What's your favorite audio codec?

I personally will buy more storage if it meant improving sonics since it is so cheap, so moot point. Unless your worried about space on an iPod itself or other portable player. This is the very reason I like ALAC. Although in my trials I could not hear any difference between FLAC AND ALAC, if you can you're a better ear than me. Although I feel I heard better with WAV, could be in my head.

Anyway, I have no interest in worrying about compressing my audio files more on my home system, particularly where I have a TB of space.I worry about space-saving for music that travels, which is only worthy of headphones anyway.

Apple Lossless is as good if not better than all you swear are the better here in this thread, sorry to say. I am well versed on the subject as well, and I work very closely with this technology. Also in case you weren't aware, I have a USB DAC with a tubed output, so all my music is HDD based, all ALAC, with error correction, and it sounds better than the actual CD on a Meridian G08 CD player. Go figure...

AAC 128 is darn good...AAC 256 is almost undetectable from uncompressed CD quality, IMHO

07-19-07: Shadorne
AAC 128 is darn good...AAC 256 is almost undetectable from uncompressed CD quality, IMHO

On a portable player, yes (I use 224 AAC on my iPod when not using Apple Lossless for well-recorded stuff), but on a music server played through a hi-end home system, discernable 100 out of 100 times easily. That's the problem; a resolving dedicated home system can spot lossy compression a mile away.

S-VHS looked great on a 19" monitor, but on my 110" Stewart screen it was basically unwatchable.

I have to agree with Osgorth here. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying Jc51373, and I think you may have been mislead.

ALAC is not 1:1, it is lossless compression, just like FLAC or Monkey's. (That's why it's called Apple Lossless Audio Codec, like FLAC is called Free Lossless Audio Codec). WAV and AIFF are uncompressed. However, all lossless compression is MATHEMATICALLY IDENTICAL to uncompressed audio. That means that WAV sounds EXACTLY like ALAC which sounds EXACTLY like FLAC which sounds EXACTLY like Monkey's. So the only difference between these is encoding speed (how quickly your computer can convert the file into ALAC or FLAC or whatever) and size.

This being said, why wouldn't you go for the smallest lossless compression? It's smaller, and still sounds IDENTICAL to the original WAV. ALAC already compresses, but just not as well as FLAC. Sure storage space may be cheap, but it's not free. Lossless compression will save you a lot of money and will still sound exactly like the CD.

There is absolutely no difference in how WAV sounds compared with lossless compression.

Ledhed2222- I am not sure you have read all of what I have said if your misunderstanding, or this entire thread for that matter-I use LOSSLESS..How am I misinformed? I am not the one who said ALAC sucks compared to a format that has little mainstream support and sounds the same. And if the three (ALAC,FLAC,Monkey) are the same as you say, how can you think that ALAC sucks (sonically speaking)? Like I said, I can't hear the difference between the three lossless formats. And here on an Audio forum, we care more about sonics than having storage discussions. Which is my point. ALAC provides support, is well written, and sounds the same as the others. As far as sound difference between WAV and lossless, I said it could be in my head. Operative word COULD.

Next question- if WAV and ALAC are mathematically identical to uncompressed (WAV) like you say then how come you say in the same breath, lossless is not 1:1?? Your logic seems flawed.

Anyway, I use ALAC because I use iTunes exclusively, on a MAC and it is just easier, and sonically I can't hear the difference between the lossless formats-although its been a few months since I listened to the ones you swear are better. But I have had issues using other codecs with iTunes from a support perspective. Sounds like you may using awindows-based PC? Which are sonically inferior in the first place, without a shadow of a doubt. I heard significant differences when I used a XP-based machine with a properly configured ASIO, regardless of the codec I chose. So I switched to MAC since Apple drivers have much better control over the hardware than Windows will EVER be capable of. For my application this was critical. Ultimately this what I based my decision on when choosing a codec as well, all Apple software is written very well; ALAC is no different.

In the end, this debate is a waste of time. All the Lossless codecs sound the same to my ear. If it is a storage debate you want to create, like I said I have oooodles of it, so I am not worried about sacrificing a few MBs per file-unless sonics were to improve along with. Just make sure and point out why something "sucks", like I have here.

In the end, the benefits of savings physical storage space by move my music to HDD vastly outweighs any additional investment I might need to make in it.