Kbs and apple lossless

Is Apple Lossless the best format to import your music onto your library. How many Kbs would equal Apple Lossless. I can re import my CD's if lossless is going to improve the sound quality. Most of my music was imported around 300 Kbs and I don't want to waste my time if the sound quality is not much different.
I listen via airplay on an expensive speaker
Any advice is warmly welcome re these formats.
Thanks

fred quimby wrote:
Is Apple Lossless the best format to import your music onto your library. How many Kbs would equal Apple Lossless. I can re import my CD's if lossless is going to improve the sound quality. Most of my music was imported around 300 Kbs and I don't want to waste my time if the sound quality is not much different.
I listen via airplay on an expensive speaker
Any advice is warmly welcome re these formats.
Thanks
Fred,
Apple Lossless does not use a fixed bitrate. It uses an adaptive algorithm that uses more or fewer bits depending on the sonic complexity of each portion of the music. On average, a file encoded with Apple Lossless will be around 700 to 1000 kbps.
Because it is lossless, it provides equivalent audio to the CD the file was ripped from. Whether it is sufficiently better is a very subjective decision. If you still have the original CDs, rip some tracks in Apple Lossless, and see if they sound better to you than your MP3 or AAC files. Try tracks of a few different musical styles, and use your usual audio equipment and your usual listening conditions.
If it sounds better to you, then you can proceed to re-rip your collection. Given that you have a good quality speaker system, you may well enjoy the better audio.

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4th Gen Nano and Apple Lossless

Can someone tell me how well the 4th generation Nano handles Apple Lossless files? Is there the occasional hitch/pause at the beginning of songs or have they fix the problem?

I loaded some lossless and I did not get any glitches.

FCPX + Lion + Cannot handle AAC or Apple Lossless audio in H.264! (Clicks and Pops)

This is a problem I've been having since I upgraded to Lion, and I've posted this response in other forums, but wanted to start a fresh one with a video I created of my findings. In a nutshell: FCPX in Lion cannot handle AAC audio in H.264 files since it will create audible clicks and pops when it subsequently renders the footage. This ***** because the iPhone 4 for example records as H.264 and AAC for the audio. Below are my findings:
So I think I figured it out! (I'm pretty sure FCPX + Lion has issues with compressed audio formats, ESPECIALLY AAC and Apple Lossless!) There's a video of my findings below:
1. I tried doing exactly the same thing I was trying to do on my machine on a co-worker's Snow Leopard MBP, and it worked out fine (it was just importing an iPhone 4 .mov and exporting it in FCPX). The output file was pretty much the same as what came in.
2. I found out that only movies from my iPhone 4 were coming out all crazy in the audio, yet my Canon T2i files were fine. Both are H.264, yet the Canon T2i records audio as Linear PCM, while the iPhone 4 records audio as AAC.
3. So I got an idea to use screen flow to record a youtube video and record the computer's audio. Then I decided to export with different formats, both as HD NTSC standards and as web standards with H.264.
4. I found out that both NTSC and H.264 standards were perfectly fine, SO LONG AS THE AUDIO WAS LINEAR PCM (or uncompressed!).
5. I then exported the same clip (both times as H.264) and ONLY changed how the audio was rendered (either Linear PCM/Uncompressed or AAC) and VOILA, I got click and pop artifacts ONLY in the AAC version. The ones that were output as uncompressed audio were totally fine!
CONCLUSION:
Final Cut Pro X on OS X Lion has issues with compressed audio, MAINLY AAC and Apple Lossless! Anything that is Linear PCM/Uncompressed should be fine! For example, MPEG 4 AAC Enhanced Low Delay at 320K came out 95% OK, one or two clicks.
So if any of us are working with material where the audio came to us already as AAC (like an iPhone 4), then we have to rip the audio out somehow first (like through VLC for example) and import it separately as an uncompressed file.
Here's a youtube video showing exactly what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDw4btShH0s
Anybody else have any thoughts on this before Apple comes out with a fix?

I was having the same problem and spent several hours on the phone with apple working with one of their 3rd level support guys. Their is deffinatley a issue with Lion and FCPX. I was told they would escalate to a FCPX engineer and they would get back to me in two days. In the mean time I went to my local apple store and was able to recreate the issue on every machine I tried. Apple did call back and confirm that there is an issue with the way FCPX and Lion handle the import and export of AAC files. They said there would hopefully be fixed in a future update.
The best work around I found is to take your AAC file and convert it to a WAV. I used compressor to do this and it seems to have solved the problem.

FLAC vs Apple Lossless file sizes

I've been looking into moving up to lossless audio files. From what I've been able to discover, FLAC and Apple Lossless should be roughly the same file size, but I downloaded a 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC from the Bowers & Wilkins site (about half-way down the page - search for Portico) which is 35MB. I transcoded it to Apple Lossless using Max and the resulting file is 62MB - 77% larger!!
Does this seem right? Is the compression level variable for FLAC and/or Apple Lossless (as there is for ZIP for example)? There's no such option in Max.

Hmm, interesting. MediaInfo reports the following:
Apple Lossless:
Audio
ID : 1
Format : ALAC
Codec ID : alac
Codec ID/Info : Apple Lossless Audio Codec
Duration : 5mn 34s
Duration_LastFrame : -49ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 484 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 59.1 MiB (100%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2037-05-12 23:52:44
Tagged date : UTC 2037-05-12 23:52:44
FLAC
Audio
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Duration : 5mn 34s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 840 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 33.4 MiB (100%)
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
So, same bit depth and sampling rate, but the bit-rate for the Apple Lossless is much higher than the FLAC.
In XLD I have "same as original" for bit-rate and sample frequency.
I've found some more free FLAC download samples at NaimLabel (panel on the right about half way down) and when I transcode these to Apple Lossless the files are the same size as the FLACs, give or take, so I guess these aren't as compressed?

Moving to Apple lossless, impact on playlists

I am considering a move to Apple Lossless (instead of mp3). My concern is that I have a lot of playlists that specifically address the mp3 file names. This brings me to my questions: (1) Is there any way to swap the Apple Lossless format files for the mp3 ones (identical song), leaving all playlists with updated file addresses? (2) If not, is there a way to search playlists to see where a particular song is located? I could then manually replace each song before deleting the mp3). (3) Any other suggestions on how I can make this swap between mp3 and Apple lossless files?

There are two types of playlist that iTunes uses.
Ones where you drag tacks manually in to them
Ones where you define rules so that tracks are automatically added to them - so called 'smart playlists'.
For the former, if you re-import your tracks in a different format (in this case Apple Lossless) you would have to drag them again to the playlist and remove the old MP3 ones from the playlist. The later is easy as you can sort by 'kind' and select all the MP3 tracks in one go and remove them from the playlist.
For the 'smart' playlist, you can check the rules and they may already pickup the desired tracks, or you can edit the rules. For example your rule might say something like -
for this playlist add all tracks of Genre 'Country and Western'
you could add an additional rule to this to make
for this playlist add all tracks of Genre 'Country and Western'
and that are of kind 'Apple Lossless'

Nokia N95-8GB, won't play Apple Lossless.

Hello All,
I have a large number of tunes ripped to Apple Lossless (via iTunes). I've tried everything I can think off, but my new N95 just won't play them. There are two problems: a) the tracks end up on the device as "Artist:Unknown" and "Album:Unknown". and b), the tracks won't play on the phone (the elapsed time just sticks at -:--).
Nokia Music Manager either just hangs or copies the tracks to the phone. ANd I get the same results if I copy from my PC via "Data Transfer" on the USB.
Does anyone know how I can get these files onto the phone so that it'll play 'em? Or can anyone recommend a better format-changer so that I can downgrade them.
Cheers,
John

People in the know use analog....
But regardless, Apple Lossless is yet another compression algorithm as such it will tamper with the audio quality.
Not to get into that debate, but if you think you are getting "lossless" you are "clueless". In a good way, we are the victims of the storage problems.
To accurately depict real sound, you will need infinite amounts of bandwidth and storage.
So now that we have settled that, what we are talking about is how much is "good enough quality".
What can people REALLY perceive. I'll bet good money that if you record the same song in different codecs and bitrates you will be hard pressed to find people that can pick any codec over another at over 300 kbps. At this bitrate it's very difficult to tell MPEG4 AAC to MPEG-1 Layer 3, or eAAC+, never mind WAV or Apple Lossless.
If you don't believe me try it. encode the same song into MPEG4 AAC, MP3, eAAC+ at 300 kbps then also put the WAV and Apple lossless. Create a playlist and play them back through a good set of headphones or home stereo system at random or with someone else selecting the different versions. BTW if your pair of headphones cost you less than 200 pounds then you won't be able to tell the difference.
Since I'm already compromising by going digital then all I have to decide is how much I'm willing to compromise. If I want high Q, I have my home set-up.
640K Should be enough for everybody
El_Loco Nokia Video Blog

Ripping CDs via Apple Lossless

In anticipation of the launch of iTunes Match, I started ripping my CDs in Apple Lossless format. I ripped two CDs but then I notice that those tracks were not available on my Windows Media Player as well as for Amazon cloud drive. I then converted the files to AAC via iTunes, which made them compatible with Amazon (haven't tested the WMP yet). However, all the tracks were duplicated in iTunes. Is there any way to avoid this, basically have both Apple Lossless and AAC files in my machine, but not duplicate my iTunes albums? Thanks!

It is perfectly possible to get WMP 12 in WIndows 7 to accept Apple Lossless files, to play them, and even to read the embedded metadata including the embedded album artwork. I cannot comment about Amazon's cloud, however even Apple's own iCloud only supports AAC format in that via iTunes Match (when turned on by Apple) it will provide only 256kbit AAC even if your own iTunes copy is in something else like Apple lossless.
To get WMP 12 and Windows 7 to accept Apple Lossless you need to do the following
Install a directshow filter so WMP can play Apple lossless, there is only one such directshow filter available, it was written by Milenko Mitrovic and is based on a solution devised by myself. The easiest way to install this is as part of a codec pack for Windows 7, as this pack will also do the hard work of disabling the built-in AAC codec which otherwise would interfere, the directshow filter can play both AAC and Apple Lossless. This pack can be downloaded from here http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html
You now also need to install a plugin for WMP 12. While Apple Lossless uses exactly the same file extension, exactly the same file format, exactly the same metadata format as AAC which WMP 12 already understands, Microsoft deliberately chose to make life difficult and put Apple Lossless files in the other section instead of the music section. This plugin written by Tim De Baets tricks WMP 12 in to handling Apple Lossless just like AAC and therefore put them in the music section, see http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=75123&view=findpost&p=76 7947
I have my entire iTunes library in Apple Lossless and shared with WMP. Via WMP it even works in Microsoft Media Center.
If your syncing your iTunes library to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, you can set iTunes to automatically convert to AAC format when copying to your iPod (or similar) device. Your iTunes library will be unaffected and just keep a single Apple Lossless version.
If you do want to have both AAC and Apple Lossless versions but not have both listed, you can create a second separate iTunes library by holding down the Shift key when you launch iTunes.

Apple Lossless Encoder, import then burn, do I loose quality

Can I copy my CD using iTunes and Apple Lossless Encoder and have the same quality CD as the orignal?

You won't loose quality when importing in Apple Lossless.
As the name implies, this compression method retains all audio information.
If your only purpose is to create a backup copy of your CD (deleting the files afterwards), importing in uncompressed AIFF is a lot faster.
Note: The copy you create in iTunes will not be an exact copy. iTunes is not capable of burning DAO (Disc-At-Once), so there will always be small gaps between tracks, even if you have it set to 'none'.
This is no problem for most music, but can be annoying when tracks are supposed to play consecutive without gaps (e.g. live concerts)
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

When will Apple Lossless Music be Available from the iTunes Store?

I have recently rediscovered the wonders of uncompressed music. I bought my first CD player in 1984. The best vinyl records were better then than the best CDs, and still are, but the average CD was a lot better than the average vinyl. The CD average has probably gotten better since then. At some point, I imported the CDs I listened to into my Mac, initially as 128K AAC, and later as 256K AAC, and thought I was still getting good quality. A couple of months ago, I bought an external USB DAC (NuForce Icon µDAC) and some better-than-the-usual-computer-speakers powered monitors (M-Audio AV40). And I reimported my CDs in Apple Lossless format. Oh! Sweet new music!
The difference between 256K AAC and Apple Lossless is subtle, but through good equipment it's still very noticeable. I have lots of music I bought from the iTunes Store over the years, in 128K and 256K AAC. Some of those I've replaced with CD rips, but I don't have all those CDs. I sure would like to be able to upgrade to Apple Lossless through the iTunes Store. I'd be happy to pay the HDTracks.com prices of $12/album or $1.49/track for the privilege, but it isn't available. The best Apple will sell me is 256K AAC. So now I'm getting all my new music from HDTracks.com, who have wonderful recordings, but a small selection, or as CDs from Amazon.
Apple, when are you going to step up to the plate for the audiophiles in your market and sell us Apple Lossless (or FLAC) music? I realize that we aren't nearly as big a market as the teeny-bopper iPod users out there, but we ARE a market, and I for one would happily return to the iTunes Store if I could buy full-resolution music there.

Wonderful question, would be nice if Apple was not so hush-hush about new developments, but alas, that is what they must do to stay on top of the game. I cannot wait for the day when I will open iTunes and see the phrase, "All Downloads now in Full CD Quality Apple Lossless!" Woohoo, what a momentus occasion that will be. Fortunately, we can hope that they will allow upgrades to Apple Lossless just like they did for iTunes Plus (and why wouldn't they, it's a money maker).
I too have only been purchasing cds mostly from amazon to rip in Lossless, and just came across an album of interest to me that is unfortunately only available through iTunes and Amazon. The hard copies of Steve Jablonsky's Transformers Score are only found in highly marked-up quantities on amazon and ebay, so i am left to bite the bullet and purchase the adequate 256kbps AAC version from the iTunes store. At least I don't have to buy Amazon's MP3 coded versions(typed with a smirk).
With the capacity of most iPods ranging between 8 and 160 GBs, I think it is safe to assume that storage space is not really an issue anymore. Let us cross our fingers for Apple Lossless soon(or use those fingers to raise typed awareness).

Apple Lossless vs. AAC 256k - and best way to change

I originally imported all my 1500 cds as Apple lossless files figuring that would give me the best audio quality for playing back through my AppleTV. But I have realized that sometimes my bandwidth is not enough (when other are downloading from their computers in the house) and the playback stutters. I also want to be able to fit more songs on my iphone.
So now I am thinking about re-encoding using AAC 256khz - I do not think I can really hear much difference.
Firstly what are your opinion on the relative quality of AAV vs. Apple Lossless files....
and secondly is it best to re-encode by ripping all my cds again (please say no) or can I just select all the lossless files in itunes and have it convert them all to AAC - and if that is the best way how do it do it....?
Many thanks for your help...

Well, I have the same question. So last night I compared the original CD vs. Apple Lossless vs. AAC 256kbit/s.
And to be honest: I cant really hear a difference between AL & AAC@256.
When I knew which version I was hearing I felt that AL is a bit more clear in the highrange. But when I closed my eyes and asked my girlfriend to randomly pic a quality, I only guessed right in 6 out of 10 trys. So I guess I cant tell the difference.
My heaphones are Audio Technica: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/e69d047fa2f50ad9/index.html
The tested music was electronic/trance & pop/rock.
In case I later start hearing classic music or jazz, I might do this test again.
Kind regards,
Jan
Message was edited by: Jan Riggert

Confused about Apple Lossless and m4a files

I have Itunes set to import music files from CD in the "Apple Lossless Encoder" format. I notice that it makes
.m4a files. Are these in fact lossless? Are these mpeg4 files? Is mpeg4 lossless?
Thanks,
John

John,
if you get info on a file it will tell you what kind it is, in this case Apple lossless. The difference between importing a song this way and regular AAC or MP3 is size. Lossless is roughly 10MB per minute, AAC and MP3 is about 1MB per minute, so a 4 minute song lossless is about 40MB compared to 4MB.
By importing a song as lossless, you don't lose any of the song, whereas AAC and MP3 throw out the stuff you don't really need to hear and enjoy the song, thus the reason it is alot smaller in size. You can increase the bit rate that you import your songs in using AAC or MP3, making them larger, but not by much.

What does Match do to Apple Lossless and AIFF?

I have all my music imported as Apple Lossless. Will I lose quality if I use Match?
Thanks,
Ken

Yes, that it what I said :-)
Itunes temporarily converts the file to 256 in order to upload it to Icloud but leaves the ALAC file on your computer HD.
When you play back from your computer where the original file is stored you play the ALAC file.
If you download the file to another Idevice from Icloud you will of course have a 256 file, which should be quite adequate for on the go listening.
EG, When I stream to my hi end home stereo useing squeezebox server through Itunes on my Imac it streams full ALAC files, not 256 files. And I am talking about files which were uploaded to Icloud, NOT matched.
I was very careful to verify this before uploading more than a few files.
I don't want 256 streaming to a 70,000.00 system :-)

Converting to Apple Lossless and making playlist?

I've noticed that in order to convert Wav files that are already on my computer to Apple Lossless I need to do this in the library and it can't be done in a playlist. The problem is that if I try and create a playlist from the new lossless files I can't. Itunes creates the playlist from the origonal WAV files. Is there now way to bring a wav playlist into Itunes and make it into a apple lossless playlist?
Gerry

Yes, Apple Lossless is roughly 45% smaller than pure WAV PCM files.
Once converted, iTunes will place the Apple Lossless files in your music directory, under the correct artist/album folder. There should be new entries in your library that refer to the Apple Lossless files, and the old ones that refer to the WAV files should remain untouched. If you check your "Added recently" playlist, or sort your library using the "Date Added" category, you should find the Apple Lossless entries.

Itunes with Apple Lossless and mp3

I have a Mac mini with iTunes.
How can I configure and the system such that:
- I want to play HD music in my living room so I will have Apple Lossless tracks for this purpose.
- I still want the same tracks in MP3 (because it takes much less space) and sync those on my iPhone.
Obviously I can have different playlists for the HD tracks and MP3 tracks.
Is there an application that can automatically discover newly imported HD tracks and convert them in MP3?
Is there a way to sync those MP3 (wired and wirelessly) to different iPhone/iPod without having them in iTunes?
Thanks in advance.
Paul

It doesn't do MP3, but iTunes has the abilty to automatically convert higher bit rate tracks, such as ALAC, to 128/192/256 AAC files on sync. There is no reason to keep multiple copies of the same track.
Just connect your iPhone and select it in iTunes. Click the Summary tab and select the option to "convert higher..." then select the bit rate you want.
Or, you can use one the new cloud syncing services such as iTunes Match, Google Music or Amazon Cloud Play. All these services will convert or "match" ALAC files to either 256 AAC/MP3.

Why is my file "Apple Lossless" and not ACC or Mpeg?!?!?!?! HELP!!!

Ok, so this is the first time this is happening to CDs I'm importing. These last couple I have done are coming up as "Apple Lossless", whatever that means! And not the ACC or MPEG formats. How do I put it in those and what the heck is happening that my newest imported songs are going directly to this lossless thing?!
-Linda

If the default encoder for iTunes has been set to Apple Lossless, songs added to iTunes will be added in this format; you can change this by following these instructions. The procedure is the same for all systems running iTunes 5.0 and newer. To transfer the Apple Lossless files to the iPod shuffle, look at this page.
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Kbs and apple lossless

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