AudioCircle
Audio/Video Gear and Systems => The Discless Circle => Topic started by: Pez on 4 May 2011, 12:13 am
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Hey all about to rip my entire cd collection to my Mac and use it as a music server via SB touch on my system.
For general ease of use and so I don't have to have 2 music libraries (one for iTunes and one for my squeezebox) I would like to rip everything to AIFF and be compatible across all my various apple devices. The other option is to rip to FLAC and have a secondary library.
The ONLY reason I would not do AIFF is if there is a quality difference that would make it undesirable. I have heard anecdotally that FLAC is better than aiff, but I would like to hear from you guys what you think.
I do plan on trying both formats to see for myself, but wanted some feedback. Also if anyone likes a certain converter to rip my discs to that would also be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
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P, depending on your library size, you may not have enough drive space. Remember aiff is just regular cd size, no compression. Flac maybe smaller, but if you are using a ok dac, you are not going to be able to tell the difference IMO. I have 35000 songs, all from CDs ripped o basic itune plus. I have all my concerts from dat in aiff, but that is a total of 500 plus gigs. I have a apple tv2 that I stream to and then output hdmi to the integra right now and works great.
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Use an external drive too, much faster, cd drive
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I compared the two and my conclusion was that aiff was the slightest bit inferior when ripped through itunes. When using Max from sbooth.org to rip my cds to aiff I could detect no difference between flac and aiff. I've been using Max and ripping to aiff ever since; it's simple, effective software and it's free.
I'm curious to read what you find when you compare the two.
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I have over 600 CD's on Itunes, ripped to AIFF and streamed wirelessly to an Airport Express and then through a MF V-Dac to my receiver. The AIFF's sound fantastic!
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Can't you do lossless ALAC? That gives you lossless files with better storage similar to FLAC. If you already have a bunch of FLAC files ripped, you can convert them to ALAC via dbPoweramp.
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so dbpoweramp is windows only. :wtf: Any good alternatives for mac?
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XLD or Max.
Max hasn't seen active development in a while. Both perform AccurateRip checks like dbpoweramp.
FYI, AIFF stores the audio data in the exact same uncompressed linear PCM format as WAV. It simply has a different container structure that allows tagging information. FLAC is lossless, but compressed. If one of the two formats was going to sound worse than the other, I'd guess that it would be FLAC, rather than AIFF, with the likely cuplrit having something to do with procesing required to uncompress the data.
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What about Apple lossless? That seems to be the way to go if I want file compression and iTunes compatibility.
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I used to use Apple Lossless and I switched to FLAC. It bothered me that I could not fast-forward or rewind on the squeezebox duet or classic. IIRC Logitech didn't pay Apple enough to enable that feature (or something).
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what? Ah man.... Sigh... I guess Apple lossless is out. :duh:
Edit: Wait, does this apply to the Touch?
Edit 2: from Logitech website
"Squeezebox Touch supports fast forwarding and rewinding only on the following audio file formats:
Supported File Types:
AAC
Apple Lossless
M4A
MP3
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
OGG (Ogg Vorbis)
WAV/AIFF (Waveform Audio Format /Audio Interchange File Format)
WMA CBR and WMA VBR (Windows Media Audio Constant Bitrate Variable Bitrate)"
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If you decode the compressed file on the server and stream the WAV/AIFF to the device you likely won't be able to fast forward even though the format is supported for that function. Not sure on the touch but it was this way with the earlier SB products. Pretty likely this hasn't changed since it's being unpacked by the server and not on the fly.
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I guess I'll just have to give it a shot, any chance I can still drag the progress bar back and forth? I usually do that anyways rather than FF/REW.
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You can fast forward selections w/ a Touch sending PCM from the server and storing the files as flac.
I have returned to using EAC to rip and setting the compression to level 1 as I have found it sounds slightly better. This was another suggestion by Soundcheck.
You get metadata tagging which I feel strongly is an essential and less use of resources when expanding to PCM on the server.
If you are in the middle of a playlist, you can jump all over in that list, even if the selections are 24/96. I do this all the time by setting it on Random and then using the remote to skip around.
Remember, if you go to another playlist then there'll be no packets in the buffer and you'll hear a stumble. There is a built in utility called convert.conf that will automatically will down rez 24/192 to 24/96 or 24/88 if you edit it. I played w/ resampling 16/44. to 24/96 w/ this utility, there are a number of other parameters involved but I went back to native resolution. May try that again though.
Larry
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Given a choice between a propriety lossless format and an open one, I'd have to have a really compelling reason to choose Apple Lossless over FLAC.
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iTunes compatibility is a big reason for me, but I suppose I could go to FLAC and have 2 libraries. :scratch:
Has anyone compared apple lossless to FLAC regarding sound quality?
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I have come to the conclusion that most listening for me is not specific, but when I really want to listen to great music, I get the original cd off the shelf. iTunes plus and all my live dat concerts from the dead etc in aiff, work great. A great dac is nice too.
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I've already determined that the bolder modded squeezebox with upgraded power supply pretty much beats the pants off of some of the best cdps out there. so it will replace my cdp very soon.
I Found this on macworld, I think this test was brilliant on the part of the individual who came up with it!
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=311789
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iTunes compatibility is a big reason for me, but I suppose I could go to FLAC and have 2 libraries. :scratch:
Has anyone compared apple lossless to FLAC regarding sound quality?
All lossless files have the same data and can be interconverted. Compressed lossless files are decompressed by the player software.
I cannot hear any differences. Some people claim wav sounds the best. They have better hallucinogenic drugs than I do.
I rip everything I care about to Apple Lossless. If I download FLAC, I keep those, and use XLD to convert to Apple Lossless. If for some reason I need AIFF or anything else, I can always use XLD (or similar) to covert to (back) to AIFF or FLAC or whatever. I've checked the md5sum of a wav file generated from a FLAC generated from an ALAC generated from a wav, and both are the same (wav has no embedded metadata to fool a checksum). They all have the same information. If one sounds better, then it suggests the software has a bug.
Finally, Audirvana, Decibel, and many of the other third-party players will play FLAC.
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I'll be interested to see what everyone does when iTunes offers original 24 bit songs this fall. To me tune is a way to organize me and the entire musical family o iPods, pads, apple tvs.
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And that in a nut shell is why I really dread having 2 libraries. Every disc or file I get would have to be ripped to AAC for portables and FLAC for the squeezebox. And to me that seems like the definition of pain in the ass.
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Sooo, what's the problem with converting your FLAC stuff to ALAC?
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No more speakers, just headphones. Wait till CDs are gone and we have to reimport to some other format....huh I love records
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Sooo, what's the problem with converting your FLAC stuff to ALAC?
Depends on what you mean? Do you mean my current FLAC library which consists of not much or do you mean converting to ALAC just for iTunes?
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Convert everything to ALAC, and all future stuff to ALAC too, so you have a single library in iTunes. What's the problem with that?
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Hopefully nothing, but I have heard anecdotally that ALAC may not sound s good as FLAC, but again there are a lot of variables that coiuld contribute to that being the case. I'll run some listening tests tomorrow to see if I can detect any differences.
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I'd be very surprised if there was any difference in sound between ALAC and FLAC.
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Ok, encoded Peter Gabriel Remaster of 'Your eyes' on both FLAC and ALAC. Listened for about 45 seconds in each mode and made a play list so I could go back and forth between the two and quite literally not know which was which.
The result: I detect no difference whatsoever, they sound identical in my setup to my highly picky ears. so Yay no double library necessary! Now I just need to get ripping!!!!
Thanks for all your help guyz.
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I'm glad to hear that the Touch supports fast forwarding and rewinding for ALAC now. Maybe it will work on the Classic and the Duet since the firmware and software updates? I'm not going to go back and try, but I could not hear a difference between ALAC and FLAC, just as you found. Happy ripping.
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I'm not sure about the FF REW thing. I tried it via the squeezebox controller software on iPhone and iPad for flac, alac and wav. Neither seemed to work. Scrubbing works, if you just grab the progress point on the bar and run it wither way it will take the track to that point, which is what I prefer anyway, but I can't get FF/REW to do anything. :scratch:
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You really want to use lossless ALAC for your portable players? That's a lot of wasted storage and you'll get a lot less playback time out of a battery charge. Go with two libraries.
I find it pretty easy to keep my main library in Flac and then a parallel library in Mp3 just for my portable players. Disc space required for the Mp3 library is almost negligible - it takes up less than 1/4 the space of the main library. There's a lot of software available, including dbpoweramp, that can easily do the transcoding for you.
For what I use portable players (running, gym, commuting) I can't tell the difference between lossless and higher quality Mp3.
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Or maybe I misunderstood why you want to use iTunes and were considering two libraries. If it's only for computer playback and you want Squeezebox compatibility, just encode everything in ALAC.
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I'm not sure about the FF REW thing. I tried it via the squeezebox controller software on iPhone and iPad for flac, alac and wav. Neither seemed to work. Scrubbing works, if you just grab the progress point on the bar and run it wither way it will take the track to that point, which is what I prefer anyway, but I can't get FF/REW to do anything. :scratch:
This is exactly how I FF in a browser interface as the display on my Touches have been disabled via Soundcheck's TouchToolbar2.0 and I tend to use the browser interface for most things.
The remote does not allow FF on the Touch. Earlier models allowed holding down the next selection button but that no longer works for FF.
Larry
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so dbpoweramp is windows only. :wtf: Any good alternatives for mac?
XLD
Best Mac app for ripping and best for converting between lossless formats
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You really want to use lossless ALAC for your portable players? That's a lot of wasted storage and you'll get a lot less playback time out of a battery charge. Go with two libraries.
This is one of the nice things about iTunes you can choose to have it automatically convert all hi-rez files to AAC for your portables on the fly while syncing so you never actually have the files on your computer! It takes quite a bit longer to sync, but I always sync over night anyway and it's worth it to not have 2 libraries.
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Also, last night I had a major set back. Somehow my files that were supposed to be ripped to my external drive were being ripped to my regular HD. I noticed I had some extra iTunes folder on my HD and deleted it not realizing what had happened and erased about 30% of my progress. :( I'm glad I didn't lose all of it, but I am having to re-rip everything that was lost. :duh: