Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source

[Evangelion]

Because it's Apple. When have you ever known them to use standard... well, standards?

Since when was FLAC "standard"? And if we look at various standards Apple uses:

AAC
.H264
USB
IEEE 802.11
Bluetooth
caldav
webdav
POSIX
X11
IEEE 1394
etc. etc. etc.

That's just for starters. Why do you think that Apple is hell-bent on not following standards? They follow standards where it makes sense to do so.

I still don't understand this I'm afraid. How can Android be ahead of iOS in smartphone OS, but iOS is 54% *ahead* of Android... In what comparison?

Because Android only runs on smartphones and handful of tablets that no-one wants, while iOS runs on smartphones, iPod touches and iPads. And it was only relatively recently when Android overtook iOS in smartphone-sales, installed-based is totally different thing altogether.

 

[Lycanthrope]

This is fabulous news for me as I have my 1100 CD's all ripped to ALAC. Will give more options in the long-term for delivering them to my hifi.

Here's hoping that Apple also see the might and remove the 44,1/16bit hobble they've put on AirPlay. They're severely limiting their penetration into higher-end audio with this.

 

[toxic]

I'd like to point out that running lossless on an iPod is a largely useless thing to do. you're not going to hear a difference, or at least the difference is marginal compared to how muddy the sound is to begin with. I tried awhile ago on an iPod Nano and Sennheiser HD555's (no amp). dunno about iPhones.

 

[Lycanthrope]

I'd like to point out that running lossless on an iPod is a largely useless thing to do. you're not going to hear a difference, or at least the difference is marginal compared to how muddy the sound is to begin with. I tried awhile ago on an iPod Nano and Sennheiser HD555's (no amp). dunno about iPhones.

Don't agree, I find it way better. Particularly noticeable on cymbals I find. A straight AB listening doesn't reveal much of course, try listening over a longer period of time. I hear it on all headphones and outputs (mostly listening in my car with my Classic USB docked), it has a high-end Dynaudio system.

I do fully agree though that the DAC in the iPhones and iPods is not very good. This is starkly illustrated when I dock with my Apple Hi-Fi, the sound is abysmal - stream it optical in the Apple Hi-Fi from Airplay and it's another world!

 

[SilianRail]

This may be a dumb question but what is the difference between ALAC and DTS-HD Master audio which is found on Blu Rays?

 

[Glideslope]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Good news for widespread support, but one wonders why Apple didn't just go with FLAC in the first place.

Because Steve was alive.

 

[tkermit]

I am pretty sure music companies do not want their tracks available in lossless quality without DRM.

They're making a big mistake selling their music on CDs then.

 

[Dreamail]

They're making a big mistake selling their music on CDs then.

That is what they think, yes. The CD is dead and music companies blame ruthless copying for it.

It's been a while, but before iTunes people just copied CDs onto CD-Rs. Most my friends did. Many people stopped buying CDs, you would just share your own CD-Rs.
Countries were even asked to increased taxes on blank CD-Rs and the industry claimed they lost billions of sales due to CD copying or counterfeit CDs.
Remember one of the early iMac sales slogans: "Rip, Mix, Burn"? Did not go down that well with the RIAA...

I'm sure the music industry would love to stop selling CDs. Yet not everyone is on the iTunes/digital download bandwagon yet so it'll be a bit longer still...

 

[Evangelion]

That is what they think, yes. The CD is dead and music companies blame ruthless copying for it.

Point is that music on CD's in uncompressed, lossless audio in unprotected format. And they might be moving to all online-sales NOW, but it wasn't long when they were still totally gung-ho about CD's.

 

[Dreamail]

Point is that music on CD's in uncompressed, lossless audio in unprotected format. And they might be moving to all online-sales NOW, but it wasn't long when they were still totally gung-ho about CD's.

I understand the point.

Yet I also think the music industry is keen not to repeat their 'CD mistake', i.e. have high-quality audio available without DRM or any other form of control.


Sounds like a conspiracy theory, agreed. Yet the utter lack of downloadable 16bit (or even 24bit) lossless music from the big music companies surely must have a reason. Technical difficulties can no longer be to blame.
My guess is that they have no intentions to release music in lossless high quality as they do not want to repeat their 'CD mistake'.

And maybe that is why Apple decided to make ALAC open source. It will never be needed as a walled (controlled) audio format to offer lossless music for purchase.

 

[kavika411]

Question (from a tech novice, so please don't flame): Is this lossless announcement in some way tied to iCloud/iTunes Match? The timing overlaps. I guess what I'm getting at is whether this helps, hurts, or has no effect on those of us who have ripped our CDs with Apple lossless all these years as that relates to iTunes Match/iCloud. Or is it simply to make more non-Apple devices play friendly with those tracks.

Appreciate anyone's thoughts.

 

[cgc]

And apple does not support the more popular FLAC format, or any of the other open source formats (OGG?). Cowon (iAudio) for example supports a lot of the formats. Their J3 and S9 mp3 players completely trounce any iPod ever released.

I dont see why apple cant offer support for FLAC when the others can if they so chose to.

They "trounce" the iPod/iPhone because they support a different audio format? That's convenient and good to have but the iPod consistently wins "ease-of-use" contests/awards which to me is the more critical feature.

 

[Evangelion]

I understand the point.

Yet I also think the music industry is keen not to repeat their 'CD mistake', i.e. have high-quality audio available without DRM or any other form of control.

Since all music is moving online, I fail to see their point in lacing higher-quality version of the files with DRM. If anything, things have been moving to the exact opposite direction. iTunes-contact was before 128kbit/sec and with DRM, now it's 256kbit/sec without DRM.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory, agreed. Yet the utter lack of downloadable 16bit (or even 24bit) lossless music from the big music companies surely must have a reason. Technical difficulties can no longer be to blame.

I think the main reason is that such files require a lot more bandwidth and storage. Lossy encodes are about 10-20% the size of originals, while lossless encodes are about 50%. And probably because consumers have been satisfied with lossy encodes, so there's no real incentive to move to lossless.

And maybe that is why Apple decided to make ALAC open source. It will never be needed as a walled (controlled) audio format to offer lossless music for purchase.

Is AAC walled? It's a 100% standardized codec, they have no control over it in any case. Even less so, when they moved to DRM-free content in iTunes.

 

[AdrianK]

Question (from a tech novice, so please don't flame): Is this lossless announcement in some way tied to iCloud/iTunes Match? The timing overlaps. I guess what I'm getting at is whether this helps, hurts, or has no effect on those of us who have ripped our CDs with Apple lossless all these years as that relates to iTunes Match/iCloud. Or is it simply to make more non-Apple devices play friendly with those tracks.

Appreciate anyone's thoughts.

Since there have been no announcements regarding iTunes utilising ALAC for match and because closed-source wouldn't have prevented them from doing so, it's safe to assume that they are unrelated.

 

[em500]

This is under double blinded listening tests (ABX) meaning they could not hear the difference between the 2 files. Nothing to do with what one has come to expect.

Still waiting for those source references ...

Here's a test done in Germany over 10 years ago (when mp3 encoders were likely worse than now):

http://www.audiobanter.com/archive/index.php/t-25222.html

Read the whole thing. The audiophiles and professionals tested could easily distinguish 128kbps mp3 from originals, but had a very difficult time with 256kbps.


Of course, everybody can also just test themselves by heading to
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=ABX
and use their own tracks/equipment.

The used equipment was quite high end (B&W Nautilus 803 speakers, Sennheiser Orpheus headphones, isolated rooms, etc).

 

[Rickenbacker]

Since when was FLAC "standard"?

Enough of a standard that the European Broadcasting Union uses it to send audio around:

http://www.ebu.ch/en/radio/ops_rdo/faq/index.php

 

[Evangelion]

Enough of a standard that the European Broadcasting Union uses it to send audio around:

http://www.ebu.ch/en/radio/ops_rdo/faq/index.php

I'm well aware of that. Just because someone uses it, stil does not make it a "standard".

 

[TiggsPanther]

Honestly? Yes, I can.
In a noisy room? Yes, I can.
With Apple Earphones? Most of the time, no, I can't.
That's the problem; people can't hear the difference between MP3 and lossless audio because their equipment is crappy. They sound equally bad, but if you're a careful listener, then you can tell slight differences.

This is why, personally, I rip to ALAC but have it convert files to AAC when syncing to my iPod.

On my Mac, where space is less of an issue and it is connected to a half-decent pair of speakers, I defintiely favour lossless audio. I find it's a subtle but noticeable difference. (Sort of like the difference between a bright day and a sunny day.)

On my iPod, however, through a pair of relatively inexpensive headphones and with the sounds of traffic, etc surrounding me, I'm more concerned about storage capacity than quality.

I like that iTunes allows me to rip to ALAC for decent home listnening, and can then sync to a lower quality format for when I'm out and about.
(Anbd that I can change the sync settings back to favouring quality of capacity if I want to)

And I'm hoping that more players will include ALAC as a playback option now, so I can rip once and play more places.

 

[samcraig]

This is good news. But I think most consumers (not audiophiles) probably don't care much. MP3 is pretty ubiquitous and is dominant in the marketplace.

And before people start foaming at the mouth saying that lossy formats are bad and it's better to use lossless - of course it is.

But with Amazon, Apple, Cable companies and more all stating that they deliver streaming HD content - customers have been duped into thinking they're getting just as good quality as Blu-Ray (for example).

Anyone who knows anything about video knows that there's a BIG difference between resolution and bitrate. Many things can be called 720 or 1080 - but the bitrate sacrificed definitely does NOT make it HD.

But most consumers don't seem to care. I think most won't care (or do care) about lossless formats. Not only is the MP3 "standard" - it's also a small file size and people like to have more bang for their buck.

Don't confuse my opinion of the marketplace with my personal opinion. I, again, think this is great. Especially for the pro/audiophile market.

 

[SactoGuy18]

FLAC is the preferred choice for a lot of independent artists - Bandcamp offers it on all their downloads.

But the big problem with FLAC is that unless you're willing to install a third-party program to convert FLAC-encoded files to another format (MP3 or AAC), FLAC is pretty much useless unless you own the very small number of portable music players that support this format natively. And given the preferences of most computer users, they don't WANT to install and use a third-party program to convert FLAC files to a format usable on an iPod, iPad or iPhone.

As such, now that ALAC is officially Open Source, that means right there all those hundreds of millions of newer iPods, all iPhone models and all iPad models can use this lossless format natively, since iTunes can use manage these files.

 

[John.B]

You open sores guys really don't get it. Apple didn't go to the trouble of implementing ALAC in iTunes for the hell of it. They did it because of technical and licensing deficiencies with FLAC. FLAC was never designed from a power management perspective, which makes it less than ideal for small, battery-powered iPods, etc.

I really think some of you are vastly overestimating the real-world demand for FLAC, nobody but the Linux faithful and a few audiophiles even care about it... Maybe 0.0001% of the population.

What Apple has done is to say that other applications can leverage ALAC the same way they might've implemented FLAC in the past. It's actually the opposite of implementing FLAC, they are sticking with their guns and making it easier to use lossless ALAC-encoded music outside of the iTunes/iDevices architecture.

The next version of iTunes is not going to magically get FLAC support (or OGG, LOL!), you'll be just as likely to take your automatic transmission car for an oil change and expect the dealer to convert it over to a stick shift.

BTW, anyone who thinks iTunes is ever going to sync to Android devices might want to check how that went for Jon Rubenstein and Palm. (I hear he's available...) 😛

And apple does not support the more popular FLAC format, or any of the other open source formats (OGG?). Cowon (iAudio) for example supports a lot of the formats. Their J3 and S9 mp3 players completely trounce any iPod ever released.
I dont see why apple cant offer support for FLAC when the others can if they so chose to.

I dont know why anyone would convert to ALAC when (currently) only iTunes has ALAC support.

What SHOULD happen is apple adopts FLAC.

While this is good news I still wish my iPod supported FLAC, Ogg and other open formats too.

It's a fact that sooner or later Android devices will outnumber IOS devices. This could be the start of Apple getting ready to allow Android access to iTunes.

 

[Catch]

Anybody else wish that songs purchased off iTunes could be bought in a non-lossy codec?

Yes totally. I refuse to use any online store that sells music at less than CD quality. Using HDTracks for nice 24bit music more and more 🙂

C

 

[ScottishDuck]

Just to point out to people that listening to lossless files is idiotic. Use lossless for storage, mp3 v0 for listening.

This is good news for music collectors, saves a little space on the hard drive compared to FLAC 🙂

 

[SilianRail]

You open sores guys really don't get it. Apple didn't go to the trouble of implementing ALAC in iTunes for the hell of it. They did it because of technical and licensing deficiencies with FLAC. FLAC was never designed from a power management perspective, which makes it less than ideal for small, battery-powered iPods, etc.

I really think some of you are vastly overestimating the real-world demand for FLAC, nobody but the Linux faithful and a few audiophiles even care about it... Maybe 0.0001% of the population.

What Apple has done is to say that other applications can leverage ALAC the same way they might've implemented FLAC in the past. It's actually the opposite of implementing FLAC, they are sticking with their guns and making it easier to use lossless ALAC-encoded music outside of the iTunes/iDevices architecture.

The next version of iTunes is not going to magically get FLAC support (or OGG, LOL!), you'll be just as likely to take your automatic transmission car for an oil change and expect the dealer to convert it over to a stick shift.

BTW, anyone who thinks iTunes is ever going to sync to Android devices might want to check how that went for Jon Rubenstein and Palm. (I hear he's available...) 😛

Great story, but completely wrong. FLAC is much simpler to decode.

 

[bpaluzzi]

Great story, but completely wrong. FLAC is much simpler to decode.

Any citation for that, since every other person on this thread has said exactly the opposite?