Apple lossless

[amardilo]

Hello there. I want to turn my computer into a media player and wire my computer into my amp.

Is the quality of Apple Lossless any good? Is it as good as CD audio? I want to stop using my standalone CD player (it's actually a decent unit) and have all my CDs ripped to my iTunes library and just flick through my collection.

 

[Zoolook]

Hello there. I want to turn my computer into a media player and wire my computer into my amp.

Is the quality of Apple Lossless any good? Is it as good as CD audio? I want to stop using my standalone CD player (it's actually a decent unit) and have all my CDs ripped to my iTunes library and just flick through my collection.

Well... this is a hard one to answer to be honest. In theory, Apple Lossless (MPEG4) does retain the original sound quality, but there is a pretty big price to pay which is space. This codec only reduces the file size by about 40% or maybe a little more depending on the source. Depending on the quality of your amp, speakers and your ears, it might not be worth it.

MP3, despite being an old codec, still reaches very good sound quality standards when encoding at 192kbps or higher - most people cannot tell the difference between a 192kbps recording and a CD, especially on average sound equipment. AAC and OGG are similar. IMO, Microsoft's WMA is best at low bit-rates (64kbps or lower).

Anyway - my answer may not help you, but if you have either a lot of storage space, or a small CD collection, it might be good for you, but whereas MP3 @ 192kbps might use 70MB or so per CD, Apple Lossless is going to be more like 300MB per CD making 10 albums 3GB. For me personally, that would not be worth archiving to HDD media - especially when you consider you my still want AAC or MP3 versions to go on your iPOD.

 

[amardilo]

Thanks for the info.

I currently have over 200 albums and I listen to music a lot and I like to vary what I listen to a lot as well. I tried listening to my current ripped CD's on iTunes (set at the standard AAC 192kpbs) and they didn't sound too good compared to the quality I get out of a CD playing through my CD player.

I also have a 30GB iPod but was thinking of buying a new one with the largest possible HDD. I was also planning on getting a 500GB external HDD to store my ever expanding CD collection.

 

[Rambaud]

If you have the hard drive space and budget, I would always recommend ripping to a Lossless format (I use Monkeys Audio). You can always convert to MP3, AAC etc. later - and not a problem if the original CD gets lost or damaged. I use a Squeezebox to stream into my hi-fi gear via an external DAC from my PC, which works very well. But with nearly 3Tb of disk space is not a major consideration.

I have a mixture of formats on my 80gb iPod - the degradation of Lossy ones is less noticeable in non-ideal listening environments (car, gym etc) and via cheap headphones.