will iTunes EVER suppoert FLAC...??

[d.f]

i'm about to rip all my 2000+ cd's to be played back from HD through a high end DAC.

all the HiFi forums swear by the FLAC format. they claim that WAV - FLAC then back to WAV creates two 100% identical files. this would suggest that FLAC is truly 'lossless'. great. but iTunes doesn't support it.

do you think FLAC is only a matter of time.... .. or is there a fundamental reason why iTunes will never go FLAC...(royalties, bugs, apple's best interest in ALAC.., etc)...?

[PlaceofDis]

no FLAC won't be supported anytime soon.
why? because its not mainstream enough. yeah the High Fidelity Audio Guru's love it, but for the everyday joe it'll never be.

Apple Lossless is probably the best Lossless option there is for iTunes.

unless there is a plug-in out there that i'm unaware of, but still you wouldn't be able to play it on an iPod in that format.

[timswim78]

i'm about to rip all my 2000+ cd's to be played back from HD through a high end DAC.

all the HiFi forums swear by the FLAC format. they claim that WAV - FLAC then back to WAV creates two 100% identical files. this would suggest that FLAC is truly 'lossless'. great. but iTunes doesn't support it.

do you think FLAC is only a matter of time.... .. or is there a fundamental reason why iTunes will never go FLAC...(royalties, bugs, apple's best interest in ALAC.., etc)...?

It looks like you can use a plugin to get FLAC running with iTunes:
http://www.itunesregistry.com/articles/flac/

I don't use iTunes, so I cannot vouch for this informaiton.