Ripping CDs for DAC - AAC or WAV?

[slee104611]

Hello,

Just acquired a DAC and getting into computer music - I want to use either WAV or AAC but which is better for sound quality or does it make a difference?

Thanks

 

[hpsenicka]

The magic word is "lossless".

AAC is lossy, not lossless.

 

[Sheddingskin]

Use WAV and don't look back. I reburnt my collevtion a few times in higher bitrates before I said screw it and just did it all in WAV. You'll never be dissappointed that you could have had better quality.

 

[elcoholic]

For portable or stationary use? If portable, how big is your laptop or iPod and how many songs do you want to have on it? For un-modded IPod use I've found that AAC files at 192 or 256 VBR are about as good as it can deliver. That gives me about 10-11,000 songs on my 80 gb 5.5 gen iPod. If I ever spring for a Redwine Imod than I'll go back, cull my faves and rip those in lossless. IIRC with lossless files an 80 gB iPod would hold 3,000 songs. Here's a handy link http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ilounge/calculator/.

 

[Andyman]

I rip to WAV and sync my 16 Gb Touch to a couple smart playlists.
That's good for 429 songs right now and with the smart playlists they constantly change, so what I listen to today gets swapped out on a sync when I plug it in f or it's nightly recharge.

One doesn't need to take their entire library with them all the time.

 

[elcoholic]

I too use smart playlist extensively to constantly mine fresh songs. I have a dozen lists each by genre that pull 50 songs by album not played or skipped in the last 6 weeks from a pool list of 78 gb. This pool list uses another hierarchy of smartlists on my computer that refreshes that pool. The whole library right now is 19634 songs 110 gb. For me less is less and more is more. I can go 70 days 24 hours a day without syncing and never hear the same song twice unless I want to. Not that I do, but I like the fact that I can. Of course if the iPod had better sound quality I'd gladly go with bigger files and make do with less songs in my pocket.

 

[sgmlaw]

Hello,

Just acquired a DAC and getting into computer music - I want to use either WAV or AAC but which is better for sound quality or does it make a difference?

Thanks

WAV is better quality between those two.

The better question is WAV or FLAC.

I still prefer the simplicity of WAV, but there is a large FLAC following today.

FLAC offers tagging.

 

[tututpouet]

Hello,

Just acquired a DAC and getting into computer music - I want to use either WAV or AAC but which is better for sound quality or does it make a difference?

Thanks

I only have FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files ripped with EAC (exact audio copy). To me that's perfect, no quality loss at all.

 

[wizargoz]

+1 what tututpouet said.

However, Flac can be compressed in EAC (about 25% of full song size) with no audible difference, since like a Zip file, it is compressed but expands when played. And Flac is an open source technology...

 

[bottlerocket]

Windows or OSX? What player are you using? FLAC is not as well supported on the MAC as Itunes will not play FLAC. Other MAC players like Play and Amarra will however. WAV does not support metadata so no album art, but sonically it is good and is supported under Itunes. Other options for a MAC are AIFF which is not lossy and not compressed and ALAC which is not lossy and is compressed. FLAC is also not lossy and is compressed. If drive space matters to you FLAC is good on Windows and ALAC is good on OSX.

 

[Stanga]

I can add tags etc to WAV with the latest version of Tag&Rename.

 

[dsdurkes]

I am ripping to FLAC format and keeping those files on an external drive. Then I convert the ones I want on my iThing to mp3. I've found saving in too high a bit rate prevents syncing however, so experiment with the proper setting (see answer above)

You might try using Media Monkey, as I understand MM now supports syncing to iThingers. I use iTunes with my iPhone but am anxious to try Media Monkey. The paid version also offers format conversion (to/from WAV,FLAC,MP3, etc).

 

[ldatlof]

I only have FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files ripped with EAC (exact audio copy). To me that's perfect, no quality loss at all.

+2 :thmbsp:

 

[Punker X]

I am ripping to FLAC format and keeping those files on an external drive. Then I convert the ones I want on my iThing to mp3. I've found saving in too high a bit rate prevents syncing however, so experiment with the proper setting (see answer above)

You might try using Media Monkey, as I understand MM now supports syncing to iThingers. I use iTunes with my iPhone but am anxious to try Media Monkey. The paid version also offers format conversion (to/from WAV,FLAC,MP3, etc).

I had major problems with media monkey. Worked fine until my library got bigger than my Ipod. Then it would just hang, would end up formating it and resyncing with itunes to get it working again. When it worked it worked great, when it didn't, it was a huge head ache.

Haven't tried it yet, but foobar has a foopod extension that is suppose to work with Itunes to sync with foobar playlists.

 

[trhee]

Use WAV or AIFF and never look back. External hard drives are so cheap these days.

I rip everything in AIFF and have a 2TB external only for iTunes and am currently at around 40,000 songs. I stream to my main audio system using a Logitech Squeezebox.

 

[Millstone]

Use WAV or AIFF and never look back. External hard drives are so cheap these days.

I rip everything in AIFF and have a 2TB external only for iTunes and am currently at around 40,000 songs. I stream to my main audio system using a Logitech Squeezebox.

This again. Why would you not use a 21st century lossless compression scheme that supports proper tagging? I don't understand all you people still using WAV and AIFF and not FLAC and ALAC.