How does iTunes handle dither?

Question

I have a few lossless .m4a files that happen to be 32 bit, and I want to make them into 16 bit .wav. With iTunes set to use the wave encoder, you can right-click them and "create WAV version", but it comes out as a 16 bit file. Does it dither in the process, or have I just truncated it? If it is dithered, what kind of algorithm does it use? FWIW, I struggle to hear any difference in the output, but these are unedited needledrops and are kind of noisy, so I'm not sure I'd be able to tell at this stage anyway.
As an aside, is there a better way to convert a 32 bit .m4a to a 32 bit .wav in OSX? I'd really prefer to keep it 32 bit and dither it myself later. Conversion websites e.g. zamzar.com are returning blank dummy files instead of real wavs, so I'm not sure what to do.
Thanks!

Answer 1

I believe Jere7my is mistaken.
When you import a CD to iTunes, it just imports the
tracks and unless gaps are actually part of the songs
themselves, there is no provision to keeping custom
gap settings.
That's true, but on most albums gaps are indeed part of the songs. For instance, between the first two tracks of R.E.M.'s Murmur there are about four seconds of silence. When you rip the album, two seconds of silence appear at the end of Radio Free Europe, and two seconds at the beginning of Pilgrimage. When you play the album as a whole, you'll hear four seconds of silence between the tracks, exactly as it is on the CD; when you play the individual tracks on shuffle, you'll hear whatever portion of silence is attached to each. This is the case for nearly all professionally pressed CDs — iTunes will preserve the inter-track silence as it appears on the CD (assuming Crossfade Playback is off), because it simply rips the silence along with the track.