[Audiophile]

IF you're an audiophile you're only going to use lossless files, not ' a playlist comprised from many sources'. ...

Hi all,

Does Apple lossless sound better than wav and aiff?

Thanks,
Paul

[konut]

It SHOULD sound the same, but I saw a comment awhile back, sorry cant remember where, that they prefered the wav. As I have no personal experience with Apple lossless I cant give any impressions of my own. Anyone?

[Vinnie R.]

It SHOULD sound the same, but I saw a comment awhile back, sorry cant remember where, that they prefered the wav. As I have no personal experience with Apple lossless I cant give any impressions of my own. Anyone?

Hi Guys,

Just like .flac files, they are lossless files and should sound the same as WAVs during playback.  Lossless means that they are stored with some compression (usually 30 to 50%), but upon playback, are restored to full data w/o any loss of info.

Keep in mind that one may like the sound of their iPod playing lossless files over their CD player, or vice versa, because they have different dacs, different analog output stages, etc.

Using Apple Lossless and error correction when ripping in iTunes, I am very impressed with the sound quality and do not hear any loss of fidelity.  

The same holds true when I use EAC and FLAC with my SB2  

BTW, rumor has it that an 80Gb iPod is going to be released on Wednesday.     While this is cool, it would be even better if they just let you connect directly to an external harddrive  

[Audiophile]

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone have any experiance quth aiff?

[advaitamusic]

i understand the iMod creates a higher quality line out for the iPod.  what will you offer, or be able to do about allowing signal in.  my hope, and it is currently in the beginning phases, is to use the iPod for recording purposes.  i would like the ability to record onto the iPod with the best signal i can.  thank you.

[Verne M.]

I've used aiff for burning CDs to play in CD players.  Apple lossless files are about half the size of an AIFF.  I think Apple lossless sounds great - you can definitely hear the difference when A/B with mp3.

I have not A/B aiff and Apple Lossless in my iPod.  But if there are any additional audible benefits to aiff, I think they're outweighed by the size of the files.  Also consider where you're listening to your iPod.  In the car mp3 files are fine.  Thru headphones or your ClariT Apple Lossless is superior.

I have listened to my iPod thru the dock into my passive pre - dual mono clariT, and I don't think it sounds as good as my CDP thru DAC.  Vinnie's mods would probably narrow that gap.  But for a party loop or as background music, the unmodded iPod is fine, IMHO.

[Vinnie R.]

i understand the iMod creates a higher quality line out for the iPod.  what will you offer, or be able to do about allowing signal in.  my hope, and it is currently in the beginning phases, is to use the iPod for recording purposes.  i would like the ability to record onto the iPod with the best signal i can.  thank you.

Hi advaitamusic,

Welcome to AC!  At this time, I am only exploring modding the iPod into a high-end playback source.

Honestly, I haven't even tried using the iPod as a voice recorder.  I didn't even know that was an option!    

Regards,