Apple Lossless Encoder - Audiophile Quality?

Rip it both ways and see what you hear. I can't tell the difference myself, and haven't talked to anyone who has been able to, plus it will save you about 30% hard drive space.

The only difference with using a Mac based system is it won't crash and you won't loose everything one day :)

I've been using Apple lossless for some time now and am very satisfied with it. It does do bit for bit reconstruction. This seems to be confirmed by my DAC--when it receives tracks that are from HDCD CDs, the indicator lights up, which to me is pretty strong evidence.

I use Applelossless - it works as far as I can tell.

FWIW, at a seminar at The Home Entertainment Show in NY last year, I believe John Atkinson, Stereophile's editor, said Apple lossless is the way to go.

It's the standard if you are using a Macintosh. Numerous threads will confirm that it can be converted back to WAV or AIFF with exactly the same number of bits.

As for why not use AIFF. AIFF and WAV are old standards. They were never designed to work with metadata - what is called tagging - meaning all the information that iTunes will automatically go get for you everytime you rip a CD.

Apple Lossless handles this information perfectly affording exactly the kind of flexibility that you are looking for. WAV and AIFF do not. Again a million threads on the subject.