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WAV or Apple Lossless Encoder?

We plan on purchasing a Wadia 170i Transport to use with our Museatex Bidat. As we have several hundred CD's that we want to transfer, we want to begin the process of downloading them into our itunes library. I was surprised when I read the Wadia owners manual that it appears to recommend using the WAV encoder and does also mention mention Apple Lossless as an alternative. We use a PC rather than a MAC (sorry) and I know that WAV was originally developed for the PC, but from every thing that I've read, Lossless is the superior solution. Anyone compare these two and notice a difference? I only want to do this once.
conedison8

Showing 1 response by ridgestreetaudio

ridgestreetaudio
221 posts
 
Hi Conedison.
...but from every thing that I've read, Lossless is the superior solution.
Apple Lossless is a good solution if file size is the priority - Lossless files are quite a bit smaller. If having the best possible sounding files is priority then WAV is the best way to go but the files are larger.

For what it's worth I use a Mac Mini and I compared Apple's version of WAV - AIFF - to Apple Lossless. To my ears the sound quality difference wasn't subtle. Apple Lossless sounded less immediate, less open and a bit truncated.

Definitely appreciate you wanting to do this only once. I might suggest trying this for yourself: One CD (or even one song off of one of your CDs) ripped to Apple Lossless and then the same CD or song ripped to WAV. Compare for yourself. That's really the only way you'll know for sure in context of your listening values and system.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD
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