iPod lossless vs CD audio quality

[tr@nz]

uofmtiger

The listening testing was done blindly with a friend behind the controls, and my eyes closed.

The test was repeated by another set of ears with the same result.

However, my post prior to this one might be the glaring cause of the differences I am hearing. ALAC ripping is just not consistent and on my MacMini is quite a bit different than the WAV file ripped in the same iTunes on the same machine. Ripping ALAC on my PC versus on my MAC even provides differences.

I am starting to think that the way the ripping software and the optical drive interact make a huge difference. This is why EAC software optimizes your settings based on the optical drive you are using in your PC.

I am sold on EAC, and though iTunes is slick as hell from a GUI perspective it is just not good enough for ripping purposes. At least not with the standard optical drive provided in the MacMini.

Cheers.

 

[uofmtiger]

Why rip to wav and convert to flac, why not just use EAC straight to flac

I wouldn't, but I was making the point that if you ripped to wav and converted it, you can mathmatically prove that they are the same. If you ripped directly to FLAC, you would not have a wav file to compare it to.

I am starting to think that the way the ripping software and the optical drive interact make a huge difference. This is why EAC software optimizes your settings based on the optical drive you are using in your PC.

This is why I was making the point that you have to compare the original wav file to the wav file converted to FLAC to make a real comparison of the two formats. Once you determine that they are mathmatically the same, you will know that FLAC is not the problem.

 

[tr@nz]

To keep things 'simple' from a listener standpoint, being able to use iTunes with a remote control (pda, iPhone, iPaq etc.) using Salling Clicker software (which also shows album art) on your remote is still desired.

After some more playing around here is some more useful information for others searching for a similar solution.

Using EAC provides you the best audio quality in a rip, however, you will lose the tag information and album cover function if you rip to WAV. As mentioned above there is no need to go to WAV and then to FLAC in separate steps; EAC will do these steps for you.

If you want the album art and the ID3 tag/Album etc. information so you can easily use it within iTunes and maintain the exact audio file quality, I have found that the following will work for Mac users.

1. Rip to FLAC using EAC on a PC (EAC will rip to WAV, use flac.exe to compress and keep ID3 tags)
2. Convert to AIFF using Max on a Mac

iTunes does not accept FLAC but Max does. Since FLAC maintains the ID3 tag, Max will be able to find the album cover with a click of a button as it has this as an inbuilt function. It also provides the preference option of loading it into your iTunes library.

Using Foobar's bit comparison function I checked:

1. the EAC ripped FLAC with the EAC ripped WAV,
2. the Max converted AIFF file with both the EAC ripped FLAC and the EAC ripped WAV....

and they were all bit for bit exactly the same. Great news! :thmbsp:

This is up until now the 'easiest' and free solution I have found to get CD quality on your music server. Any others with better ones, please share!

It would be soooooo much easier if Steve Jobs at Apple would just buy EAC and incorporate it into iTunes, as well as improve their inbuilt CD reader hardware .

Now I just hope that iTunes as a player is a good solution. Some say that Cog for Mac and Foobar for PC are better, but I have not come to this conclusion yet. More listening is needed.

Cheers

 

[drknstrmyknight]

The current version of EAC rips to WAV. It will then transcode to whatever you specify - using the external flac executable for flac file for instance - and tags the metadata for you.
I can't see what difference using different players would make since they're just sending the data to the dac...

 

[Cpt.Beaky]

<snip>
It would be soooooo much easier if Steve Jobs at Apple would just buy EAC and incorporate it into iTunes, as well as improve their inbuilt CD reader hardware .

:tears: Don't say things like that...

 

[uofmtiger]

I can't see what difference using different players would make since they're just sending the data to the dac...

You are making the incorrect assumption that all players with any setting will send out the same signal.

For example:
"The current version of iTunes (7.5) for OSX is very broken. Some older versions work properly, but 7.5 introduces truncation and DSP artifacts that can measure as high as –80dBFS. These levels are easily audible. There is no system configuration that will permit transparent playback from 44.1kHz sources with iTunes 7.5. Curiously, the only format that works properly in 7.5 is 24-bit/96kHz. This iTunes problem has nothing to do with USB communications, as the results are the same when using the built-in optical port on our PowerBooks. As a workaround, we suggest using the free VLC for Mac player. VLC works perfectly with all formats (provided OSX is set to match the sample rate of the files being played). We highly recommend the VLC player for OSX users, and strongly advise against using iTunes. We will attempt to identify which versions of iTunes work and which ones don't. But beware, iTunes updates itself without user intervention. One of our test computers "upgraded" itself to the dysfunctional iTunes 7.5. "

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/108bench/index5.html

There are workarounds (which you can read about on the link above), but there are older versions of iTunes that need to be set at 100 percent volume to get bit perfect. In other words, your settings and the program you use to play the files will have to be set accordingly. I believe Benchmark has set up a wiki to explain how their DAC works with different programs, but I do not have the direct link.

 

[Duffinator]

Using EAC provides you the best audio quality in a rip, however, you will lose the tag information and album cover function if you rip to WAV. As mentioned above there is no need to go to WAV and then to FLAC in separate steps; EAC will do these steps for you.

If you want the album art and the ID3 tag/Album etc. information so you can easily use it within iTunes and maintain the exact audio file quality, I have found that the following will work for Mac users.

1. Rip to FLAC using EAC on a PC (EAC will rip to WAV, use flac.exe to compress and keep ID3 tags)
2. Convert to AIFF using Max on a Mac

iTunes does not accept FLAC but Max does. Since FLAC maintains the ID3 tag, Max will be able to find the album cover with a click of a button as it has this as an inbuilt function. It also provides the preference option of loading it into your iTunes library.

Using Foobar's bit comparison function I checked:

1. the EAC ripped FLAC with the EAC ripped WAV,
2. the Max converted AIFF file with both the EAC ripped FLAC and the EAC ripped WAV....

and they were all bit for bit exactly the same. Great news! :thmbsp:

This is up until now the 'easiest' and free solution I have found to get CD quality on your music server. Any others with better ones, please share!

What's the easiest way to do this on a PC using iTunes into Apple loseless format?

 

[dj_AmTraX]

Found this to be good read.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/ripping-apple-lossless-wav-aiff-explained-344397/

The question of using a lossless file, WAV or AIFF is a basic question and one that is very difficult to get ones head around. I think a forum like this should exist to help people in need of understanding this issue. And I don't think most responses are informed enough. So even though someone will say, "lossless is indeed lossless", it doesn't explain that much. Whoever posts a question like this should be skeptical of all our answers until they have enough proof for themselves. So even though threads like this pop up quite a bit, we must keep posting responses that are easily understandable, non-patronizing, and as helpful as possible. So now it is my turn to take a shot at it. Since I was in the same position a few weeks ago, there were a couple of things that convinced me one way or the other. So let me start off by saying, yes, Apple Lossless is equal to WAV and AIFF. Apple Lossless sounds like just a marketing term but it is a lossless file. I will try to explain it from a beginners perspective, which I am myself. All the information on a CD can be compressed into a file. I know what you're thinking; compression equals compromised sound quality. But hear me out. Once that compressed file is ready to be played, it becomes uncompressed during playback. The original AIFF or WAV file is retained. Here is an example:

WAV or AIFF file-
8888888444455577777333333

The same file using Apple Lossless-
885442551773334 or 88(5)44(2)55(1)77(3)33(4)

Notice how the Apple Lossless file is smaller than the WAV or AIFF file. How Apple Lossless saves space on the file can be seen by the number following the first two numbers in the sequence. For instance, after the first two 8's, the following number is (5). That (5) represents five more 8's that follow the first two 8's. There are seven 8's in the original WAV or AIFF file and there are a total of seven 8's in the Apple file. Apple Lossless only stores that information on your hard drive using this algorithm. When that file is ready to be used, Apple Lossless unzips this compressed file and and all seven 8's are used in playback. The same goes for all the rest of the numbers in the sequence. Apple Lossless unzips back into the original AIFF or WAV file. Of course, you could be thinking that there could be errors in the algorithms that Apple Lossless uses. Or just by the nature of this change that sound quality could be lessened, however small. Well, what I said is from a beginners perspective. The proof will be in the actual measurements comparing these files. Hence, the next part of my reply. For an expert opinion and a fascinating article, click on the link by John Atkinson from Stereophile magazine. I hope this helps:

Stereophile: MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD

I had recently emailed John Atkinson about the issue of the lossless algorithm and whether or not it has an effect
on sound quality-

Me:
One of the other things I was wondering about reading your article is I was thinking that a CD ripped into AIFF or WAV is only one generation removed from the source. Whereas Apple Lossless or ALAC or any other lossless file is two generations removed from the source. This does not have any effect on sound quality? Could there be errors in the lossless algorithms?

John Atkinson:
No errors. But there is a processing overhead playing back a lossless-compressed file compared with an AIFF or WAV and some have cojectured that this does affect the sound. Personally, I don't believe so. But if you have enough hard-drive space, then rip as uncompressed format.

 

[drknstrmyknight]

You are making the incorrect assumption that all players with any setting will send out the same signal.

For example:
"The current version of iTunes (7.5) for OSX is very broken. Some older versions work properly, but 7.5 introduces truncation and DSP artifacts that can measure as high as –80dBFS. These levels are easily audible. There is no system configuration that will permit transparent playback from 44.1kHz sources with iTunes 7.5. Curiously, the only format that works properly in 7.5 is 24-bit/96kHz. This iTunes problem has nothing to do with USB communications, as the results are the same when using the built-in optical port on our PowerBooks. As a workaround, we suggest using the free VLC for Mac player. VLC works perfectly with all formats (provided OSX is set to match the sample rate of the files being played). We highly recommend the VLC player for OSX users, and strongly advise against using iTunes. We will attempt to identify which versions of iTunes work and which ones don't. But beware, iTunes updates itself without user intervention. One of our test computers "upgraded" itself to the dysfunctional iTunes 7.5. "

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/108bench/index5.html

There are workarounds (which you can read about on the link above), but there are older versions of iTunes that need to be set at 100 percent volume to get bit perfect. In other words, your settings and the program you use to play the files will have to be set accordingly. I believe Benchmark has set up a wiki to explain how their DAC works with different programs, but I do not have the direct link.

I guess kernel streaming or ASIO on a PC with a supported player is a sort of a given if you don't want to resample to 48khz. That news is so old I guess I assumed it was a given. I don't believe my Turtle Beach USB resamples using the optical out, and the older cards that used the Envy24 chipset didn't. I'd think the newer stuff played nice.

 

[uofmtiger]

I guess kernel streaming or ASIO on a PC with a supported player is a sort of a given if you don't want to resample to 48khz. That news is so old I guess I assumed it was a given. I don't believe my Turtle Beach USB resamples using the optical out, and the older cards that used the Envy24 chipset didn't. I'd think the newer stuff played nice.

I am pretty sure that Benchmark has a wiki that explains the settings you need for different programs to get bit perfect. The thing that is amazing is that iTunes would only give you bit perfect at 100 percent volume. I doubt many people knew this.