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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
usarmyvet91
83 posts
 
WAV and AIFF are uncompressed. Yes wav is pc based and aiff is mac based both are perfect pitch. I would go with aiff because its mac based, their for the art work is easy to get.
jax2
3,031 posts
 
I don't think it was the use of the adjective, "much," but the use of the word "not". Your post implied the compression was not significant. I'd suggest cutting the file size by almost half IS significant compression, especially given that you lose nothing in the process. Overall, I think we're on the same page though :-)

Dtc - PopPop is a favorite album of mine, but certainly not a necessary component of the test. You could try it with any well recorded cut (preferably one with good soundstaging and detail). PopPop is certainly a great choice though.
usarmyvet91
83 posts
 
This debate about which encoder is better wav or apple lossless could go on forever. The best thing to do is to import your cd in both wav and apple lossess and listen for yourself. I just prefer wav encoder for my cd transfers, to me i can sometimes here an audible difference. Wav and apple lossless are both hi quality encoders.
brianmgrarcom
1,317 posts
 
That means wav is copying 99.99% of the information on the cd disk and apple lossless doesn't because the file size is less than half of wav. So apple lossless is not really lossless because it is cmpressed.
Armyvet, Dtc explained what I was getting at very well, much better than I. Your comments above are the "issue" I was getting at as incorrect.

First, why is .wav only copying 99.99% and not a full 100% (To me this is analog thinking.)

Second, as Dtc stated so well, the Apple Lossless file size may be smaller but it has no less information.

Brian
usarmyvet91
83 posts
 
Brianmgrarcom, I will say this both wav and apple lossless are the two best way to import your cd collection. By the way 99.99% equals 100%
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