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Post by 26gary26 on Feb 17, 2019 23:31:12 GMT -5
I have a Mac-Pro lap top computer that has music on an I-Tunes account. I have been ripping my CD's to Aiff format to iTunes for now. Most of my music from years ago is MP3 & MP4 320kbps, which I know is compressed. I went to the File heading in my iTunes account and saw Convert to Aiff so I pushed the button.
Here is my question when I pushed the button it converted all my iTunes MP3 & MP4 music to Aiff. Did this improve my music or just take up more memory on my computer? Not concerned about memory. Will my MP3 & MP4 320kbps sound improve?
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Post by MusicHead on Feb 18, 2019 0:08:50 GMT -5
Since you are starting from songs encoded with lossy compression, no, converting them to AIFF won't improve anything.
I am afraid all you can buy from iTunes is AAC at 256kbps (probably a little better than MP3 256kbps), but still lossy.
If you are ripping your own CDs with iTunes, set it to rip to ALAC format (lossless), basically the Apple version of FLAC, or just keep using AIFF.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 18, 2019 6:39:18 GMT -5
MusicHead gives good advice. I used to use iTunes with ALE (Apple Lossless Encoding) also known as ALAC. But one day I got a copy of the same song in WAV format (no compression at all). And I found to my surprise that the uncompressed WAV file sounded a LOT better than the ALE (lossless compressed). So, long story short - I converted all my ALAC files to WAV and haven't looked back. Now AIFF is also lossless and also uncompressed, but you can store metadata in the file (which you can't with WAV). Is there any audible difference between AIFF & WAV? Theoretically, no, but I've read some articles claiming that WAV sounds superior to both AIFF and FLAC. YMMV But MusicHead is ABSOLUTELY right when he says that any file encoded to a lossy format (MP-anything) can't be "restored" to WAV quality. Once you give up those bits, they're gone forever. So you might as well just leave your MP3/4 files alone. Converting them to anything else won't help the sound quality.
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Post by audiobill on Feb 18, 2019 7:32:02 GMT -5
Try what I did - ask your significant other to rerip all your cds to ALAC.
Let us know how it goes....
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 18, 2019 11:51:45 GMT -5
Try what I did - ask your significant other to rerip all your cds to ALAC. Let us know how it goes.... Now we know how most of the hair got skinned off your head! LOL I asked my better half to scan our 5,000 family photos "in her spare time," and now I'm bald too.  |
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Post by Jean Genie on Feb 18, 2019 12:05:45 GMT -5
MusicHead gives good advice. I used to use iTunes with ALE (Apple Lossless Encoding) also known as ALAC. But one day I got a copy of the same song in WAV format (no compression at all). And I found to my surprise that the uncompressed WAV file sounded a LOT better than the ALE (lossless compressed). So, long story short - I converted all my ALAC files to WAV and haven't looked back. Now AIFF is also lossless and also uncompressed, but you can store metadata in the file (which you can't with WAV). Is there any audible difference between AIFF & WAV? Theoretically, no, but I've read some articles claiming that WAV sounds superior to both AIFF and FLAC. YMMV But MusicHead is ABSOLUTELY right when he says that any file encoded to a lossy format (MP-anything) can't be "restored" to WAV quality. Once you give up those bits, they're gone forever. So you might as well just leave your MP3/4 files alone. Converting them to anything else won't help the sound quality. I've always felt WAV is best for initial ripping, and any subsequent rips to flac. To paraphrase a once popular meme, once you go flac, you can't go back!😉 |
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Post by wilburthegoose on Feb 18, 2019 13:12:20 GMT -5
I agree - FLAC is open architecture and should continue to work for many years.
I re-ripped everything because my original rips were to lower bit-rate MP3 (back when storage was expensive). Once I had an XMC-1 and could easily hear the difference, I redid the rips (thanks to dbPoweramp's batch ripper) to FLAC. I'm a very happy campter.
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Feb 18, 2019 14:17:00 GMT -5
I also use a majority of ALAC files. I did what Boom suggested, and unlike his results, I did not find a significant difference between ALAC and WAV files. IMO FWIW.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 18, 2019 16:46:30 GMT -5
I also use a combination of wav and flac. I can’t tell a difference. Just fyi- you can store metadata on wav files. Audacity for pc or mac (free for anyone) will allow you to add the metadata.
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Post by 26gary26 on Feb 18, 2019 20:09:58 GMT -5
Thanks for all the input everyone. I for got to mention that my MP3 & 4 320 kbps music is on a hard drive made from master recording tapes years ago before I guess other sources of recording were available. They do sound pretty good but I guess not up to todays standards of Flac or Wav.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 19, 2019 4:54:27 GMT -5
Thanks for all the input everyone. I for got to mention that my MP3 & 4 320 kbps music is on a hard drive made from master recording tapes years ago before I guess other sources of recording were available. They do sound pretty good but I guess not up to todays standards of Flac or Wav. If you like the way they sound, that's all that matters.  |
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