about to re-encode entire CD collection onto shiny new server.

I’m pretty much tied into itunes so was thinking ALAC was the way to go. I’ve heard however that FLAC is better but itunes/ipods doesn’t like it. now theoretically i could just create 2 libraries, one for use on the hifi and one for the ipods and laptops in a compressed format.

Is there really much of a difference between the two, itunes doesn’t seem to let you choose any settings when encoding to ALAC. I’d still have to keep an mp3 library on my laptop anyway but integration with my wireless music player into the hifi is nice and easy with itunes (it will cope with both ALAC and FLAC) and itunes will automatically compress stuff onto the ipod i believe.

it’s mildly confusing thanks to the curse of itunes…..

dunno about ALAC – here’s what Bleep says about FLAC:

FLAC files are the same quality as Wav files however they are compressed, so are a smaller file size. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec and is an open source format. For more information about this visit: flac.Sourceforge.net

Please note iTunes DOES NOT support the playback of FLAC files. Please do not purchase any release in the FLAC format from Bleep if you are not sure what they are or if you can play them! Please go here for more details on this great lossless audio format.

You can change the conversion settings for iTunes under Preferences, Import Settings

yeah i know what it is ta, just wondered if anyone had used both/gone through a similar process. If you choose ALAC as the itunes import encoder it doesn’t let you change any settings, i guess there aren’t really any to change though. It’s just 24Bit 48KHz as standard.

Downloaded Bjork’s Biophilia in FLAC and boy does listening to MP3 for years make you forget what you’re missing since CD walkmans went out of the window.

Aren’t they both lossless, so when uncompressed they would be identical?

theoretically yes but there are still issues as to how they deal with the up-sampling from CD although they both use linear prediction techniques.

What the frank is ALAC?

Ah, Apple Lossless.

*itches*

Flac is widely supported, open source and non preprietary, alac is proprietary to apple.
Cant see any reason whatsoever to use alac imo, but then i dont us itunes

Use Alac if you want to be tied to itunes. All my music is saved as Flac and converted to mp3 on the fly if I need it.

mrmichaelwright – Member
theoretically yes but there are still issues as to how they deal with the up-sampling from CD although they both use linear prediction techniques.

No, if they up sample they are not lossless. They both produce bit-identical output. FLAC works with pretty much all non-Apple stuff, ALAC works with Apple stuff. That’s all there is to it really. Foobar can convert between them with no problems, keeping the tags if you add the right plugin.
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_input_alac

Both are pretty much exactly the same in terms of lossless except you can’t play FLAC in iTunes and so therefore your iPod.

What retro said – lossless is lossless Shirley?

At best one or the other might offer a better compression ratio. In practise is a result of a more intensive coding algorithm, and depends on the coder, not the codec. Dont believe the 24x44kHz though, unless thats a DVD rip. normal CD quality is 16x44kHz as far as im aware.

Anyone in Yorkshire need “secure off site storage” of their music collection? 😉