AAC or AppleLossless

I do plan to store all the music I import to a 500GB hardrive, and then pump it out through USB Waveterminal 24, and in the future, maybe a DAC. It sounds like the Apple lossless is not all its cracked up to be? There was an article a few weeks back on AudioRevolution.com about using a Music Server (Apple/iTunes) and the author suggested using AAC. When you use AAC you can adjust the khz and sampling rate. When I have some time I am going to try to import the same disc in both formats and see how it sounds piped through my stereo. That may be the only way to know for sure.

For serious listening Apple Lossless ONLY!

Also see J. Atkinson in Stereophile on that matter.

Aida_w, in my opinion, the iPod does not lend itself well as a reference source suitable for serious listening. It works great as a background/party music jukebox. For this purpose MP3 works just fine.

Tvad, the post is about using a computer as a music server, nobody has mentioned anything about using an iPod.

Pardales, the only advantage of the AAC format is that it can compress down to smaller files sizes. Compared to non-compressed or Apple Loseless there is a penalty in sound quality. It's a value judgement whether that trade-off is acceptable, but if you're using a 500Gb HD where you can store approximately 700 (non-compressed) to 1,400 (Apple Loseless) CDs. Is your music collection so large that it cannot fit on one or two 500Gb drives?

Not at all. My entire collection will easily fit on this 500Gb drive with no problem. So, I am not asking about this because of space issues. I am really only interested in the best quality. Apple Lossless it sounds like?