Click title to read one, or click date to read all below it.
02-22-09
Yes. the new itunes format is 256kbs aac which is a lossy co ... Ckorody
02-22-09
when comparing these file types, do use something other tha ... Blindjim
02-22-09
I'm also interested in high def downloads but doesn't it mak ... Jamesw20
02-22-09
Jamesw20 - you're right to be paranoid about your hard drive ... Sfar
02-22-09
ummm, maybe you think of cd's as spinning magnetic disks, b ... Jax2
02-22-09
My hard drive became too cluttered with my itunes library so ... Unclejeff
02-22-09
amen. another moral you are missing: store your itunes lib ... Jax2
02-22-09
Jax2 - i said "cd's and spinning magnetic disks," ... Sfar
02-22-09
Sfar - sorry, my bad having misread your post. yes, either ... Jax2
02-22-09
Jax, i download chunks of the itunes to my iphone and play ... Unclejeff
02-23-09
The best backup is to share your files with your friends! Argyro
02-23-09
Sfar you said: “with drives costing $100 per terabyte righ ... Blindjim
02-23-09
For those of you who don't live in a major metro or prefer t ... Ckorody
02-23-09
Ckorody - it is only in the ads that agon does not allow hyp ... Jax2
02-23-09
Correction; a 1tb rocraid is currently just under $300 at a ... Jax2
02-23-09
Blindjim - i got this lacie drive for $99 when they had a ... Sfar
02-23-09
sakahara, it is very easy to use your cds to test the itune ... Edo_musica
02-23-09
I didn't know what itunes + was at first (thought it was ano ... Sakahara
02-23-09
I wonder if these itunes + lossy files are made from origina ... Sakahara
02-23-09
Sakahara, a great number of users have music stored on exter ... Edo_musica
02-24-09
ckorody…… big thanks. i’ve been out of the hardware loop f ... Blindjim
02-24-09
there's plenty of threads on this subject if you do a searc ... Jax2
02-25-09
I'm a mac. 10+ years of windows was torture enough. ;-) i' ... Sakahara
02-28-09
I realized one important detail about storing itunes on an e ... Sakahara
03-08-09
Found a perfect solution; two lacie 2big triple 1tb (2-disk ... Sakahara
03-12-09
Addendum: the lacie 2big triple was a great raid unit, but ... Sakahara
04-09-09
Blindjim, i'd like to point out for the sake of clarity th ... Naschbac
04-09-09
Omg naschbac... you've been captured too! this is some scar ... Ridgestreetaudio
04-10-09
yet they most certainly can sound different. it must be th ... Jax2
04-10-09
Good thought about the new math jax2 but.... to me seems th ... Ridgestreetaudio
04-10-09
The paint-by-numbers is a great illustration, robert (pun no ... Jax2
04-11-09: Naschbac
Let me ask you a question, since you're convinced that they can sound different.
Take a folder full of Word documents. ZIP it. Heck, re-ZIP it several times. Extract all the files. Do your Word documents look different? Did the formatting change? What about the letters? Did new words get inserted, or some others deleted?
No?
Lossless media compression works in the same way as lossless file compression does, excepting optimizations for seeking/scrubbing and streaming; things that aren't necessary with whole-file compression. At no point does a lossless compression algorithm discard data as irrelevant (that it can't reconstruct later during the decompression). This is unlike AAC or MP3 where temporal filters are applied and resolution discarded depending on variables like bitrate, profile, etc.
The same is true for PNG image files that is true of FLAC or ALAC audio files. No matter how times you compress or decompress a PNG file, all the original image data stays preserved accurately and faithfully. That's what makes it a lossless format.
By claiming that ALAC vs. FLAC vs. even AIFF or WAV can, or even will, sound different is to claim that the compression format isn't lossless. That is exactly the claim you're making, that ALAC and/or FLAC are losing data. This is very, very easy to test for.
- Take a raw uncompressed WAV or AIFF.
- Encode it as FLAC or ALAC (doesn't matter which, but you can try both).
- Decode it back to an uncompressed WAV or AIFF (which ever you started with).
- Perform a diff on the original compared to the compressed/decompressed file.
- You will note that there are no differences marked.
Why? Because at the binary format level of the file, everything was preserved in the process of compressing and decompressing. Which is precisely what makes it lossless.
Anyway, these tests for binary preservation are very easy to perform, and they don't require golden-ears, esoteric audio equipment, or belief in the wafting hands of some sound-spirit. A very basic computer, a WAV or AIFF file, and a program that can encode/decode FLAC and/or ALAC, and a simple binary diff program (lots of free and opensource ones) will do the trick. Any Mac or modern Linux machine will come with all the necessary tools, and any Windows PC can have the requisite software setup in a few minutes.
Cheers!
Naschbac (Threads | Answers | This Thread)
04-11-09
we are not talking about a word file. it does not have to ... Jax2
04-11-09
Timing information? you pull down the audio from a cd into ... Naschbac
04-11-09
Naschbac, what you say makes a lot of sense. as long as the ... Shadorne
04-11-09
i believe that in reality i can do so. mathematics or comp ... Jax2
04-11-09
it is probably related to software bugs. if the algorithms ... Shadorne
04-11-09
It very well could be, shadorne. i don't know...i can only ... Jax2
04-11-09
and i don't doubt you. here is a manufacturer's explanatio ... Shadorne
04-11-09
Shadorne - here's a further, long thread on head-fi that ... Jax2
04-11-09
Hey naschbac. my personal results and conclusions came from ... Ridgestreetaudio
04-11-09
Hey robert - i've done similar comparisons, but with wav fil ... Jax2
04-11-09
Hey marco. would really like to explore something different ... Ridgestreetaudio
04-12-09
Hi robert - i think there are some flac conversion software ... Jax2
04-12-09
Just wanted to jump in and thank the posters here for one of ... Sbank
04-12-09
Hey spencer - thanks for the vote of confidence. i'm sure t ... Jax2
04-13-09
Some utilities which may be of interest to mac users: xld a ... Humanmedia
04-13-09
Marco, yeah, i got to hear a friends' modwright transporter ... Sbank
04-13-09
spender - yes, it really is a damn fine digital front end ( ... Jax2
04-26-11
Sorry to dig up this old thread, but i was looking for infor ... Grandpixel
04-29-11
I have done blind testing with aac lossy at 256k and apple l ... Grege
04-29-11
Grege, i have done the same. 256 kbps with a good compressi ... Shadorne
04-29-11
Grege, shadorne - my experience has been the same. while i'm ... Sfar
05-01-11
Reading all this gives me a headache. i've been thinking abo ... Wildoats
05-01-11
Computer audio is a headache and one you need not suffer. yo ... Nglazer
05-02-11
Wildouts - you need not get a headache with computer audio. ... Grege
05-02-11
Update: i'm using xld - aiff. i recently decided to start u ... Sakahara
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