WAV or Apple Lossless Encoder?

Jax2 - I have been wanting to get Pop Pop for a while so this seemed like a good time. A lot of the music I listen to (50s/60s jazz and female jazz vocalist) often does not have great sound stage, so I thought I would eliminate that variable and go with what you were using. I recently did a comparison of my PC with a McIntosh 301 CD with top end McIntosh equipment - MDA 1000 DAC, pre, tube power and speakers. Used 301 as a transport so both player and PC went through the DAC. On a lot of my music there was little difference between my PC and the McIntosh 301. However my dealer pulled out some of his favorite test tracks and then we cound definitely hear a soundstage difference. My PC was more forward and a little more detailed that the McIntosh CD player. I liked the PC, he liked the McIntosh. The differences were comparable to listening to CD players from different vendors.

I did try comparing the bits of some EAC rips converted to Apple lossless and then back to wave. Using EAC to compare the original and the twice converted file EAC reported no differences in the files. Also tried several tracks ripped with iTunes to Apple lossless and then converted to wave by iTunes. Again, EAC compare showed they were the same as the EAC ripped track. Next step is some detailed listening which I hope to do this weekend.

Does anyone know of a free ftp server site that allows people to exchange large files? There used to be ones that you could just access through a browser without having to set up server software, but I have not used one in a while. That would make trying different files easier.

Jax2 - I have been wanting to get Pop Pop for a while so this seemed like a good time. A lot of the music I listen to (50s/60s jazz and female jazz vocalist) often does not have great sound stage, so I thought I would eliminate that variable and go with what you were using.

Cool - I think you'll like her. Hey, if those are your tastes, here's another outstanding female jazz vocalist who made her name in the late 60's. The CD is from 2008 though: Norma Winstone, Distances on ECM. Recording is outstanding, as is soundstage. Highly recommended if you like that genre.

Pop Pop is a fun CD. Still need to do some critical listening. I was aware of the Norma Winstone CD since it was nominated for a Grammy, along with Karrin Allyson's Imagina and Stacey Kent's Breakfast on the Morning Train, two vocalists that I really like. I will have to get a copy of Distances. ECM always does a great job on their CDs.

Last night, I finally got to compare ALAC files ripped with EAC and iTunes - used test and copy to generate the EAC wave files and used error correction with iTunes (V 8.0.2.20). I used iTunes to convert wave to ALAC. My wife(she has better ears than I) and I separately compared several tracks playing through iTunes, including Bye Bye Blackbird from Pop Pop. We both originally thought we could hear differences but in the end neither of us could reliably identify differences. If there were differences they were too subtle to identify reliably. Interesting, the differences we both originally thought we heard were not with soundstage but with the amount of air around notes and the attack in the treble. Unfortunately, iTunes does not have an ABX comparison routine which is very useful for finding subtle differences. I also played the same tracks through my CD player (output to the same DAC) and compared them to iTunes and again any differences were too small to identify reliably.

I also tried comparing the same tracks through J River Media Center 13 using flac files. I thought the J River was a little more dynamic but it is hard to compare different players in real time. Any differences with iTunes and J River were small at most, but I need to do more work on that.

My system is not overly detailed - it is set up as a smooth more "musical" system. Classe CP-65 pre, Levinson 432 amp, Sonus Faber Cremona speakers with Transparent Ultra cables. CD is Classe CDP 10 and DAC is Musical Fidelity A3.24. My USB to optical converter is a Turtle Beach, which is the weakest link in the system. I am sure the jitter will come up, but it does sound very similar to my Classe CD player, so I do not think it is hurting very much. Also, I did prefer my PC source to a McIntosh MC301 CD player (in an all McIntosh system), which is a pretty good player. I will probably replace the USB converter with a 24/192 one in the future - probably using J River.

Moving to J River will mean I probably will start using EAC so it is easier to generate flac files. But I see no reason to re-rip my existing libary at this point.

I would be happy to post my Bye Bye Blackbird files to a ftp server (if I can find a reliable one) if anyone would like to try my files.

Dtc - thanks for trying that out and posting. Your results do not surprise me given I could hear the difference clearly on one system and not on another. Peter's system, and my main system are highly resolving I'd say, whereas the system I could not hear the difference on is not. I think also the two systems where the difference was clear had much more effective jitter reduction active, and I'd guess that played even more of a roll. I'd be very interested to hear if anyone else gives it a try. Glad you enjoyed PopPop - yes it is a fun CD! I don't follow the Grammy's so wasn't aware that Winstone had been nominated - cool beans. Yes ECM artists and recordings reflect a consistently high standard of excellence.