Lossless files on ipod

[s&g'sdad]

Good early morning Gents,
As I sit here at work, I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to convert my ipod music to lossless files, as in closest to original recordings. I haven't purchased from i-tunes. All music on ipod is from cd's ripped to i-tunes. For all I know, they may already be lossless. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

Aaron

 

[sucuri]

Look at the format of your music. If it is not a apple lossless format you cant really convert a mp3 or other type of digital into lossless. The only way to convert into lossless is from the original cd recordings. Lossless holds a lot of detail so it is a bigger file. If you could convert a wma or mp3 file into a lossless format, you would have already lost a lot of detail so it is pointless

 

[Milton]

Unfortunately, itunes firmware does not support lossless audio whatsoever. To be able to play lossless audio tracks (like .flac or .ogg) you'll need to install something like Rockbox.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgoq1LN0QKI[/YOUTUBE]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbox
http://www.havelaptopwilltravel.com/ipod-plays-flac-yes-if-youve-got-rockbox/

As for converting to lossless from what you've already ripped, you'll probably need to re-rip everything. As you originally ripped it into itunes, its in a lossy format (most likely aac or mp3) and you'll only get that quality even after conversion. Find a good ripping software that supports flac and rip everything again and you'll get a good lossless audio file.

Best of luck.

 

[kongjie]

Couldn't he reimport the CDs into iTunes using the Apple Lossless Encoder setting?

 

[s&g'sdad]

I noticed that an option is to convert to acc file. Is this a lossless format?
Aaron

Edit: Nevermind. I see aac is a lossy format.

 

[Singapura]

You can't turn an MP3 in a FLAC or ALAC and expect it to sound better. MP3, Ogg Vorbis etc. are lossy formats which implies that you loose information.This information can't be retrieved anymore. Apple does have its own losless format, ALAC. You can convert FLAC into ALAC and vice versa without any quality loss. You need dbamp or a similar program to do this as iTunes doesn't allow for FLAC conversion. You can off course re-rip your CD's in ALAC which gives the best quality. More info can be found here

 

[Spacegeezer]

Unfortunately, itunes firmware does not support lossless audio whatsoever. To be able to play lossless audio tracks (like .flac or .ogg) you'll need to install something like Rockbox.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbox
http://www.havelaptopwilltravel.com/ipod-plays-flac-yes-if-youve-got-rockbox/

As for converting to lossless from what you've already ripped, you'll probably need to re-rip everything. As you originally ripped it into itunes, its in a lossy format (most likely aac or mp3) and you'll only get that quality even after conversion. Find a good ripping software that supports flac and rip everything again and you'll get a good lossless audio file.

Best of luck.

Your first point is incorrect. First, Ogg Vorbis is not lossless. Second, Ipods have supported lossless audio for a while now. Unfortunately, like most stuff from Apple, they only support a proprietary format. In this case Apple Lossless. It's often called ALAC. On top of that, Rockbox doesn't work with most of the newer Ipods.

Some info on ALAC:
http://www.applelossless.com/
http://www.ehow.com/how_2202955_.html <-how to convert your cds to ALAC using Itunes.

 

[ClunkClunk]

This isn't intended to be insulting, but because you asked how to convert already lossy compressed files in to lossless ones, you aren't exactly understanding the underlying concepts.

It might be worth your time and effort to do some research on how lossy and lossless compression works, generational losses, and transcoding, before trying to modify your music collection.

 

[stobes21]

What format is your music in now? I suspect it is AAC, which is indeed a lossy format. However, without some real high dollar sound equipment it is unlikely that most people will be able to tell the difference between AAC and ALAC or FLAC side by side. It is even more unlikely that most people would be able to tell which one they are listening to without hearing them side by side.

 

[s&g'sdad]

This isn't intended to be insulting, but because you asked how to convert already lossy compressed files in to lossless ones, you aren't exactly understanding the underlying concepts.

It might be worth your time and effort to do some research on how lossy and lossless compression works, generational losses, and transcoding, before trying to modify your music collection.

Adam, no insult taken. I realize I worded my question wrong, as I understand the files were compressed once I made the transfer from my cd's. I need to weigh the benefit of lossless vs. lossy before I decide to re-rip my cd's to a lossless format. Will I really be able to tell the difference? I'm somewhat of an audio tweak and maybe I am just thinking of doing this because someone in the high end magazines said to. I don't know if I want to spend the better part of a day ripping discs again. Any audiophiles chime in.

Aaron

 

[ClunkClunk]

Why not try a disc or two and see if you can do a blind test and tell the difference? Frankly, my ears aren't good enough to hear the difference between transparently LAME encoded MP3s and a source CD, even with high end equipment. Coupled with the fact that I use midrange equipment normally, I don't even bother with lossless.

 

[stobes21]

Adam, no insult taken. I realize I worded my question wrong, as I understand the files were compressed once I made the transfer from my cd's. I need to weigh the benefit of lossless vs. lossy before I decide to re-rip my cd's to a lossless format. Will I really be able to tell the difference? I'm somewhat of an audio tweak and maybe I am just thinking of doing this because someone in the high end magazines said to. I don't know if I want to spend the better part of a day ripping discs again. Any audiophiles chime in.

Aaron

Pick a CD, or even a couple of CDs, and rip them in both a lossless and a (good) lossy format. Listen to the tracks side by side, or reasonably close to it, and see if you can tell a difference with your particular sound setup. You may have to do this several times for your home, car, and iPod setups. Finding a way to make the test blind so that you don't know which format of your favorite song you are listening to will make the test more accurate.

 

[gugi]

Yes, reencoding your currently lossy music into the Apple lossless (the only lossless that the Ipod understands) is just going to increase the file size.
Reencoding from the original CD to the lossless will get you what you want.
As others have said, you may not be able to tell the difference, but you should try it out. Even if you can't tell the difference you may want to do it for different reasons.

 

[s&g'sdad]

Can anyone give a quick tutorial on using alac? I'll give it a try when I get out of bed in the afternoon.
Aaron

P.S. Thanks to all who helped!

 

[Dharion]

Can anyone give a quick tutorial on using alac? I'll give it a try when I get out of bed in the afternoon.
Aaron

P.S. Thanks to all who helped!

http://www.ehow.com/how_2202955_.html <-how to convert your cds to ALAC using Itunes.

Have you read that?