Apple Lossless Encoder - Audiophile Quality?

Sammie: AAC is a lossy compression format. If you rip to this format (or a similar one, like MP3) you are not creating a bit-perfect copy of the data on the original CD. If you want to create a digital music file that is guaranteed to sound the same as your CD, you are going to need to create a file with a lossless format.

Lossless compression is the way to go. An Apple-specific format is probably a mistake unless you are certain you will only use Apple hardware/software from now until the end of time. However, you can always convert from one lossless format to another without harming the data.

There is no reason to go with an uncompressed lossless format like AIFF or WAV, and anybody who says these formats somehow sound better than losslessly compressed audio is just plain ignorant (sorry, but there is no other way to say it...its kind of like saying three is not same numeric value as 3).

The only reason to go with any of the lossless compressed formats is hard disk space considerations. With the cost of large hard drives ever plummeting is that really a compelling reason to go that route?

Disk is cheap. Why compress 50%? Many of my customers have told me that AL and even FLAC changes the sound. Besides, you have a "true master" if it .wav and you can convert to anything you want later.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Wdrazek- I haven't backed up yet. Procrastinating as usual. My drive is less than two months old so that's probably driving my complacency. I have to re-format my old drive to back up the files- hence the laziness...

Scrith- thanks for taking that. I couldn't have worded it as well. I'm not sure I agree that you will be tied to Apple hardware/software until the end of time if you go Apple lossless. I run itunes in xp to rip and sonos reads the files. Slim Devices and others also support Apple lossless.

Yes, you have to beware of proprietary formats, but Apple's are becoming so dominant mfr's will be making compatible gear for a long, long time if they want to stay in business. The added perk that you CAN play it in itunes and sync to your ipod and easily share with all the other Apple users out there is not a small deal...

Programmers say quite definitively that AL is the EXACT same file when uncompressed as the "true master". If it sounds different to some, it is either in their head or in the way the gear is decoding the file.

And disk space still isn't cheap enough for me!