FLAC to ALAC to iTunes

[Giuanniello]

I know, iTunes su*ks but still the best player at organizing the audio library, the options I tested to play FLAC are even worse but the thought is to convert to ALAC as to use iTunes, wondering which converter to use, if you have any advise it will be very welcome as well as your thoughts about FLAC vs ALAC quality wise.

thank you

 

[casperes1996]

I know, iTunes su*ks but still the best player at organizing the audio library, the options I tested to play FLAC are even worse but the thought is to convert to ALAC as to use iTunes, wondering which converter to use, if you have any advise it will be very welcome as well as your thoughts about FLAC vs ALAC quality wise.

With respect to quality, both or lossless formats, and if they're handled properly by the software that uses them, in this case the converter would be the primary concern, they should sound identically. The data even should be identical, it's only the container format that would differ. Unless lossless compression was enabled for either, in which case it'd still be the same quality, but the data would look a bit different and required a bit more CPU power to playback (nothing for any modern hardware).

For conversion I've used a tool called XLD in the past for this, and it worked well enough for me

 

[Giuanniello]

Thank you so much!!!

Will then convert to all to ALAC as to use iTunes and if it is not satisfying I can still use some other player

Grazie

Giovanni

 

[hawkeye_a]

I've been wondering about the differences between ALAC and FLAC. Are there any, apart from being different containers?
Using XLD to convert between FLAC and ALAC, will that cause any change to the underlying audio data?

Cheers

 

[casperes1996]

I've been wondering about the differences between ALAC and FLAC. Are there any, apart from being different containers?
Using XLD to convert between FLAC and ALAC, will that cause any change to the underlying audio data?

Cheers

They are both lossless. The only real difference is that one is big endian and the other is little endian. In other words, reversed. One is essentially read from left to right, and other right to left.

 

[D.T.]

Since you have some FLAC sources (i.e., you're not all in on Apple specific media), if you don't need Apple services (ex: iTunes Match) - have you explored any of the more recent MacOS player/library options? There's quite a few of them now, with native FLAC support, and things like plugins to really customize your experience.

The two that come to mind are Clementine and Nightingale (outside of VLC which is a terrific player, just not a great media organizer). I don't recall if it's one of these or yet another one, but at least one even has a file system monitor, so if you add a song to iTunes, it automatically imports it.

 

[Giuanniello]

I am giving a try at AudioNirvana, it's ok, I am not sure I'd buy it, way weird the way it handles the music, with iTunes the advantage would only be to easier create playlists whilst on this you gotta go through the hassle of doing it manually, besides that the output quality is supposedly much better with tons of settings whilst iTunes is not, I seem to understand, oriented to audiophiles.

There is VOX which was a nice alternative until they decided that to be able to use the equalizer you have to create an account and I am sick of having accounts even with the grocery store...

Never heard of Clementine but, so far, it seems like an abandon project dating back to 2016, gonna give Nightingale a try but seems very much like the others as far as the ability to create and handle playlists

Grazie

 

[Amigaman]

You can't go wrong with XLD for converting audio formats. As far as audio players that support FLAC/ALAC, my favorites are Cog and Swinsian.

 

[majurg]

I know, iTunes su*ks but still the best player at organizing the audio library, the options I tested to play FLAC are even worse but the thought is to convert to ALAC as to use iTunes, wondering which converter to use, if you have any advise it will be very welcome as well as your thoughts about FLAC vs ALAC quality wise.

thank you

XLD will do the trick. http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

Ive used it to transcode FLAC <=> ALAC and back again, works like a charm. ffmpeg can probably do the same if CLI tools are more your thing.

 

[Shirasaki]

iOS 11.3.1 finally adds support to 96kHz music to A9 devices.

 

[majurg]

iOS 11.3.1 finally adds support to 96kHz music to A9 devices.

Wow finally

 

[J.Gallardo]

I believe VLC can also convert files...
But at sound files, XLD is the champion: it reads & converts ALL kind of sound formats I know, even HI-RES files that VLC doesn't understand.
(Plus: it's free)