I think everyone should try this at home and report the results... I was alerted to this by a leading manufacturer of PC audio related gear (who can identify himself), and found it to be true. Here is the test:
1) Burn a song from a clean CD to a wav file using EAC (this is now very easy to do, the software is free, downloadable, and very user friendly).
2) Import that wav file into Itunes and convert it to an apple lossless file (you need your default import setting set to lossless to do this).
3) Using the same CD, rip the same song directly into Itunes in lossless format using error correction.
4) Compare the two lossless files.
I've done this, and I was astonishly saddened to hear the results (because I ripped all my music in lossless). The lossless file generated through Itunes had less seperation b/t instruments (poorer imaging), sounded slightly less "alive", and (I believe) more "smearing" of the sound. I haven't done this yet, but I wonder if the same observation would be made through an Itunes generated WAV file vs. an Itunes generated lossless file.
I'm convinced this is real. I asked a non-audiophile friend to do the same listening comparison, told her nothing about what she was hearing, and she made the same observations. Marco (Jax2) will do the test tonight.
WE DO NEED DATA, AND I THINK THE MOST CREDIBLE SOURCE IS MULTIPLE PEOPLE DOING THIS COMPARISON. PLEASE DO YOURS TODAY :) - AND REPORT BACK WHAT YOU FIND.
1) Burn a song from a clean CD to a wav file using EAC (this is now very easy to do, the software is free, downloadable, and very user friendly).
2) Import that wav file into Itunes and convert it to an apple lossless file (you need your default import setting set to lossless to do this).
3) Using the same CD, rip the same song directly into Itunes in lossless format using error correction.
4) Compare the two lossless files.
I've done this, and I was astonishly saddened to hear the results (because I ripped all my music in lossless). The lossless file generated through Itunes had less seperation b/t instruments (poorer imaging), sounded slightly less "alive", and (I believe) more "smearing" of the sound. I haven't done this yet, but I wonder if the same observation would be made through an Itunes generated WAV file vs. an Itunes generated lossless file.
I'm convinced this is real. I asked a non-audiophile friend to do the same listening comparison, told her nothing about what she was hearing, and she made the same observations. Marco (Jax2) will do the test tonight.
WE DO NEED DATA, AND I THINK THE MOST CREDIBLE SOURCE IS MULTIPLE PEOPLE DOING THIS COMPARISON. PLEASE DO YOURS TODAY :) - AND REPORT BACK WHAT YOU FIND.