I'm supposed to be working so i'm happy to spend the time writing here instead of writing my script. got a dog to walk? i'm there.
Ok, first when you burn a cd uncompressed the files aren't EAC files, they're wav files. EAC is simply the program that burns the cds as wav files. Wav files are said to be the most perfect copies. Steve at Empirical Audio seems to validate this based on his listening experience. (He's got a chart on his website that shows what he found regarding listening with mac vs pc, lossless v. wav, etc.) Apple will no doubt tell you there is no difference between a track burned as a wav file and one burned as an apple lossless file except that the latter is of smaller size so you can store more songs on your ipod and computer. Being so concerned with sound and not wanting to ever have to discover apple was wrong and thereby having to reburn my music, i'm going to stick with burning wav files only. The reason I suggested burning in Wav and also lossless was to have the 'best' copies on your computer for computer playback (wav) and get copies of them as lossless files to be able to put more songs on the limited ipod space as possible. However, it requires careful cataloging (you could burn every cd in wav and then create a playlist called, let's say "Lossless" in itunes, drag the wav files into that list and convert those to lossless (you simply highlight the tracks and using the advanced tab click 'convert to apple lossless' and it's done automatically for you. Then use that playlist to drag onto your ipod (again, only to save space.) I just tried this and a song that was 36.2 mb as a wav file became 24.2 as a lossless file so you can do the math and determine if the extra work is worth the space you save.
Of course, if getting as many songs on your ipod isn't that important and you want to be sure to have the absolute best copy of your tracks on your computer, i would just burn everything in wav and if you use itunes that's fine. you can load up your ipod with wav files...no reason to convert (other than to save some space.) if you decide to use foobar (which is said to sound better when using a pc than using itunes with a pc) that's fine too. the music is on your hard drive and doesn't care what program you use to listen to it...change as often as you like and experiment with no harm to your original music files.
One big consideration would be this: If you were to burn your cds as lossless files, can you ever go back to wav files if suddenly everyone starts saying these are indeed better? I don't think you can but i'm not sure. Therefore, the safest bet is to just go wav. that answers your original question #2. don't wait, burn to wav and you can always convert automatically to lossless if you want down the road.
to answer your original quesion #1: steve at empirical audio claims that apple is correct: lossless files heard through a mac sound better than through a pc. again, check the chart at http://www.empiricalaudio.com/ (click on computer audio and scroll down) to see what steve's ears told him during his a/b testing.
Ok, first when you burn a cd uncompressed the files aren't EAC files, they're wav files. EAC is simply the program that burns the cds as wav files. Wav files are said to be the most perfect copies. Steve at Empirical Audio seems to validate this based on his listening experience. (He's got a chart on his website that shows what he found regarding listening with mac vs pc, lossless v. wav, etc.) Apple will no doubt tell you there is no difference between a track burned as a wav file and one burned as an apple lossless file except that the latter is of smaller size so you can store more songs on your ipod and computer. Being so concerned with sound and not wanting to ever have to discover apple was wrong and thereby having to reburn my music, i'm going to stick with burning wav files only. The reason I suggested burning in Wav and also lossless was to have the 'best' copies on your computer for computer playback (wav) and get copies of them as lossless files to be able to put more songs on the limited ipod space as possible. However, it requires careful cataloging (you could burn every cd in wav and then create a playlist called, let's say "Lossless" in itunes, drag the wav files into that list and convert those to lossless (you simply highlight the tracks and using the advanced tab click 'convert to apple lossless' and it's done automatically for you. Then use that playlist to drag onto your ipod (again, only to save space.) I just tried this and a song that was 36.2 mb as a wav file became 24.2 as a lossless file so you can do the math and determine if the extra work is worth the space you save.
Of course, if getting as many songs on your ipod isn't that important and you want to be sure to have the absolute best copy of your tracks on your computer, i would just burn everything in wav and if you use itunes that's fine. you can load up your ipod with wav files...no reason to convert (other than to save some space.) if you decide to use foobar (which is said to sound better when using a pc than using itunes with a pc) that's fine too. the music is on your hard drive and doesn't care what program you use to listen to it...change as often as you like and experiment with no harm to your original music files.
One big consideration would be this: If you were to burn your cds as lossless files, can you ever go back to wav files if suddenly everyone starts saying these are indeed better? I don't think you can but i'm not sure. Therefore, the safest bet is to just go wav. that answers your original question #2. don't wait, burn to wav and you can always convert automatically to lossless if you want down the road.
to answer your original quesion #1: steve at empirical audio claims that apple is correct: lossless files heard through a mac sound better than through a pc. again, check the chart at http://www.empiricalaudio.com/ (click on computer audio and scroll down) to see what steve's ears told him during his a/b testing.