Lossless conversion format help

You'll probably get a better response on the Digital forum.

06-24-09: Daedalus_audio
I found Apple lossless to be 'lossy' , the sound is very inferior to WAV or AIFF.

Do you have a preference between WAV and AIFF?

I also understand that lossless compression should produce files identical to the originals, but somehow, when I play music from my MacBook that I ripped with ALC, it's sort of irritating, where the music I've ripped as AIFF or WAV affects me in a more comfortable way.

Also, when I've transferred ALC files to my iPod Touch, the music sounds fine coming from the iPod Touch. Go figure.

Maybe a higher amount of jitter results from expanding a compressed file from a moving disk? The iPod Touch has no moving parts, and as I said, it sounds/feels just fine.

I'd sure like to figure this out, because if I go to WAV, I'll be using up at least twice the space for the same music. OTOH, what's the point of storing the music efficiently if playing it gets on my nerves? I guess I could always just sync up an 18-album playlist to the iPod Touch and play the music from there.

Also, maybe one of these would improve things.

06-25-09: Magfan
Check your signal chain. If there are major differences between the 'lossless' formats, maybe there is another player here. ??

Good point. I plug my iPod Touch (playing ALC files) directly into my integrated amp with a Monster stereo mini-to-dual-RCA adapter. To plug my computer into the amp, I have to add a 15' stereo mini headphone extension cord. It's a Sony w/OFC copper, but still, it's a 15' longer signal chain with a lower quality wire than I use anywhere else in my systems. I'll move my computer to where I can directly plug in with the Monster adapter and see what I get.