WAV vs. AIFF

Tbg, please don't believe my assertion as it is not one, but more so my actual results. There is nothing to disbelieve other than an honest guy who actually A/B'd this and is sharing the outcome hoping to save others the headache of what I went through. Yeah we can start the age old argument of do transports make a difference, 'they are just bits.' But you would be preaching to the choir as I know things are not just 'bits'.....I am a long time believer in and owner of many different high end transports.

But please try comparing different file formats yourself and report back the outcome. Let's not worry about a mat for ripping and focus on the file type. Try comparing FLAC to WAV to AIFF and let us all know what you find. I am sure your mat has an affect, now just try your mat with a different file format. I wanted to rip everything in WAV and fully intended to until I did extensive A/B testing ripping in EAC, dbpoweramp and everything else under the sun. Disc space is a non-issue for me, so I had no reason to rip to FLAC unless it sounded the same. If you can hear a difference between WAV and FLAC, by all means rip away in WAV.

Not to extend the thread into a different area but the RME sound cards are every bit as good as the Lynx.....I A/Bd those as well.

Acurus, I have a Exemplar Music Server and at this moment cannot get my remote desk top HP to connect with it. John Tucker is trying to figure out why as my HP worked fine with his personal Music Server. Once I get over this problem, I will try to compare WAV, FLAC and AIFF rips. XP based Music Server sounded better.

I may be moving to using a Mac Mini with remote hard drives running through the new Lindemann digital to digital device into my S/PDIF input on my dac. But I don't want to use my new Mac Imac 24 for this. For one it is too big.

I am sorry about my over the top reaction. The "bit are bits" response drives me crazy.

It "may" be bits are bits, but what goes along with them bits gets screwed up. :)

Don't use wav. It does not hold tags and will bite you later. Wait till you have 20,000 songs (I have 26,000 in apple lossless) and want to put them on a new computer/server. Use AIFF if it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.... Lossless sounds the same to me (mac mini, Dac1).

PS. IPhones make a great remote for iTunes!!!

I have been using my mac mini for about 2 years as my main musical source (all transports GONE :) I did very heavy comparisons of AAC/WAV/AIFF and m4a(Apple lossless) my findings are that while Apple Lossless is very very good, you lose some air and overall dimensionality of the music seems to suffer. I do not use Apple Lossless for my home system, but it is what I use on my iPod touch and on my portable HDD for the car...etc. I keep redundant copies of my music (an A.L. and AIFF version) because HDD space is very very cheap these days.

Now WAV is very good, but after a lot of testing I found that WAV files generated by iTunes (this was iTunes 8.x, not 9 (can't remember the exact version)) do not seem to sound as good as AIFF. I then used a program called MAX which is very very good for doing all kinds of musical file conversions and found that the WAV files and AIFF were virtually indistinguishable.

Currently as stated above I use AIFF, primarily because iTunes tags everything for me. I would say they are about equal but I would NOT use iTunes to create my WAV files. I use a Meitner Bidat for DA duties and the sound is ... :)

I have been told that Apple Lossless sounds just like uncompressed files (even one of the so-called golden stereophile guys claimed this a few years back). I believe the people making the claim believe that, it may be the limitation of their system or their ears, but I can definitely hear the difference. Now in the car...I don't care, I am just passively listening to the music as I also listen to engine when down shifting into 3rd but I digress! Happy Listening!!!