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Using and Converting Audio Question

S

silentdub

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 7, 2022
20
3
Long Story Short, I have my entire audio collection burned to HDD using a lossless WMA Format. I have 41,905 files from complete CDs. I chose the lossless WMA because at the time, it was the best quality available aside from pure WAV, this was not possible for the amount of space due to HDD limitations at the time, WAV now will use too much space on the device. I believe it is just a variable WMA format but none the less, have some questions about a mass conversion to use these on what will be my newly repaired/upgraded IPOD.

I see IPOD supports 320k MP3 and also Apple Lossless Format.

I have a high quality audio system in the car and love clean sound.

What is the cleanest format to convert my WMA to something playable by the IPOD other than WAV? I don't care about size, just the cleanest.

What is the best software to use for the conversion..... free software is good but if I have to pay then it is worth it to me.

While I have a MAC Book, iPhone, iPod etc.... the WMAs are stored on my Windows Server in my house so the software would need to be Windows based.


Thank you for your time and appreciate your input!
 
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Lossless and iTunes / Music / iPod compatible, that would be alac (Apple Lossless Audio Codec).
Apple actually made alac open source, which is important for future proofing your music collection.
I converted all of my flacs to alac using foobar2000 (Windows).
I am not sure about wma input, but you could test it or send me one of your files.

edit: alac supports various metadata tags, including (unsynced) lyrics. The only disadvantage to the "standard" flac (free lossless audio codec) is, that it doesn't contain a checksum to self-validate its consistency. But that should be of little relevancy.
 
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  • Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.
I see AAC and AIFF, I guess AAC was for iTunes along with protected which protected copyright. I used the WMA since it was a variable lossless format with no copyright issues. I never actually purchased a song from iTunes due to the usage and write protection. I just burned all my CDs and they have long been in the trash. I think it is still illegal but I don't care, I still only have 1 copy for personal use.

Just didn't know if AAC or AIFF is better, obviously WAV is good but just no compression and not a good idea for a portable device.

I'll check out foobar.
 
silentdub said:
Just didn't know if AAC or AIFF is better, (...)
Click to expand...
AAC/MP3: lossy (AAC achieves better quality than MP3 at the same size/bitrate)
WAV: lossless, uncompressed, can't handle tags (mostly)
AIFF: lossless, uncompressed, can handle tags
ALAC/FLAC: lossless, compressed (~half the size of WAV/AIFF), can handle tags

My music is stored as alac but for my iPhone/iPad/iPod it gets converted to AAC 256 kbps as I definitely cannot hear a difference on mobile gear.
 
Thanks, installed foobar2000, testing some conversions now. Works well so far, quick and easy to use, no frills and low overhead.

Doesn't look like the iPod supports alas/flac so trying out the AIFF now. See how it goes. No real rush, waiting on my IPOD Parts.

I really don't know how the HDD went in the IPOD except for age, it only has about 10 - 20 hours of play on it, just been sitting.
 
silentdub said:
Doesn't look like the iPod supports alas/flac so trying out the AIFF now
Click to expand...
The iPod Classic 7G definitely supports alac. Up to 16bit/48kHz.
aiff takes ~twice the space so don't go that route.
 
In a similar boat, what I did was firstly I converted to AAC for mobile and ALAC for home. I used DBPowerAmp software that has a batch converter and good tag editor. However I found that having different file format libraries was a pain so I just maintained the ALAC library. But after Apple Music started streaming in lossless format (not on windows though, I think) I now just use that, which has been great and takes away the headache.
 
iTunes
Crunchynut said:
In a similar boat, what I did was firstly I converted to AAC for mobile and ALAC for home. I used DBPowerAmp software that has a batch converter and good tag editor. However I found that having different file format libraries was a pain so I just maintained the ALAC library. But after Apple Music started streaming in lossless format (not on windows though, I think) I now just use that, which has been great and takes away the headache.
Click to expand...
You could have just keep one single ALAC iTunes / Music library and let it automatically convert to AAC on the fly when syncing / copying to your mobile (Apple) device.
 
arw said:
iTunes

You could have just keep one single ALAC iTunes / Music library and let it automatically convert to AAC on the fly when syncing / copying to your mobile (Apple) device.
Click to expand...
Yeh but the AAC was generally needed for non Apple devices. These days more and more devices will cope with ALAC anyway.
 
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No worries, I can try both. I have multiple 4TB drives on my home server with several spares. I converted all 41,209 files over night and have a second library in AIFF format. I'll do ALAC next and check them out. First time converting them in more than 10 years.
 
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Reactions: arw
As other have said, ALAC should work perfectly on your iPod. I keep all my music in that format as it is compatible with anything I use to play it. If I download FLAC files, I convert them using XLD.
 
I'm looking at the foobar2000 configuration and don't see ALAC, only AAC and FLAC. I assume I need to install an encoder. I checked rarewares site and don't see the ALAC there.

Info on AALC please? I never converted to that format before.
 
silentdub said:
FYI: My library just so you can compare:

Lossless WMA 398GB
AIFF 738GB
Click to expand...
Like someone else mentioned above, you could use XLD. I use it to extract CD's using AIFF and it can also batch convert to other formats such as ALAC which I use for a car system.

sourceforge.net

XLD

Download XLD for free. A tool for transcoding lossless audio files. X Lossless Decoder(XLD) is a tool for Mac OS X that is able to decode/convert/play various 'lossless' audio files. The supported audio files can be split into some tracks with cue sheet when decoding.
sourceforge.net sourceforge.net
 
silentdub said:
I'm looking at the foobar2000 configuration and don't see ALAC, only AAC and FLAC. I assume I need to install an encoder. I checked rarewares site and don't see the ALAC there.

Info on AALC please? I never converted to that format before.
Click to expand...
You need at least the "qaac64.exe" in "foobar2000\encoders"
https://github.com/nu774/qaac/releases
And if I remember correctly, iTunes has to be installed or at least some files extracted (CoreAudioToolbox.dll).
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,119876.msg991942.html#msg991942
 
In the readme it says, you need Apple Application Support
qaac is a console application for MS Windows XP SP3 or later, and depends on Apple Application Support, which cannot be downloaded directly from Apple. It is bundled with Apple software such as iTunes, QuickTime, and iCloud. If you are using 64bit Windows, the most recent iTunes or iCloud installer is recommended. These installers include both 32bit and 64bit Apple Application Support, so you can run either qaac.exe or qaac64.exe. Note that is is not necessary to actually install the full Apple application. Decompression software like 7-Zip can extract the Apple installer and the AppleApplicationSupport MSI installers are easy to find and install independently.
Click to expand...
Unfortunetely iTunes64Setup_12.10.7.3.exe is the last version to include said AppleApplicationSupport.msi;
I archive my installers and PM'ed you the AppleApplicationSupport.msi (surely there must be other ways to obtain it).
 

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Oh Apple Lossless. I have that. I was looking for AALC not Apple Lossless. Thanks again, I'm not familiar at all with these formats. I'll check them out.
 
silentdub said:
Oh Apple Lossless. I have that. I was looking for AALC not Apple Lossless. Thanks again, I'm not familiar at all with these formats. I'll check them out.
Click to expand...
Just to be clear, it's ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) for Apple Lossless not AALC. Glad you found it in your Windows install which I rarely use.
 
VintageMacGS said:
Just to be clear, it's ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) for Apple Lossless not AALC. Glad you found it in your Windows install which I rarely use.
Click to expand...
Okay, so I have Foobar2000 installed, Installed the QAAC and also iTunes which was not previously installed. I do not see AALC listed in the convert window.

Do I need to reinstall Foobar2000 after having installed iTunes?
 
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