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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 24, 2011 11:09:49 GMT -5
I'm still learning about all this lossless stuff, but I've spent some time listening to both ALAC and FLAC and seen some comparisons as to compression and both compress the audio about 55%. Sonically I cannot hear any difference at all between the two.
Even playing ALAC through my Sonos system yields very good results in almost all cases. I've AB'd well recorded songs through my Sonos and then with CD and ERC-1 and its pretty much the same...
I know many will disagree, I guess I'm not as audio snobby as I used to be... :-) Its just so much easier to grab the Sonos controller or my iPhone or iPad and have almost 6000 songs at my fingertips.
It reminds me of the migration from vinyl. So many said that CD's were awful and they would never make the change - for me it was a no brainer as the convenience of access and durability of CD's made my mind up for me.
iTunes is already the largest retailer of music in the world and it won't be long before the intermediate step of the CD is gone. Almost all of the music retailers are gone with the aforementioned and Walmart having 70% of the market. Whats the point of the physical CD anyway?
If the SQ can be the same then its useless media. For those that have to have the hard copy, for .07 cents you can burn a backup.....
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Erwin.BE
Emo VIPs
It's the room, stupid!
Posts: 2,268
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Post by Erwin.BE on Jan 24, 2011 12:42:37 GMT -5
I'm still learning about all this lossless stuff, but I've spent some time listening to both ALAC and FLAC and seen some comparisons as to compression and both compress the audio about 55%. Sonically I cannot hear any difference at all between the two. Even playing ALAC through my Sonos system yields very good results in almost all cases. I've AB'd well recorded songs through my Sonos and then with CD and ERC-1 and its pretty much the same... I know many will disagree, I guess I'm not as audio snobby as I used to be... :-) Its just so much easier to grab the Sonos controller or my iPhone or iPad and have almost 6000 songs at my fingertips. It reminds me of the migration from vinyl. So many said that CD's were awful and they would never make the change - for me it was a no brainer as the convenience of access and durability of CD's made my mind up for me. iTunes is already the largest retailer of music in the world and it won't be long before the intermediate step of the CD is gone. Almost all of the music retailers are gone with the aforementioned and Walmart having 70% of the market. Whats the point of the physical CD anyway? If the SQ can be the same then its useless media. For those that have to have the hard copy, for .07 cents you can burn a backup..... I am of the sceptical kind. So I asked a couple of pro audio folks here and there: even they say ALAC is perfect. ALAC is for Apple and Sonos etc, while FLAC is for PC and Squeezebox etc. No difference in SQ! And I hear no difference between AIFF, ALAC or WAV. I have a 2TB HD, so I see no need to compress to ALAC anymore, so I use AIFF... Sonos has it's restrictions, but for CD-rips it's perfect, especially if you use the ZP90 into a good DAC, such as XDA-1... This will be better than a standalone ERC! I say you are good to go. Don't look back. BTW, you know even this route is intermediate, right? The music industry is very keen on promoting "cloud" listening. You don't own the music, but you got acces to an infinite library for a small fee each month. You know what will happen when enough people ditched their HD based library, right? Yup, that "small" fee will no longer be that small and those sharks will have us listeners and their musicians by the throat once more... Not with this guy! I now have 2,400+ albums on my 2TB disk, I ain't stoppin' yet!
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