Apple Lossless vs iTunes Plus

Addendum:

The LaCie 2big Triple was a great RAID unit, but too noisy for the desktop, fan runs continuously, 'Auto' switch did nothing (wouldn't sleep), and the one-push-button on the front is 2big and 2bright. It was well built though. Heavy [duty] metal enclosure and drive trays. It's hard finding the perfect solution (4 drives; 2 for RAID 1 / 2 for JBOD separate access).

Looking at CalDigit VR instead. More $$ but more features/expandable/upgradable.

Blindjim,

I do find still greater diffs using FLAC vs. Apple lossless too... and this might be due to the media player or codec (s) being used. FLAC having simply more resolution and detail which offers greater presence. AIF is quite close though... and actually a near toss up.... again, I'm thinking it's the decoders and encoders being used.

I'd like to point out for the sake of clarity that you are experiencing some kind of placebo effect here. It is mathematically impossible that FLAC, Apple Lossless, and AIFF or WAV are producing difference results in sound quality.

They are all going to produce exactly the exact same bits when decoded, and they'll do so repeatedly without error. It's what makes them lossless.

It's precisely the same thing that makes an archive that's been zipped, gzipped, rar'd, or bzip2'd produce exactly the same uncompressed result when it's been expanded/inflated. The compression/decompression mechanism is lossless.

OMG Naschbac...

I'd like to point out for the sake of clarity that you are experiencing some kind of placebo effect here. It is mathematically impossible that....

You've been captured TOO!

This is some scary sh%t going on here! As if it wasn't enough that Placebos had attacked myself, a highly respected engineer/audio electronics manufacturer and an esteemed enthusiast with great ears to convince the three of us that one codec actually sounds better - or at least different - than another codec. Now Placebos have infiltrated and are attacking mathematics!!!

I fear this is worse than the dark day of Bill Murray's "...Run For Your Life! Lobster Attack!!!"

Desperate Urgency,
Robert
RSAD

It is mathematically impossible that FLAC, Apple Lossless, and AIFF or WAV are producing difference results in sound quality.

Yet they most certainly can sound different. It must be that New Math you may have missed at school.

Good thought about the New Math Jax2 but....

To me seems the issue is more likely about Placebos. That's what's really freaking me out. It's really become quite an insidious phenomena.

I watched House three nights ago and it dealt with this very infection. It was inevitably an episode with a rare sad ending for House. Dr. House went through all his usual drama and suspense with the hospital staff and the patient which took up most of the episode. In a climatic end when Dr. House finally got the diagnosis correct - patient infected with a Placebo - it was too late. The patient died from a Placebo infection. HELLO? - I think a message was sent! If House missed this I think that should serve as a wake up call for all of us!

I was talking with an enthusiast out East last week. He's part of a rather large Audio Club out there. In March they had about 30 members gathered for their monthly meet and they each did a 'Paint By Numbers' painting together. Surely if mathematics could solely be used to determine what they hear in their playback systems and that, based on identical numbers, there would be no audible difference, a 'Paint By Numbers' test would illustrate and validate that. That was indeed the assumption most of the guys at the meet had. The result? Even though all the 'Paint By Numbers' sets were identical numerically and in every other respect, there were substantial differences between the finished paintings! Most of the guys were totally and absolutely freaked! What's sad is some still desperately denied the differences.

My conclusion, and I hope others begin to see this too, is that Placebo infections are indeed more rampant and insidious than I or anyone else thought.

Let alone the other areas of our lives, in this hobby, whether we're lowly and uneducated or highly esteemed for our double E degree education, whether we use our ears or whether we use mathematics to determine what we hear, no one is immune to attack. It seems apparent that we're all susceptible to some strain of Placebo infection - especially with Spring just around the corner.

Please take URGENT HEED!

Robert
RSAD