KeithL;166660 Wrote: > Thanks for the replies. I thought aiff was one of the lossless formats. > Keith
Yes, it is: lossless and uncompressed. And yes, iTunes and Aiff are an excellent solution for ripping/storing if you are using a Squeezebox, iTunes and a Mac (and, indeed, an iPod), provided that you are happy with a format that gobbles hard disc space. (I assume, since you are talking about AIFF rather than WAV, that you are running a Mac). You get undegraded sound quality with maximum flexibility and user friendliness. You would also get the sound quality from any of WAV, FLAC or Apple Lossless (ALAC) files, but these formats all have disadvantages for Squeezebox users running iTunes on Macs, especially if they also use an iPod. A summary: ALAC: 1. Squeezeboxes don't play ALAC, so SlimServer has to transcode it into FLAC or AIFF or WAV as it's playing in order to make sense of it for the Squeezebox. This puts a load on the processing/streaming chain that is not strictly necessary and which some (myself included) think results in lacunae - drop-outs - in the signal over a wireless network. 2. you can't use fast forward or reverse if you are using ALAC. You can using AIFF. 3. It is very much an Apple format, with consequent implications for universal use. Many devices/players including PCs, won't handle it at all (although the same is true to some extent of Aiff). FLAC is a good format for PC users (provided they don't iPod), but it's a non-starter if you want to use iTunes and a Mac because iTunes doesn't recognise it. Neither does an iPod. WAV files don't carry tags and will probably end up in an amorphous heap in iTunes, labelled "no album, no artist" - and no use! I've got a bag of them somewhere... The only disadvantage that I can see of Aiff is that one CD takes about 700Mb, so one would be talking terabytes for a big collection. Still, storage is cheap, and in my view, iTunes and Aiff give the best combination of ease of use, flexibility and sound quality. There are other programmes you can use to rip onto a Mac, but I'm not sure there's any advantage in them except for damaged or otherwise difficult discs. All the ones I've looked at are just ripping programmes. You then have to sort out tags as a separate operation, from what I've seen. That seems a total pain, and I've seen no convincing evidence that they give any better sound quality, or more accurate, or better corrected, copying from CD than does iTunes. (I'd like to, if anyone has some). The only disadvantage I can see to iTunes - leaving aside debatable claims for other programmes of sonic superiority all else being equal - is that it can handle only a maximum of 48kHz, 16 bit. It cannot rip to 24 bit 196kHz. That may be OK if you're only ripping CDs, but if you're digitising pristine vinyl to tracks for use via a Transporter, which I believe can handle the higher bit/sample rates, you may want something better. Corrections welcomed if any of this is wrong, of course. (I'd better apologise now for any blunders, I think!) -- geraint smith ------------------------------------------------------------------------ geraint smith's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=625 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31176 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
