Flac and Apple Lossless on iPod Touch

[SteveW]

The development of media servers is growing apace. Just bought (£2.99) PlugPlayer for my ipod touch from the itunes app store.

I already had Null River and Twonky Media Servers which we used to stream movies to the Sony Playstation.
My ipod touch now picks up and plays not only all my FLAC files (in a seperate file on external hard drive), and the apple lossless files which I usually play through itunes.

I have to say the flac files sound much more 'analogue' than the Apple files I normally transfer onto the ipod, more sort of natural.

On top of all that. I've just discovered that all my movie files now play on the ipod as well...all accessed via Twonky Media - which cost a few bob, but now worth it. Lord...I've got 3 series of The Wire to get through.

[webby]

Flac and Apple Lossless should sound the same.

[SteveW]

Flac and Apple Lossless should sound the same.

in theory.. they are both lossless.
However, I have a feeling (not a theory by any stretch) especially every time I do an A/B comparison - that a CD ripped with EAC FLAC sounds better than Apple Lossless ripped with Max, itunes etc.
Its how I started the whole excercise of trying to make my own Linn DS player without spending mucho moola.
failed so far !!

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I have plugplayer on my iPhone and use it to control the majik, I have never managed to get it to stream music to the iPhone it's self... Is that what you are saying you have done? If so would it play the stream out through a digital iPod dock? Sorry, I'm a bit lost here?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Ok scratch that I just managed to stream music on to the iPhone... It wouldn't work before!
.. That's quite cool! Does this mean with a digital dock I would get flac quality playback? Surly this could negate the need for a linn ds?

[Stratmangler]

I've used Foobar2000 to compare WAV against FLAC against ALAC, and to be honest I could hear bugger all in the way of sound differences.

I did however only use the headphone output on my laptop; the 'phones were a cheap set of earbuds. A decent headamp and cans might reveal differences, but I can't imagine that any differences would be that great.

One thing I did notice is that WAV and FLAC are CBR, while ALAC is VBR.

The ALAC file was ripped using iTunes with "use error correction when reading Audio CD's" selected.

The WAV file was ripped using EAC. The FLAC file was obtained by using FLAC Frontend to compress the WAV file.

Chris

[Stratmangler]

Ok scratch that I just managed to stream music on to the iPhone... It wouldn't work before!
.. That's quite cool! Does this mean with a digital dock I would get flac quality playback? Surly this could negate the need for a linn ds?

It depends on how well the digital out is implemented in the iPhone.

Chris

[The Vinyl Adventure]

It depends on how well the digital out is implemented in the iPhone.

Chris

Of course it does... My brain is proper shit today...

[webby]

As has been said, they're both lossless so should sound the same, but I guess it depends on what's used to rip and decode them in the first place.

Ultimately, they ought to unpack to the original file in each instance. As long as the rips had no errors (and iTunes doesn't reveal any errors that may have occurred) then they should be the same. Try XLD if you have a mac, it rips, sorry decodes to both ALAC and FLAC amongst others.

[SteveW]

Ok scratch that I just managed to stream music on to the iPhone... It wouldn't work before!
.. That's quite cool! Does this mean with a digital dock I would get flac quality playback? Surly this could negate the need for a linn ds?

I;ve got a ton of US tv programs (Breaking Bad, Chuck, Arrested Development etc ) that I can now watch on the ipod.. which is nice. Gone like the bloke on the Fast Show.