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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > Apple Lossless Encoder

Apple Lossless Encoder
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Mallrat
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May 1, 2004, 06:32 PM
 
I tried uploaded my CD to my ipod using the new apple lossless encoder because I thought it would take up less space. Unless I'm crazy it doesn't.

The same song took 7.6MB in mp3 at 192 and it took 32.7MB using the apple lossless encoder.

What's the point of using it, if it takes up more space?

Or what am I missing?
     
Weezer
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May 1, 2004, 07:39 PM
 
the point is that the song would be 64 megs if it was an aiff, and it should be the same quality. Lossless is to preserve perfect sound quality, not to make the songs smaller.
     
Mallrat  (op)
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May 1, 2004, 09:08 PM
 
Originally posted by Weezer:
the point is that the song would be 64 megs if it was an aiff, and it should be the same quality. Lossless is to preserve perfect sound quality, not to make the songs smaller.
Oh well could someone give me a list of the best sound quality in order?

The reason I didn't get it, was that I thought mp3 was better sound quality than lossless. I listened to both and to me mp3 sounded better to my ear.

What do most people use for maximum songs, but also good sound quality?
     
zigzag
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May 1, 2004, 10:08 PM
 
Originally posted by Mallrat:
Oh well could someone give me a list of the best sound quality in order?

The reason I didn't get it, was that I thought mp3 was better sound quality than lossless. I listened to both and to me mp3 sounded better to my ear.

What do most people use for maximum songs, but also good sound quality?
Roughly speaking:

- the original CD is best
- AIFF is next best
- Apple Lossless is supposed to be equal to AIFF at half the space
- AAC is next best at 1/5 to 1/20 the space of AIFF (depending on the bit rate you use)
- Mp3 is similar to AAC but not as good - a 128 AAC is comparable to a 192 Mp3

Blind tests have shown that even experts can't distinguish 256 kbps Mp3s from CDs, and have to listen hard to distinguish 128 kbps. And that's on a high-resolution system in an optimal acoustic environment. Since an iPod is not a high-resolution system, is not used in an optimal acoustic environment, and AAC is better than Mp3, I rip my CDs at 128 kbps AAC and am perfectly happy.

I'm sure people will quibble with this but it's only intended as a rough guide. My advice is to not lose sleep over bit rates and enjoy the music.
     
CatOne
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May 1, 2004, 10:53 PM
 
Originally posted by zigzag:
Roughly speaking:

- the original CD is best
- AIFF is next best
- Apple Lossless is supposed to be equal to AIFF at half the space
- AAC is next best at 1/5 to 1/20 the space of AIFF (depending on the bit rate you use)
- Mp3 is similar to AAC but not as good - a 128 AAC is comparable to a 192 Mp3

Blind tests have shown that even experts can't distinguish 256 kbps Mp3s from CDs, and have to listen hard to distinguish 128 kbps. And that's on a high-resolution system in an optimal acoustic environment. Since an iPod is not a high-resolution system, is not used in an optimal acoustic environment, and AAC is better than Mp3, I rip my CDs at 128 kbps AAC and am perfectly happy.

I'm sure people will quibble with this but it's only intended as a rough guide. My advice is to not lose sleep over bit rates and enjoy the music.
Very good summary. Quite thorough.

Though original CD, AIFF, and Apple Lossless (as well as FLAC) should actually all be identical -- because they can all exactly reproduce the content on the CD. A lossless codec can be 100% reconstructed into the original, while a lossy one cannot -- by definition "lossy" means data/information is thrown out. What makes a codec "good" is how much data it can throw out but still remain indistinguishable from the original to the human ear.
     
f1000
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May 1, 2004, 11:19 PM
 
You cannot rank CD, AIFF, and Apple Lossless formats in terms of sound quality for they are EQUAL. Apple lossless files, though, are roughly 50% more compact than CD or AIFF files.

The other formats (AAC, MP3) are all lossy. For more information, please go to the following thread.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=210998
     
Krusty
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May 2, 2004, 01:00 AM
 
Originally posted by Mallrat:

What do most people use for maximum songs, but also good sound quality?
I use 192kbps VBR mp3 (which usually results in ~200-205kbps mp3s). This is probably a bit of overkill on the quality side but it gives decent compression (approximately 1/7th the size of CD audio) while retaining a quality level that I feel comfortable burning to a "regular" audio CD.

Also, judging from your questions, here's a little bit more info that expands upon zigzag's excellent post but with actual numerical references.

A full quality CD audio (or AIFF or WAV) file has a bit rate of 1411kbps -- meaning 1411 kilobits of info are being read every second when playing the song file. MP3 or AAC compressed files are expressed by bit rates as well (128, 192, etc). To figure out how much compression/space saving you'll get with a particular bit rate, simply divide your chosen bit rate by 1411. For example 128kbps AAC songs (the standard at the iTunes store) are exactly 128/1411 (or about 1/11th) the size of CD audio (or AIFF or WAV). Similarly, a 160 kbps song will be 160/1411 (about 1/8.5th) the size of CD audio and 160/128 (or 1.25x) the size of a 128 kbps song. Its really all just simple math. These compressed files will be of (somewhat) worse quality than the original CD audio file but will be MUCH smaller in size.

Now, the big hoo-hah with Apple Lossless encoder is that it (Like FLAC and Shorten) maintains EXACT CD quality audio while still giving you some space savings -- I encoded an album with Apple Lossless and it was, overall, about 66% the size of the original CD yet is still CD quality (the bit rates ranged from ~600 to ~1000 kbps depending on the song). This would be a great format to use if you had a large HD and wanted to keep archival quality copies of all your music CDs and still save some space OR you wanted to keep a full quality "master copy" of some audio and encode various different bit rates from the same source file.
     
absmiths
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May 4, 2004, 05:36 PM
 
Don't forget one other important case: when you make your own recordings using GB or Pro Tools, whatever, AIFF and Apple Lossless are your best choices for preserving the exact original. Unless MP3 or AAC has a setting for uncompressed, I would stick with Lossless or AIFF for the master copy, and only encode in AAC or MP3 for creating preview tracks, or to store on the iPod. iPods play all formats, I think (they play AIFF, right?) so I have been using AAC 160 kpbs but the originals are still in AIFF (because the sound apps don't get ALE yet and I don't need a bunch of 100MB songs on my 'pod).
     
OreoCookie
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May 4, 2004, 10:12 PM
 
Originally posted by Mallrat:
Oh well could someone give me a list of the best sound quality in order?

The reason I didn't get it, was that I thought mp3 was better sound quality than lossless. I listened to both and to me mp3 sounded better to my ear.

What do most people use for maximum songs, but also good sound quality?
Well, that might be your opinion, but Apple's Lossless Encoder is like an AIFF or listening to the CD, pretty much like tiff vs. jpg. ALE compresses without loosing info by (if it works like all the other lossess encoders such as Monkey Shorten Audio, WMA Lossless, and FLAC) looking into the song and recognizing (almost) identical pieces, like a refrain.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Silencer
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May 5, 2004, 03:06 AM
 
About 80% of my music is encoded at 320kbps, and the rest of my music is all above 192kbps. When you listen through decent equipment, the differences become clear.
     
EdipisReks
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May 5, 2004, 11:46 PM
 
i use 320 aac. i have to listen pretty hard with my grados to tell the difference between that at the original cd.
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Silencer
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May 6, 2004, 08:11 AM
 
Yeah 320 is pretty close to CD through my Senn 650's, but I can still tell whats the cd and whats the MP3
     
   
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