WAV or Apple Lossless Encoder?

Oh and one more point: there are ZERO differences between any lossless formats in terms of sound quality. By no differences, I mean none whatsoever. You do not need to waste your time testing various lossless formats against each other. They are called lossless because NO INFORMATION IS MISSING meaning telling the difference is an impossibility.

To anyone who thinks they can tell the difference between lossless formats and wants to make a wager out of it, please let me know - I will even offer odds. You can even pick the recording and the equipment.

If there are no differences between compressed lossless like Apple lossless, and noncompressed formats like WAV or AIFF, then why do the different formats exist(other than the PC/Mac dichotomy)? Is it strictly a file size issue to save space, or is the compression also affecting sound quality somehow? Most posts I read say that the uncompressed files sound better, although there is debate as to the degree. Given that disc space is quite inexpensive now, I do not know why you would bother using any compression if there is even a possibility that compression affects sound quality. If you are only compressing and not removing data, I would think that they should all sound the same. However, so many people report differences, you have to wonder what is going on. I am interested to see the comments of people on this.

I use the Wadia 170i and was personally told by the head sales engineer at Wadia to use AIFF. My experience has been completely positive. The only time I hear a difference is when I change out the digital cables. In fact, when I use my "better" digital cable on the 170i, it sounds better than a lesser cable coming from my regular CD transport (Stealth Varig vs Audioquest). In addition, on some recordings, I prefer the 170i over the transport regardless of cables (not sure why it sounds better as it should not). This product is the real deal and not a hoax. The best $379 I have spent in years. How can you beat convenience without sonic compromise! My DAC is a Camelot Uther V2 Mk 4. Transport is a Sony DVP-S7700.

Hi Mark,

To answer your questions about why different yet equal file types exist: the world of IT is notoriously poor at deciding on a standard format and everyone wants it to be their own. Compression that occurs to a file such as WAV -> Flac could only have noticeable playback differences if you're streaming from a early 1990's computer with about 16 megs of RAM. People report differences for one psychosomatic reason or another, but those who do are rarely, if ever, conducting an actual scientific (ABX) test. This is the reason why most audiophiles don't use v2 or v0 even though they would not be able to differentiate it from lossless. Storage is cheap, and if you have money to burn, then by all means use FLAC, but the economy for those trained in engineering is not exactly doing well right now so I am spending those few hundred dollars on parts upgrades instead ;-)

For those who don't believe me and think they can tell the difference between two lossless formats, test it for yourself to see that they're identical if that is what will give you peace of mind. Then test a v0 MP3 and then a v2 while you're at it to realize how good audio engineering has gotten in the past few years. If you test it, however, make sure the volume is equalized and that you're not using replay gain.

If those of you who think that Apple lossless and wav files sound different I would suggest the following - rip the wav file with one ripper and the Apple lossless with iTunes. Then convert the Apple lossless to wav and compare the files bit for bit - EAC and foobar both have facilities for doing this. If you use EAC for the wav file you need to account for the disk offset that EAC uses. When I have tried this I find that the files are bit for bit identical. Note - EAC wav files may be different if they are ripped from a damaged disk, but from a clean disk the 2 processes will produce the same bits.

I believe it is possible to still hear differences from different formats but it will be because of some other issue in the playback chain, not the bits in the file. For example, a wav file played with foobar and an Apple lossless file played with iTunes may differ based on how the 2 players deal with the audio subsystem - for example using ASIO to bypass KMixer with foobar but going through KMixer with iTunes. With the Wadia those differences should not be as important.

It is pretty easy to convert from one lossless format to another, so once you have ripped your library you should be able to change to other formats as you wish. Tagging is the main issue then, but that can be handled for a few hundred CDs. Many think EAC is the best ripper, although it can be slower than others. I found that EAC and iTunes produced the same files for the CDs I compared, but they were in pretty good shape.

I would suggest doing lots of experiments with a few CDs you know really well. Figure out what works best for you then do the rest of the CDs. Once you have a good rip in any lossless format you should never have to rip again.