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iPod lossless vs CD audio quality

R

robertnjax

Active Member
It seems like this topic was discussed earlier, BUT, I can't find it.

I was looking at the iPod Nano player. It featured a "lossless" method of downloading music. I was also planning on plugging this little unit into my C2200 pre amp....wondered if it would sound is as good as (or close) to a CD:scratch2:

Appreciate and hints as to the title of the thread that covers this issue:D

Thanks,
Robert
 
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lossless what? mp3? I don't think any format is truely lossless besides WAVE.

and you'll need a good Ipod dock, and an external DAC, otherwise, you will have crappy sound.

Keep them spinning,
Bert.
 
apple lossless is a lossless compression format. Bit for bit identical to the cd orginal. Will your ipod (playing lossless files) sound as good as a CD player plugged into our c2200. Not likley. Mine doesent anyway.
 
I was looking at the iPod Nano player. It featured a "lossless" method of downloading music. I was also planning on plugging this little unit into my C2200 pre amp....wondered if it would sound is as good as (or close) to a CD
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If you are talking about downloading from iTunes, much of the content is 128kbps with some at 256 now. The 256 is much better but neither is "lossless" and neither will compare to CD quality. Now, ripping your own CDs to iTunes in apple lossless and transferring them to your ipod is a different story, with a dock that gives you preamp out, it will be close to CD quality. I would suggest going with as much of an ipod storage capacity as you can get because ripping in apple lossless will take up much more space on your ipod. If you want to use a computer to store and play lossless files on your main system you can even get the airport express and use digital out/preamp out to your DAC/preamp wirelessly but I believe the airport express only works with airport extreme wireless stations.
 
PHC1 said:
If you are talking about downloading from iTunes, much of the content is 128kbps with some at 256 now. The 256 is much better but neither is "lossless" and neither will compare to CD quality. Now, ripping your own CDs to iTunes in apple lossless and transferring them to your ipod is a different story, with a dock that gives you preamp out, it will be close to CD quality. I would suggest going with as much of an ipod storage capacity as you can get because ripping in apple lossless will take up much more space on your ipod. If you want to use a computer to store and play lossless files on your main system you can even get the airport express and use digital out/preamp out to your DAC/preamp wirelessly but I believe the airport express only works with airport extreme wireless stations.
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How much space is saved using Apple Lossless vs. just ripping as a WAV?
 
Apple Lossless eliminates 25-50% of the file size of the original file format. You cannot download music in Apple Lossless from the iTunes Music Store; however iTunes can rip your music in Apple Lossless if you tell it to (I think it's under the Advanced pane of the Preferences panel).

The iTunes Music Store features tracks in "iTunes Plus" format from selected labels... EMI was the first; there may be others now. It is higher quality than regular iTunes tracks and is free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) which limits the number of times you can copy a track, what players you can use it on, etc. At first iTunes Plus tracks came at a premium ($1.29 versus $.99) but Apple has since dropped the price on iTunes Plus for most if not all tracks, so that everything is $.99. So if you have the choice, there's no reason not to buy a "Plus" version of a song, unless you're concerned about file size.
 
I believe that if you want CD quality, use a CD player, I have several Ipods, first, second, third, fifth and the new Ipod Nano, the quality of sound has been improving over the life cycle of the units, but at the end of the day, all the music stored on an Ipod or any MP3 player is still ripped with some loss of intregrity to the file. Just my 2 cents worth!
 
Scott342 said:
all the music stored on an Ipod or any MP3 player is still ripped with some loss of intregrity to the file. Just my 2 cents worth!
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not according to John Atkinson of Sterophile. files ripped with apple lossless are bit for bit identical to their CD source.

Is the ipod a competent enough device to play back that stream as well as a good CD player? I doubt it. The quality of an ipod playing back an uncompressed aif or file encoded with apple lossless, is only as good as the device itself. It is like hooking up a portable CD player to your big rig. How good does that sound?

What is interesting is that you can stream itunes files from your mac or pc to an apple express modem and run a digital cable from the modem to a high end dac to decode the stream. If you want to get the most out of itunes, this is the route to go
 
basite said:
I don't think any format is truely lossless besides WAVE.


Bert.
Click to expand...

Lots of miss information here. Check out the Mc server product. I believe Mc uses flac – a lossless compression format to store the music on their hard drive. Reports I’ve read, say the stream from their server (playing lossless compressed files) going into the MDA1000 are as good as a CD played from the MDC transport!

Also DVD-A and SACD’s use a lossless compression scheme to store the data on these discs. DVD-A is MPL (Meridian lossless packing)
 
ruffoc said:
What is interesting is that you can stream itunes files from your mac or pc to an apple express modem and run a digital cable from the modem to a high end dac to decode the stream. If you want to get the most out of itunes, this is the route to go
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Good info here. I'm using an AppleTV that is streamed from my PC via ethernet and then into my Denon AVR via optical. This uses the DAC's in my AVR and it sounds pretty good. I have everything ripped at 192 kbps (started years ago when storage was more expensive) but I've been considering reripping my CD's with Apple lossless. Problem is the ATV does not identify which files are ripped with various formats or compression. I tested this ripping the WAV files and the title just shows multiple times. I'll try it again using lossless.
 
Technically "CD Quality" and "Lossless" should be exactly the same thing. You (supposedly) aren't losing anything from the original CD, hence "lossless" and something (allegedly) that is exactly the same as the original CD quality CD must be CD quality.

Now if "lossless" actually means "less loss" then CD quality should be better.

Those fruity (Apple) computers don't deserve all the FLAC they get.
 
basite said:
lossless what? mp3? I don't think any format is truely lossless besides WAVE.
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Then why would it be called lossless? If it wasn't bit for bit accurate it would be called lossy. FLAC, APE, Apple Lossless, SHN, etc. are all lossless formats. When you compress them and then uncompress them you'll have bit-accurate copies of the original files. It's easy to prove, all you have to do is rip an HDCD encoded disc into your choice of lossless format and then uncompress those files back to wav files and burn to cdr. When you play it back on a player with an HDCD decoder they'll decode properly. I don't get what's so hard to understand that lossless means no data loss. Ever use a zip file? Same principle applies to lossless music formats.


mp3, ogg, mpc and other lossy formats all toss out data using psychoacoustics to shrink the file size and you'll never get that data back.
 
I have Dire Straits first album ripped in three different formats. Here are the various bit rates and file sizes for the song Sultans of Swing.

WAV: 1411 kbs 60.080 mb
Apple lossless (M4A): 941 kbs 42.263 mb 70.3% of WAV
MP3: 192 kbs 8.178 mb 13.6% of WAV

So Apple lossless saves space and is inline with what was stated earlier. It would be significant if you ripped your whole collection.
 
I rip in lossless. Keep the original disc on the shelf for archival, burn as many CDs as you need from the lossless files without any loss in quality. That way I don't have to treat my CDs like some precious artifact when I'm in the car.
 
Fedallah said:
I rip in lossless. Keep the original disc on the shelf for archival, burn as many CDs as you need from the lossless files without any loss in quality. That way I don't have to treat my CDs like some precious artifact when I'm in the car.
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I do this for demo cds at work. Those things get beaten up!

Lossless compression schemes are, as was said earlier, using a similar process to zip files or RAR files. Lossy compression is really a weirder thing. With the storage in modern computers there are few reasons to use any type of lossy compression.
 
I use EAC for a bit perfect rip and then convert to apple lossless. You'd be amazed how much space it actually saves when you start filling up a 500gb server. As for the ipod vs cd. Well look at it this way - most cd players with not reproduce music bit perfect where the ipod can. Will it actually sound better coming out of your nano? Umm no.
 
blownsi said:
I use EAC for a bit perfect rip and then convert to apple lossless. You'd be amazed how much space it actually saves when you start filling up a 500gb server. As for the ipod vs cd. Well look at it this way - most cd players with not reproduce music bit perfect where the ipod can. Will it actually sound better coming out of your nano? Umm no.
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Can you explain why rip using EAC first before Apple lossless or are you keeping both files on your hd.
 
Duffinator said:
Can you explain why rip using EAC first before Apple lossless or are you keeping both files on your hd.
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EAC has advanced error-detection and fixing abilities. While most programs just sweep the laser across the disc and write down whatever they see, EAC doublechecks everything and if any bit isn't making sense it'll rescan it until it gets it right.

This can take time, but many people say that an EAC rip of a disc is the best possible reproduction of the data on the disc, especially in the case of scratched CDs, and even if there were problems in the initial printing of the CD, EAC will often catch and correct them.
 
I use EAC as well, ripping to .flac to preserve tagging. I then convert to apple lossless and import into ITUNES. For now I'm preserving both formats as we primarily play the .flac files over our home network to a laptop in the living room rig and in our offices via our desktop computers. Using a 4G ipod through the dock's line-out I find the sound as good as or superior to my Sony DVP S-300 although the signal level is significantly less on the ipod. It's a heck of a lot more convenient though than looking though 600 CD's.
 
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