Audiophile's Audio Format Showdown

[nateo200]

Uncompressed 14 channel 32bit/float 96Khz PCM. wut

If you have an iPod or iPhone then AIFF is the best way to go as I have never been able to tell the difference between it and a FLAC file and iTunes seems to work fine around AIFF files, even so far as to having a a conversion tool in iTunes (iTunes > Preferences > Import Settings > AIFF encoder).

Totally agreed. Can you batch convert FLAC to AIFF? I have been using Audacity and exporting it one by one...

 

[Macjames]

Uncompressed 14 channel 32bit/float 96Khz PCM. wut




Totally agreed. Can you batch convert FLAC to AIFF? I have been using Audacity and exporting it one by one...

Yep, I use a program called XLD. With an SSD drive it takes seconds

 

[androiphone]

If you have an iPod or iPhone then AIFF is the best way to go as I have never been able to tell the difference between it and a FLAC file and iTunes seems to work fine around AIFF files, even so far as to having a a conversion tool in iTunes (iTunes > Preferences > Import Settings > AIFF encoder).

why AIFF? you wil be able to fit more music on the iPod using ALAC, and ALAC, unlike AIFF, has full metadata support so makes backing up your music easy peasy.

 

[nateo200]

One thing that probably has been mentioned, but I will say it again, is how the iPhone (and other devices) only support Apple's proprietary format but I mean if a device was known as "the ultimate audio device" I think it damn well should support my Uncompressed 14 channel 32bit/float 96Khz PCM songs (Kidding of course, I would need two HDMI cables just for the audio to get to a high end AV Decoder in one pice ).

I mean people hook there iPod's and iPhones to all sorts of things, and I just think if your going to be connecting your phone to a serious audio set up, you better have some solid codec's behind it....I've heard crap audio far too long to settle for heavy compression. I'm not so much an audiophile, more of a person who wants the highest quality of everything no compromise, and then a lossless/compressed version that can be put anywhere.

I can not stand people who "don't care about the quality" when it comes to a movie/song/whatever they REALLY like. If I could have any of my favorite movies in 4k uncompressed with uncompressed DolbyTrueHD I would probably start hunting for used 4k projectors and more hard drives . You can always shave off...but you can't add quality that isn't there...Better safe than sorry when it comes to compression.

 

[tkermit]

One thing that probably has been mentioned, but I will say it again, is how the iPhone (and other devices) only support Apple's proprietary format but I mean if a device was known as "the ultimate audio device" I think it damn well should support my Uncompressed 14 channel 32bit/float 96Khz PCM songs

How about an open and royalty-free codec licensed under the 'Apache License 2.0' that supports lossless compression of LPCM with up to 32bits, any arbitrary integer sample rate from 1 to 384,000 Hz and up to 8 channels? Interested?

 

[AdrianK]

I mean people hook there iPod's and iPhones to all sorts of things, and I just think if your going to be connecting your phone to a serious audio set up, you better have some solid codec's behind it....

Or a decent DAC...
Or digital out...

iPhone already support 2 channels of lossless 24/48.

 

[Macjames]

why AIFF? you wil be able to fit more music on the iPod using ALAC, and ALAC, unlike AIFF, has full metadata support so makes backing up your music easy peasy.

I've noticed a little (and I mean a little) better sound in AIFF that cannot be found on ALAC, so I just went for it.

 

[rhett7660]

ALAC for me because it

• Can be played on my iOS devices
• Can be restored to original WAV files bit for bit
• Can easily be converted to future formats without any loss
• Is the only lossless format supported by iTunes which is where I store my entire music collection
  

Doesn't AIFF support this? That is what I have been using with no issues. I have a lot in ALAC though to. But have switched over to AIFF.

I only use iTunes. I am also keeping a FLAC library and an ALAC/AIFF library for when I loose something or want to convert it to another format I just snag the FLAC format and do what I see fit with it. However I am running out of disk space and I am looking for a large disk storage system with redundancy etc.

 

[Uofmtiger]

As a wanna-be audiophile, I'm excited and pleased that this thread exists. With that said, I do have questions for the brain trust:

1) Will there be an audible difference between AAC and ALAC/FLAC if I'm only playing on my 4th gen iPod Touch with headphones, and occasionally via Airplay to my AppleTV?

2) We're running Windows XP on a Dell Dimension pc. What is the best free program with which to convert files downloaded in FLAC from say HDtracks, Linn Records, iTrax, etc? Because those services very obviously exclude ALAC support, but I want to give their music a try.

3) Is there an iOS app that plays FLAC files AND which can Airplay?

1. Depends on bitrate and your hearing. However, I would use lossless for archiving just in case you want to play it on a better system later.

2. Foobar will convert FLAC to ALAC. I have never tested it with HDTracks, but I would be surprised if it could not handle Hirez.

3. There is a Flac Player for iOS. Never tried it because of the 9.99 price tag and the fact that I batch converted all my FLAC files to ALAC, but they claim that it supports airplay (see link).

 

[visim91]

ALAC

Used to have all FLAC; decided to convert; itunes compatible; s'pretty awesome.

 

[firestarter]

I've noticed a little (and I mean a little) better sound in AIFF that cannot be found on ALAC, so I just went for it.

Oh dear.

 

[anothrone]

gratuities

Thank you, in particular to treestar and Prodo, for waging war on this subject. "Quality" is all too subjective and your knowledge on this subject is invaluable. I very much appreciate your contributions. This is one of the most informative threads online for audio transcoding.

 

[Prodo123]

A freaking huge leap?.............. What a load of rubbish.

I was stating the difference between lossless and AAC.

Thank you, in particular to treestar and Prodo, for waging war on this subject. "Quality" is all too subjective and your knowledge on this subject is invaluable. I very much appreciate your contributions. This is one of the most informative threads online for audio transcoding.

I have since come to the same conclusion that people were telling me here, that AIFF is no different than ALAC. And have reencoded my library back to ALAC, for storage's sake.
Sorry!

And although my concerns for the buffer were legitimate, the buffer of my computer is effectively the 8GB RAM, so I will admit that I was completely spewing nonsense when I was ranting about how AIFF was better than ALAC.

Although, I must say, I can still hear clear differences between lossless and lossy, easily through pitch distinction in chords.

And MacRumors did an article on how ALAC is now an open source codec! I therefore see no need to ever use FLAC again, personally; can anyone correct me on this?

And an update note on the 24bit/96kHz topic: Only transcode to what your DAC can handle! If you think you're doing good by ripping your CDs to 24bit 192kHz, I seriously doubt that your DAC can handle that bitrate. As a result your audio quality will end up suffering from too MUCH information. For example, the Fiio E10's transcode rate is 24/96. Anything above that will be downsampled to 24/96. By putting a 24/192 file through such a DAC will waste storage space and may introduce downsampling errors.

One thing's for sure: 16 bit and 44.1kHz is a very universally acceptable recording.

(Sorry for reviving a nearly year-old thread)