AIFF vs Apple Lossless Ripping

Herman said:
Some people claim they can hear a difference and attribute this to the process of decoding the lossless file as the music is playing. I agree you should convert some and give it a listen to decide whether it is worth the effort.

Thanks, Herman. I suspected there was something I wasn't understanding. I believe some A-B'ing is in order.

I have seen plenty of claims made for FLAC as being superior, but to my knowledge, there are ease of use issues when trying to use FLAC files with iTunes. Is there an easy way to do FLAC files with iTunes, and if so, would it be worth the time to re-rip the collection?

Rabco - I had the same dilemma. FLAC is more popular open standard while ALC is Apple's own. I decided to stay with Mac (I love this thing - had PC before) and don't see disadvantage of using Itunes and ALC. Compression is about the same and there is always option to batch convert whole drive to FLAC if I need it in the future (no need to re-rip).

In my system, mac mini -->benchmark usb --> ATC SCM-10 active monitors, AIFF has more slam than ALC. My wife heard it right away as well.

Jimmywho - are you sure it was lossless (extension mp4a and file size about 50% of original)? I compared again sound of ALC over Airport Express, this time to direct connection CD player to Benchmark and cannot hear the difference.

Jimmywho, Which version of iTunes are you using? Apple Lossless did sound
different in older version. I could hear that too. But Apple has fixed that
probably in version 7 or 8. I can't be sure when because I don't have the old
version anymore. If you got that impression from version 6, try it again with
the latest version.