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iPod whats apple lossless
- Thread starter iSaygoodbye
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They're not exactly massive. They're smaller than wav or aiff files of exactly the same song in exactly the same quality.
Considering you can pick up a 1TB hard drive for about 150 including an enclosure these days, I think we need to redefine what "massive" is.
They're somewhere in the range of 20-40 MB per song. It all depends on the length of the song and what is going on.
Basically unless you use headphones that can produce the smallest details, you don't need it; but it's always good to have. For example when I rip classical music, I don't want iTunes taking out the small triangle in the background. Sure you can't hear it most of the time, but it nice to hear it sometimes.
BTW that what's what other lossy compressions do.
It's the best friend of hard drive makers.
It's basically an improvement over the .wav format that doesn't lose any of the audio file's data through compression. I'm not saying the sound isn't better, but it's a huge tradeoff for the exponentially larger file sizes you're going to have. While I get the rationale behind people who use it, the iTunes Plus format files sound pretty darn good to me.
It's basically an improvement over the .wav format that doesn't lose any of the audio file's data through compression. I'm not saying the sound isn't better, but it's a huge tradeoff for the exponentially larger file sizes you're going to have. While I get the rationale behind people who use it, the iTunes Plus format files sound pretty darn good to me.
What exactly would you be converting? Remember that a lossy format file such as mp3 or AAC will not gain in quality if you convert it to a lossless format like Flac or Apple lossless. Also, avoid converting a lossy file into another lossy format, because the quality will only get worse.
Just a question about the CD ripping itself.
Does is it matter about the sound quality of the CD itself?
I mean is a CD from 1988 going to sound the same as CD from 2008 if you rip them at the same bit rate, (say 256) and play it back through a decent stereo?
Also how about remastered CD's,
Should not the remastered CD have a higher quality sound then the original even if they get ripped at the same bit rate?
Thank You in advance
Does is it matter about the sound quality of the CD itself?
I mean is a CD from 1988 going to sound the same as CD from 2008 if you rip them at the same bit rate, (say 256) and play it back through a decent stereo?
Also how about remastered CD's,
Should not the remastered CD have a higher quality sound then the original even if they get ripped at the same bit rate?
Thank You in advance
massive..you're right about the Terabyte drives..but in the end he might someone actually wants to listen to it on his/her iPod/iPhone..and there the space is still pretty limited.
I'm not sure I entirely understand the angle you're coming from with this question. What you put in determines what you get out. There are good sounding CDs from 1988 and bad sounding CDs from 2008. The year doesn't really have anything to do with it. Many remastered CDs actually sound worse than the original CDs due to excessive use of brickwall limiting, a form of dynamic compression (the compression of loud and soft sounds, NOT to be compared with MP3/AAC compression which is data compression to make a smaller file. You can read more about excessive dynamics compression here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_War
The bit-rate determines how many bits the encoder can use, and it tries to make the music as transparent as possible compared to the original source.
But that's the great thing about lossless and large hard drives. You can keep a lossless copy of all your music, and then encode copies in lossy formats for your portable devices. If another lossy codec comes along in the future and takes over where MP3 and AAC eventually leave off, you still have all your lossless rips to encode from, whereas if you rip everything in today's lossy format, you'll have to re-rip further on down the line to keep up to date (I'm thinking 5-10 years in the future here...whenever the successor to AAC comes out and becomes widely adopted)
Ok, that's true. Good point. But I guess not many people think so much into the future. And I say: if mp3 (which is pretty old now) and AAC are good enough in my ears today, they will also be good enough in 5 years and more.
Sure, to be confident that you really "have the best you can have right now and in the future", it's good to have a lossless copy. But I wouldn't even want to think how much time it would need to re-encode everything.
I also don't re-rip my CD's which I've ripped in 128kbit years ago. I could have done them in a higher quality then, but with my ears and the all these normal cheap headphones it normally alright.
Who ever it was who brought the thing with classical music, that's true too. But with most modern music, I don't see the point.
my 0.02 cents
Not necessarily, it all depends on the recording, which varies on a case by case basis. The loudness war, which a previous poster linked to is wrecking many modern recordings, so that CD's today very often sound worse than old CD's. Most musicians do not have the power to tell the record companies, and sound engineers what to do. This isn't every recording though, it's just something to be aware of because it does happen.
As far as releases go, it really depends. Some releases, which are advertised as digitally remastered, will sound worse as they'll be affected by the loudness war in the remastering process, others will have much care put into them and they'll sound better than the original on rerelease.
Many people feel that the original vinyl release is best in many cases. Led Zeppelins music being one example.
What I'm getting at, is there isn't a set rule.
Hope that helped.
Hmmm nice post Teej guy. It's actually given me an idea.
I've just ripped all my CDs again to lossless, the size is fine for me. So basically for a portable device (iphone/ipod) do I then just select the whole library and convert to lower lossy format. BUT how do I store this seperate or is it a case of creating a new library and selecting that one when I open iTunes?
So if I rip CD's to my iMac and iTunes using the Lossless format, is there a setting in iTunes that allows songs synched to my iPod to using a lower quailty format (thus enabling me to fit more songs on my iPod at one time)?
Thanks!
If I re-encode the songs to a lesser format, can I later re-encode them back up to Lossless or would I have to re-rip them from CD again in Lossless format?
You will need to re-rip your CD's again. Keep a backup of your lossless files and make any lossy copies from them.
