AIFF vs Apple Lossless Ripping

Jax2 - Equivalent of EAC for Mac is "MAX". I set mine to "do not allow skipping" and it reads music disk as data disk - bit by bit. It converts any format to any format. It even allows to download album's cover.

I send music from MacMini to Benchmark DAC1 using Airport Express and cannot hear any difference between AIFF and Apple Lossless.

One reason you may not hear a difference is that the Mac sends everything to the Airport as Apple Lossless. It converts the AIFF file to lossless and then the AE converts it back to SPDIF for your Dac. There is also a fair amount of jitter coming from the AE which might mask differences if there actually are any.

Herman - Thanks, I didn't know that. As for the jitter Benchmark is practically jitter immune.

Herman said:
Some people claim they can hear a difference and attribute this to the process of decoding the lossless file as the music is playing. I agree you should convert some and give it a listen to decide whether it is worth the effort.

Thanks, Herman. I suspected there was something I wasn't understanding. I believe some A-B'ing is in order.

I have seen plenty of claims made for FLAC as being superior, but to my knowledge, there are ease of use issues when trying to use FLAC files with iTunes. Is there an easy way to do FLAC files with iTunes, and if so, would it be worth the time to re-rip the collection?

Rabco - I had the same dilemma. FLAC is more popular open standard while ALC is Apple's own. I decided to stay with Mac (I love this thing - had PC before) and don't see disadvantage of using Itunes and ALC. Compression is about the same and there is always option to batch convert whole drive to FLAC if I need it in the future (no need to re-rip).