use iTunes as your player.
With other lossless compressed formats including Apple Lossless, I found that most music sounds a bit flat. At the beginning this did not make sense. But I believe it is related to the capacity of the computer. Here is how it went...
My wife and I were looking for a new stereo system for our living room. I had some Apple Lossless files with me which we were playing from the netbook at the store we were shopping. My wife, who has much bigger ears than me from an audiophile perspective, at one point told me that most of our files sounded flat. When we switched to the CD's of the same recordings we (including the store owner) realized this was the case. The system we were listening to the files were a netbook feeding a Hegel DAC (USB connection) which in turn was feeding a Copland amp with KT120 tubes connected to ProAc D28 speakers with DH Labs cables. The CD player was also connected to the Hegel DAC, so we were pretty much using the same system with different formats of lossless files.
Upon this, I decided to run a very simple test and asked my wife to listen to the same tune ("Animals" from Muse) in three different formats (without telling her what is what) and pick the best sound. Interestingly, she picked AIFF 96% of the time, WAV 3% of the time, and Apple Lossless 1% of the time out of 300 listening sessions of the first 30 seconds of the tune, 100 in each format. This was with a Mac Mini with only 2 GB of RAM. When I increased the RAM of the computer to 16 GB, AIFF and WAV got close to each other (I do not remember the percentages) and Apple Lossless just raised to 3% of the time.
This is not a perfectly set experiment of course, but using iTunes, rather than sticking to lossless formats, I use either AIFF or WAV as storage is no more an issue. But iTunes accepts only AIFF files' artwork so my preference is with the AIFF. I, later, bought Amarra and now even though I am using iTunes as my interface, the engine that the music is playing on is Amarra and it sounds significantly better than iTunes.
So, to cut the long story short, if you would use iTunes as your interface, converting things into AIFF sounds better in our experience. I am not sure about the algorithm but I speculate that iTunes' decompression algorithm from Apple Lossless into whatever format it is using is not very effective and therefore you might need high processing powers for computer listening. If you directly like to use files like FLAC, there are players out there including Amarra (and some cheaper or even free software). You might like to check those and I am sure most of them are better than iTunes.
I hope I did not cause a distraction from the main discussion! Best,
Alper
QUOTE="maxanton, post: 18364611, member: 278883"]Hello TalkBass
First of all, sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this in. I was going to post this in Offtopic originally, but, seeing as it's to do with music, decided to post it here instead.
Anyway, I usually buy my music on CDs and then import them into iTunes through the Apple Lossless setting. However, there are some albums (particularly of small bands) that I cannot get in CD format, but I can download them in FLAC (from BandCamp, nothing illegal here). Which iTunes doesn't support for some reason.
Now, I'm really obsessed with sound quality, so I'm thinking of burning the music onto a CD in FLAC quality and the importing it using the Apple Lossless encoder. However, I have a creeping feeling that I am horribly, *horribly* misguided in this.
Would it make sense to do this? Which format are CDs usually burned to? How can I get the best possible sound quality off of an album that I download from BandCamp?
Any advice would be much appreciated![/QUOTE]
Anything I download in the FLAC format, I convert it into AIFF using a free application called XLD. Of course, this is valid if you would like to use iTunes as your player.
With other lossless compressed formats including Apple Lossless, I found that most music sounds a bit flat. At the beginning this did not make sense. But I believe it is related to the capacity of the computer. Here is how it went...
My wife and I were looking for a new stereo system for our living room. I had some Apple Lossless files with me which we were playing from the netbook at the store we were shopping. My wife, who has much bigger ears than me from an audiophile perspective, at one point told me that most of our files sounded flat. When we switched to the CD's of the same recordings we (including the store owner) realized this was the case. The system we were listening to the files were a netbook feeding a Hegel DAC (USB connection) which in turn was feeding a Copland amp with KT120 tubes connected to ProAc D28 speakers with DH Labs cables. The CD player was also connected to the Hegel DAC, so we were pretty much using the same system with different formats of lossless files.
Upon this, I decided to run a very simple test and asked my wife to listen to the same tune ("Animals" from Muse) in three different formats (without telling her what is what) and pick the best sound. Interestingly, she picked AIFF 96% of the time, WAV 3% of the time, and Apple Lossless 1% of the time out of 300 listening sessions of the first 30 seconds of the tune, 100 in each format. This was with a Mac Mini with only 2 GB of RAM. When I increased the RAM of the computer to 16 GB, AIFF and WAV got close to each other (I do not remember the percentages) and Apple Lossless just raised to 3% of the time.
This is not a perfectly set experiment of course, but using iTunes, rather than sticking to lossless formats, I use either AIFF or WAV as storage is no more an issue. But iTunes accepts only AIFF files' artwork so my preference is with the AIFF. I, later, bought Amarra and now even though I am using iTunes as my interface, the engine that the music is playing on is Amarra and it sounds significantly better than iTunes.
So, to cut the long story short, if you would use iTunes as your interface, converting things into AIFF sounds better in our experience. I am not sure about the algorithm but I speculate that iTunes' decompression algorithm from Apple Lossless into whatever format it is using is not very effective and therefore you might need high processing powers for computer listening. If you directly like to use files like FLAC, there are players out there including Amarra (and some cheaper or even free software). You might like to check those and I am sure most of them are better than iTunes.
I hope I did not cause a distraction from the main discussion! Best,
Alper
QUOTE="maxanton, post: 18364611, member: 278883"]Hello TalkBass
First of all, sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this in. I was going to post this in Offtopic originally, but, seeing as it's to do with music, decided to post it here instead.
Anyway, I usually buy my music on CDs and then import them into iTunes through the Apple Lossless setting. However, there are some albums (particularly of small bands) that I cannot get in CD format, but I can download them in FLAC (from BandCamp, nothing illegal here). Which iTunes doesn't support for some reason.
Now, I'm really obsessed with sound quality, so I'm thinking of burning the music onto a CD in FLAC quality and the importing it using the Apple Lossless encoder. However, I have a creeping feeling that I am horribly, *horribly* misguided in this.
Would it make sense to do this? Which format are CDs usually burned to? How can I get the best possible sound quality off of an album that I download from BandCamp?
Any advice would be much appreciated![/QUOTE]
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By the way, as long as the FLAC and Apple Lossless are obtained from the original recording (say the WAV on CD), they include the exact same information as the AIFF and WAV formats have. It is just a matter of processing of these files, in my opinion, that leads to how you hear them if there is any difference.
Computer Audiophile - CA - Where HiFi and High Tech Converge has tons of forums and discussions around the subject matter...
Best,
Alper
Computer Audiophile - CA - Where HiFi and High Tech Converge has tons of forums and discussions around the subject matter...
Best,
Alper
As long as you have a converter in hand like XLD, it should not be a problem, I believe...
