iPod Which is closer to CD - AIFF or Apple Lossless

[jsilas]

If you're running optical into your receiver, it has a DAC, naturally. In the end all things must go analog. The point he's trying to make, however, is that most built-in DAC's are crap, for both receivers and other items (AX, your computers, etc). While I don't know personally how good the DAC is for your receiver, many people opt to go receiver -> DAC -> speakers to remedy this problem.

If you're just running stereo off of your receiver, and it has an optical/digital out, then I'd recommend the Super Pro DAC 707. It sounds pretty cheap, but in reality it has higher-grade components than most higher-priced solutions. If you need multi-channel however and you only have one digital out, you'll need to look at other pricier solutions. That is, of course, if you care enough about the built in DAC of your receiver.

It is correct that an aftermarket DAC can offer improved performance over an on-board DAC in a receiver.

However, your order of connections is incorrect. Signal path would be from digital source first to the DAC, THEN to the receiver, and on to the speakers. The digital signal would feed into the DAC, which would perform the conversion from digital to analog, and output an analog signal for the receiver to amplify. The receiver's output is amplified analog designed to drive loudspeakers. Putting a DAC between the receiver and speakers would not work at all.

 

[emaja]

My Onkyo TX-SR608 uses the Burr-Brown PCM1690 DAC. I can't seem to find a comparison between it and the SuperPro 707 or the Wolfson WM8740 in the DacMagic.

From what I have read, it seems the Burr-Brown is pretty good.

 

[darkplanets]

It is correct that an aftermarket DAC can offer improved performance over an on-board DAC in a receiver.

However, your order of connections is incorrect. Signal path would be from digital source first to the DAC, THEN to the receiver, and on to the speakers. The digital signal would feed into the DAC, which would perform the conversion from digital to analog, and output an analog signal for the receiver to amplify. The receiver's output is amplified analog designed to drive loudspeakers. Putting a DAC between the receiver and speakers would not work at all.

I personally don't use a receiver, so I have no experience there. However couldn't you just use an amp after the DAC? For example say with your AV reciever you have HDMI->Receiver->Optical out->DAC-> AMP-> Speakers. That is, of course, assuming that your DAC doesn't come with an amp-- I was under the impression that most came with some sort of basic amplification so you dont need a post-DAC amp. Not to mention the fact that some systems come with built in pre-amps (like my 2.1). Of course this all depends upon whether you trust your AV receivers amps either...

My Onkyo TX-SR608 uses the Burr-Brown PCM1690 DAC. I can't seem to find a comparison between it and the SuperPro 707 or the Wolfson WM8740 in the DacMagic.

From what I have read, it seems the Burr-Brown is pretty good.

BB is good. The SuperPro uses a medley of parts; see here. I'm not an audiophile, so I can safely say you can't go wrong with BB.

 

[jsilas]

I personally don't use a receiver, so I have no experience there. However couldn't you just use an amp after the DAC? For example say with your AV reciever you have HDMI->Receiver->Optical out->DAC-> AMP-> Speakers. That is, of course, assuming that your DAC doesn't come with an amp-- I was under the impression that most came with some sort of basic amplification so you dont need a post-DAC amp. Not to mention the fact that some systems come with built in pre-amps (like my 2.1). Of course this all depends upon whether you trust your AV receivers amps either...

First, after many years in the business and hobby of audiophila, I've never seen a high-quality DAC that had an on-board amplifier. And if it did, it wouldn't really be considered a stand-alone DAC anymore, but would instead be referred to as a "Receiver" or an "Integrated Amplifier".

Second, in your example above, why would you have the receiver in the signal path at all if you're not going to use its amplification? You'd be much better off using a pre-amp/processor, and even then, 99% of the time a proper connection would place the DAC previous to the pre/pro.

 

[jsilas]

If you want a truly great DAC for a reasonable price, check out the Musical Fidelity M1DAC. It's a really good performer.

 

[makinao]

In what context exactly would you expect a lossless file format to sound any different than aiff/cd audio?

As I mentioned, in professional/commercial music recording.

 

[darkplanets]

First, after many years in the business and hobby of audiophila, I've never seen a high-quality DAC that had an on-board amplifier. And if it did, it wouldn't really be considered a stand-alone DAC anymore, but would instead be referred to as a "Receiver" or an "Integrated Amplifier".

Second, in your example above, why would you have the receiver in the signal path at all if you're not going to use its amplification? You'd be much better off using a pre-amp/processor, and even then, 99% of the time a proper connection would place the DAC previous to the pre/pro.

Well then you would know better than I .... I'm not exactly a purveyor of high quality audio equipment right now.

As per my example, I can think of a friends setup actually; the receiver is there to simplify the TV inputs due to a large volume of HDMI devices and not enough inputs on the actual TV. He also likes the built in radio, iPod support, etc, and instead of splitting out the audio signal from the HDMI prior he uses the receiver to do that, with the DAC post receiver since he has one speaker system. Call it the poor man's home theater

 

[tkermit]

Apple lossless (and most other lossless formats) will not sound significantly different from aiff/cd audio in casual consumer use.

In what context exactly would you expect a lossless file format to sound any different than aiff/cd audio?

As I mentioned, in professional/commercial music recording.

Lossless yet compressed file formats might be bothersome to use in such a setting, but they would still sound exactly the same as their uncompressed PCM stream counterparts, unless something's not working correctly...

 

[bredell]

As I mentioned, in professional/commercial music recording.

That's true, but it's not because of any degradation of quality. In a professional environment you do a lot of filtering and mixing of sounds in real time, then you can't waste CPU doing compression/decompression all the time. It's a lot simpler to work with uncompressed raw material. Same goes for video editing.

A lossless compression that degrades quality of the sound isn't lossless.

 

[blackburn]

That's why I backup my cd collection in flac Albeit I still use eac. Rip always misses the offset by 30 samples

Anyway in flac, you can store album cover / cue sheet / rip log / AccurateRip log in just one file

 

[emaja]

Thanks for all the info guys. I have decided to go with ALAC since I can always convert it to AIFF if I need to later.

I may give a DAC some thought, but not just now.

Thanks!

 

[wjlafrance]

The answer to your question lies in the definition of "lossless".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless

 

[jsilas]

Thanks for all the info guys. I have decided to go with ALAC since I can always convert it to AIFF if I need to later.

I may give a DAC some thought, but not just now.

Thanks!

If it makes you feel more confident in your decision regarding the DAC, I'll tell you that I listen to music on some pretty nice speakers, and when I stream digital files, I stream ALACs. I run them through the on-board DACs in my Denon receiver, and it sounds fantastic.

I don't think you'll miss the standalone DAC unless you're really trying to squeeze every iota of performance out of your setup with no regard for cost.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I'd recommend using AIFF if your device that stores the music uses a BIG hard drive, at least 1 terabyte in capacity. Since an 80 minute CD takes about 800 MB of hard disk space, you can store a large number of AIFF "rips" from your CD collection on a 1 TB hard drive. And because AIFF is NOT a compressed file format, it might also mean better sound quality, since you don't need the additional data processing step of uncompressing Apple Lossless files, which might in a few cases compromise sound quality.

 

[peterja]

If the file is digital and the wireless signal is digital, if I have the optical cable from the AX to my receiver, why do I need a DAC?

That is something I did not know about before at all.

My point was mainly not to use the one integrated in the AX, I don't know much about receivers because I'd rather blow all the money on two channels

 

[Killyp]

...And because AIFF is NOT a compressed file format, it might also mean better sound quality, since you don't need the additional data processing step of uncompressing Apple Lossless files, which might in a few cases compromise sound quality.

No, Apple Lossless will do fine. There is no 'situation' where decoding an Apple Lossless file will degrade sound quality.

Is there any situation where putting your Word documents inside a ZIP file will change the Word document itself?


A good DAC does make a difference, but get the positioning of your speakers sorted out first! Otherwise, you'll be wasting your money on that shiny new DAC.

 

[slowtraveler]

It's worth thinking through your plans for serving and streaming your media before choosing between ALAC and AIFF. Many non-Apple home media servers, NAS devices, and streaming solutions don't support direct streaming of ALAC-encoded files. If you're using Apple solutions for media serving and streaming, no problem, but if not, it's a good idea to investigate potential compatibility issues with ALAC before committing to it as your primary storage format.

No disrespect intended to other posters who have expressed opinions to the contrary, but there's no difference in sound quality between ALAC and AIFF.

I think the main dimensions of the decision are the tradeoff between storage requirements for AIFF and possible limits on support by other manufacturers for Apple's ALAC. Price/performance improvements on storage run with Moore's Law (or faster) so file size should become much less of a factor as time goes by. If you like Apple solutions, though, ALAC is great.

I use ALAC for storing a collection of about 300 CD's worth of commercial music at home, but I stick with uncompressed formats for storing loops, samples, SFX, and other media I use in (hobbyist) music production--mainly for the convenience of not having to transcode things when moving them between systems.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

It's worth thinking through your plans for serving and streaming your media before choosing between ALAC and AIFF. Many non-Apple home media servers, NAS devices, and streaming solutions don't support direct streaming of ALAC-encoded files. If you're using Apple solutions for media serving and streaming, no problem, but if not, it's a good idea to investigate potential compatibility issues with ALAC before committing to it as your primary storage format.

No disrespect intended to other posters who have expressed opinions to the contrary, but there's no difference in sound quality between ALAC and AIFF.

I think the main dimensions of the decision are the tradeoff between storage requirements for AIFF and possible limits on support by other manufacturers for Apple's ALAC. Price/performance improvements on storage run with Moore's Law (or faster) so file size should become much less of a factor as time goes by. If you like Apple solutions, though, ALAC is great.

I use ALAC for storing a collection of about 300 CD's worth of commercial music at home, but I stick with uncompressed formats for storing loops, samples, SFX, and other media I use in (hobbyist) music production--mainly for the convenience of not having to transcode things when moving them between systems.

File size isn't a huge issue these days, but I still use mp3 and aac, because even alac files are too big for my library. If my library were alac it would probably be around 400GB and if it were aiff it would be at least 800GB.

 

[slowtraveler]

File size isn't a huge issue these days, but I still use mp3 and aac, because even alac files are too big for my library. If my library were alac it would probably be around 400GB and if it were aiff it would be at least 800GB.

Yowza, that's a lot. (Plus you'd the need same amount again for backups, too.)

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Yowza, that's a lot. (Plus you'd the need same amount again for backups, too.)

Exactly. I only have a laptop, a couple of external drives (between 120GB and 320GB) and a backup drive (tb). I'm not looking to invest any more money, so a compressed audio is my only option.

 

[emaja]

Yowza, that's a lot. (Plus you'd the need same amount again for backups, too.)

I have my CDs ripped at 320K and they currently take up ~220 GB. Going to ALAC will roughly increase that by 2.5 to 3 times. I have an Addonics RAID box that guards against drive failure, and I have the CDs for backups. Worst case, I have to re-rip and am forced to listen to all that music again.

A good DAC does make a difference, but get the positioning of your speakers sorted out first! Otherwise, you'll be wasting your money on that shiny new DAC.

I think I have the positioning all worked out. The soundstage is HUUUGE and the imaging is wonderful. I am seriously impressed with the lows that come out of these "bookshelf" speakers. They are rather large, but since they need stands to elevate the tweeters to ear level, the Paradigm Titans are still considered bookshelves.

I compared them against the B&W 685's and, while they sounded good, the B&Ws were too British and "polite" for my tastes. I wanted more crispness than they provided.

As far as the DAC goes, if the signal is digital to the AX, then connected to the receiver, I assume that the AX does the conversion. The way I understand it is that the last digital device does the analog conversion, so if the AX is connected to the receiver with RCAs, it does the conversion. If I use the digital cable from the AX to the receiver, the receiver does the conversion, but if I have a DAC between the AX and receiver, it does the conversion and the analog signal passes through untouched by the receiver.

Do I have that down correctly?

The DAC is way down my list. I still have a center channel, two rears and a sub to buy before I get there.

 

[slowtraveler]

Do I have that down correctly?

Yup, that's right. Sounds like you have things pretty much under control. I'll bet the Onkyo's Burr-Brown D/A conversion will give more pleasing results than whatever DAC is built into the AX, but your ears will tell you for sure.

 

[Killyp]

I think I have the positioning all worked out. The soundstage is HUUUGE and the imaging is wonderful. I am seriously impressed with the lows that come out of these "bookshelf" speakers. They are rather large, but since they need stands to elevate the tweeters to ear level, the Paradigm Titans are still considered bookshelves.

I compared them against the B&W 685's and, while they sounded good, the B&Ws were too British and "polite" for my tastes. I wanted more crispness than they provided.

Top stuff. Out of interest, did you have a listen to the 686s? I actually thought they were a better performer than the 685. The low-end on the 685 is a little soft IMO, and as my taste in sound tends to lean towards the bass-light side, I didn't miss any low-end when listening to the 686. Must admit I've never heard any Paradigms!

Have you filled out your stands properly? Mine were rubbish until I filled them up to the top with mason sand. Increases the weight beyond belief (they're now incredibly heavy), stops them from vibrating, and increases the low-end control and soundstage depth. It's worth doing if you haven't done it already, although make sure they're properly sealed, you don't want fine sand going everywhere!

As far as the DAC goes, if the signal is digital to the AX, then connected to the receiver, I assume that the AX does the conversion. The way I understand it is that the last digital device does the analog conversion, so if the AX is connected to the receiver with RCAs, it does the conversion. If I use the digital cable from the AX to the receiver, the receiver does the conversion, but if I have a DAC between the AX and receiver, it does the conversion and the analog signal passes through untouched by the receiver.

Do I have that down correctly?

Yep, bang on. Which model receiver do you have? It's extremely unlikely yours does this, but some receivers out there will pass EVERY signal that goes through the amp back into an ADC (analog to digital converter), through a DSP chip and then back out from a DAC into the amplifiers. Obviously, if yours does this, then you might as well go digitally into the amplifier and avoid the extra conversion step. Does this make sense?

As I say, it's unlikely your amp does this.

Yup, that's right. Sounds like you have things pretty much under control. I'll bet the Onkyo's Burr-Brown D/A conversion will give more pleasing results than whatever DAC is built into the AX, but your ears will tell you for sure.

There is more to digital-to-analog conversion than the chip used.

A DAC is made up out of several components:

• The Power Supply (all electronic devices need one, and in audio world, the quality of the power supply can have a big impact on the sound quality).
• The up-sampling and oversampling circuits. These artificially increase the resolution of the digital signal, a bit like making an image larger in photoshop and using the right enlargement algorithm. This increases the frequency at which 'sampling noise' is heard to way outside of the audible range, and smooths out the digital waveform in order to reduce the size of the 'steps' in sound.
• The conversion chip, in this case the burr-brown chip. There are loads of different chips out there. They do have an affect on the sound, but it's more about how they're used than the selection of chip.
• Word-clock elements, all DACs have them. The word-clock is the bit which regulates the speed at which bits of information are processed. Good word clocks have a very, VERY regular pulse (ie, in an ideal world they fire exactly 44,100 times a second for CD audio, with each pulse being the same length of time, and no variation in frequency). In the case of connecting an Airport Express to a DAC/receiver, the clock source is actually the Airport (ewww!). Good DACs will have clocking elements in them which can buffer the digital audio data and 'smooth out' the clock to improve the sonics.
• Analog filters - these are INCREDIBLY important! When you sample at 44.1KHz, you get all sorts of nasty audible noise as you approach ~20KHz. Even though most of this noise is above 20KHz, it's been shown to have a large impact on the way you perceive the sound produced. This is where up-sampling comes into affect, this noise is pushed up to 40 or even 80 KHz, which improves the situation vastly. Regardless, you still want to stop this noise from getting through to your amplifier and speakers as it can still have an impact on the final sound you perceive. This is where the analog filters come into play. These are essentially a 'treble cut-off' which cuts out all the nasty digital-noise in the upper registers. Really bad DACs often have have no analog filters present, and sound hard, brittle and harsh as a result. Other bad DACs use bad analog circuits, and these can change the tonality of the top-end (affecting cymbals, the rasp from saxophones, strings etc). Some of the worst DACs actually start filtering frequencies too low and cut out significant amounts of high frequencies.

DACs can affect the sound in strange ways. Bad DACs are brittle, hard and wearing to listen to over time. Good DACs are smooth but detailed, snappy, and sound BIG.

/essay

 

[emaja]

Top stuff. Out of interest, did you have a listen to the 686s? I actually thought they were a better performer than the 685. The low-end on the 685 is a little soft IMO, and as my taste in sound tends to lean towards the bass-light side, I didn't miss any low-end when listening to the 686. Must admit I've never heard any Paradigms!

Have you filled out your stands properly? Mine were rubbish until I filled them up to the top with mason sand.

I listen to such a broad range of music that there had to be tradeoffs. The B&Ws were very nicely balanced for the small group classic jazz and classical, but if I turned up the volume on some R&B or big band, the punch was missing.

I filled mine with lead shot. Those stands aren't going anywhere!

Thanks for the info on DACs.

 

[jsilas]

So I finally completed ripping all of my CDs in ALAC. And wouldn't you know it, this past weekend I was out with my brother and father in law, and they wanted to fire my handgun. I didn't have any ear protection, but fired anyway. My ears have been ringing for going on 4 days now.

At this point I'm hoping my hearing recovers. Sucks that I have all these great lossless files now, and good equipment to listen with, but my ears are all fubar.