Lossless Ripping

[NeoGen 10]

I'm looking for suggestions as to what the best audio conversion is for ripping my CD's, I currently use iTunes and Apple Lossless but was wondering if I can get better quality, I'm using an iPhone 3GS with Sennheiser IE8 Earphones, it all sounds pretty good, but not sure if iTunes is the best for ripping. any suggestion welcom, I'm mac based so I'm sure this will reduce the list a little.

 

Thanks

 

N

[Agrajag 10]

Surely if it really is "lossless" then you wont get better quality?

 

"lossless" encoding means that no information is lost in the conversion, as opposed to MP3, where some quality is lost in order to compress the music to a smaller file (aka "lossy" encoding).

Edited September 25, 2009 by Agrajag

[woZa 10]

Apple lossless is ok but is only really supported in Apple products. Another lossless audio format is FLAC and it is more widely supported.

 

A great audio converter for OS X is Max. Converts to all the formats you will ever need. Much more flexible for encoding than iTunes.

Edited September 26, 2009 by woZa

[NeoGen 10]

Surely if it really is "lossless" then you wont get better quality?

 

"lossless" encoding means that no information is lost in the conversion, as opposed to MP3, where some quality is lost in order to compress the music to a smaller file (aka "lossy" encoding).

 

I'm guessing as with most things you can get varying degrees of quality, iTunes for example may not be the best software for ripping cd's to Apple Lossless, so I was interested to know if anyone knew of an alternative that may be better?

[NeoGen 10]

Apple lossless is ok but is only really supported in Apple products. Another lossless audio format is FLAC and it is more widely supported.

 

A great audio converter for OS X is Max. Converts to all the formats you will ever need. Much more flexible for encoding that iTunes.

 

Thanks woZa,

 

I'm not too fussed about the lack of support for the Apple Lossless as Im pretty much all Mac, I'll have a look at Max, it sounds interesting.

 

Thanks

[bunglehaze 10]

As has already been said, lossless is direct conversion that does not compress or lose quality so other than going for FLAC you wont get much better. I am curious though - why lossless? using ogg on a high setting gives superb results and you save a ton of space.

 

leigh

[Ghozer 112]

nice, I would move to the Sennheiser IE8 if only it had an inline mic, button, and volume like the iPhone 3Gs earphones do, that's the only thing thats stopping me changing from the horrid apple originals.

[Guest]

Not sure about rippers. Check out hydrogenaudio.org as there's bound to be someone there who knows

 

Lossless is lossless, what you're talking about quality-wise is getting a more accurate rip.

 

Have you done an ABX test (same site)? I'm guessing you're unlikely to tell the difference between lossless and a decent MP3 encode.

 

bunglehaze, the iPhone doesn't play ogg.

[woZa 10]

Thanks woZa,

 

I'm not too fussed about the lack of support for the Apple Lossless as Im pretty much all Mac, I'll have a look at Max, it sounds interesting.

 

Thanks

 

Sure, but in the future you might choose something other than an Apple product and then you may have to re-encode all your apple lossless files into something else.

 

To be honest you may as well encode to 256kbps aac for use on the ipod. I don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between the aac & alac when played from the ipod and will save a load of space to boot. Maybe through a higher end system at home you would notice the difference.

 

I personally have everything in flac for at home and if I want to put things on a mobile device I just drop them into Max which converts them to aac and puts them on my phone.

 

Best of both worlds then.

[zongamin 10]

To be honest you may as well encode to 256kbps aac for use on the ipod. I don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between the aac & alac when played from the ipod and will save a load of space to boot. Maybe through a higher end system at home you would notice the difference.

 

 

 

I would go even further - I used to be a 'bit rate snob' myself. I'd search for lossless rips, but would settle for 320 or 256 mp3s. I'd go to 192 if I couldn't find what I wanted at a higher rate. This was fine when I used a 60g ipod, as space wasn't really an issue.

 

When I got my iphone I realised that '8gb' really means I only have about 4 to 5 gigs of space for music, once my apps and photos are on there, so I needed to trim down my file sizes.

 

I re-ripped to 128kbps AAC via itunes (equivalent quality to 192 mp3). I was amazed to find that on my iphone there was no audible difference, either with the supplied headset (yuk) or my preferred Sennheisers.

 

Even through my modest home separates system there is no audible difference. I'm not hard of hearing and did a number of blind tests using everything from Early Reggae rips, to 90's Indie Rock, to Aphex Twin, to Bon Iver - the quality difference, to me, is inaudible.

 

Its your choice and many people claim to be able to hear a difference (although repeated double blind testing usually disproves this), but my rule is - if I can't hear the difference, the smaller file is just as good as the lossless version.

Edited September 27, 2009 by zongamin

[HarryBustard 10]

This may help.

[NeoGen 10]

As has already been said, lossless is direct conversion that does not compress or lose quality so other than going for FLAC you wont get much better. I am curious though - why lossless? using ogg on a high setting gives superb results and you save a ton of space.

 

leigh

Space is not really a big issue, I have more than enough HD space, 4TB and the iPhone is 32Gb, which I can hold about 800 songs with all my other bits and pieces, I don't need my whole collection on there as I'm happy to change them when I get bored of hearing what's on there.

 

Not sure about rippers. Check out hydrogenaudio.org as there's bound to be someone there who knows

Will have a look there thanks.

 

Lossless is lossless, what you're talking about quality-wise is getting a more accurate rip.

Yes.

 

Have you done an ABX test (same site)? I'm guessing you're unlikely to tell the difference between lossless and a decent MP3 encode.

No couldn't find any Mac software to run it?

 

Sure, but in the future you might choose something other than an Apple product and then you may have to re-encode all your apple lossless files into something else.

By then, I'm sure the digital format would have moved on and I'll want to do that any way.

 

To be honest you may as well encode to 256kbps aac for use on the ipod. I don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between the aac & alac when played from the ipod and will save a load of space to boot. Maybe through a higher end system at home you would notice the difference.

I want them in a lossless format as I was able to tell the difference between mp3 even on my iPhone, some of the live recordings just sounded dull. Especially kick drums.

 

I would go even further - I used to be a 'bit rate snob' myself. I'd search for lossless rips, but would settle for 320 or 256 mp3s. I'd go to 192 if I couldn't find what I wanted at a higher rate. This was fine when I used a 60g ipod, as space wasn't really an issue.

 

When I got my iphone I realised that '8gb' really means I only have about 4 to 5 gigs of space for music, once my apps and photos are on there, so I needed to trim down my file sizes.

 

I re-ripped to 128kbps AAC via itunes (equivalent quality to 192 mp3). I was amazed to find that on my iphone there was no audible difference, either with the supplied headset (yuk) or my preferred Sennheisers.

 

Even through my modest home separates system there is no audible difference. I'm not hard of hearing and did a number of blind tests using everything from Early Reggae rips, to 90's Indie Rock, to Aphex Twin, to Bon Iver - the quality difference, to me, is inaudible.

 

Its your choice and many people claim to be able to hear a difference (although repeated double blind testing usually disproves this), but my rule is - if I can't hear the difference, the smaller file is just as good as the lossless version.

 

I tried mp3 on my home system once and it was horrendous, I did start to convert my CD's to WAV but as they never stored any information gave up on that so decided to stick with CD's, I'm thinking about trying to set something up now but I've not looked at any thing yet so will be a few months before I spend any money.

 

For now I'll stick with the apple lossless, until I find a better alternative.