WAV or Apple Lossless Encoder?

My mistake instead of using the word much for my adjective i should have used significantly more.

The process that Apple lossless uses to "compress" the file reduces the file size but not not delete any data. Think of it like a ZIP file, which reduces the size of a file but when upzipped the data is exactly the same as you started. Apples lossless and flac do a similar process. There are well known algorithms for doing this type of "compression". They look for patterns that they can store in less space. So the "compression" uses less space but maintains all the original data. When the file is played back, the file is "de-compressed" to its orignal form. The earlier discussion in this thread is about possible subtle differences in Apple lossless encoding, but that is a different issue that the 50% difference in file size.

My copy of Pop Pop arrives today and I will doing some listening this weekend.

WAV and AIFF are uncompressed. Yes wav is pc based and aiff is mac based both are perfect pitch. I would go with aiff because its mac based, their for the art work is easy to get.

I don't think it was the use of the adjective, "much," but the use of the word "not". Your post implied the compression was not significant. I'd suggest cutting the file size by almost half IS significant compression, especially given that you lose nothing in the process. Overall, I think we're on the same page though :-)

Dtc - PopPop is a favorite album of mine, but certainly not a necessary component of the test. You could try it with any well recorded cut (preferably one with good soundstaging and detail). PopPop is certainly a great choice though.

This debate about which encoder is better wav or apple lossless could go on forever. The best thing to do is to import your cd in both wav and apple lossess and listen for yourself. I just prefer wav encoder for my cd transfers, to me i can sometimes here an audible difference. Wav and apple lossless are both hi quality encoders.