title
Products            Buy            Support Forum            Professional            About            Codec Central
 

M4A to Flac conversion?

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • X720

    • Dec 2011
    • 3

    M4A to Flac conversion?

    New here! I was wondering If converting my purchased M4A (AAC) to Flac Is safe?
  • garym
    dBpoweramp Guru

    • Nov 2007
    • 5878

    #2
    Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

    Originally posted by X720
    New here! I was wondering If converting my purchased M4A (AAC) to Flac Is safe?
    what do you mean safe? The FLAC will be identical in audio to the m4A file. Why are you wanting to do this. The quality won't be any better than the AAC, but the file size will be larger. Or is this because you have players that won't play AAC and thus need the FLAC file. This makes sense as converting the m4A to mp3 would be transcoding. At least with the FLAC file, the resulting file is identical to the original m4A file.

    Comment

    • X720

      • Dec 2011
      • 3

      #3
      Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

      Originally posted by garym
      what do you mean safe? The FLAC will be identical in audio to the m4A file. Why are you wanting to do this. The quality won't be any better than the AAC, but the file size will be larger. Or is this because you have players that won't play AAC and thus need the FLAC file. This makes sense as converting the m4A to mp3 would be transcoding. At least with the FLAC file, the resulting file is identical to the original m4A file.
      I should have clarified more...
      If I convert M4A (AAC) > Flac > MP3 (Lame)
      Would the Lame be almost Identical to the original M4A (AAC)?

      Comment

      • garym
        dBpoweramp Guru

        • Nov 2007
        • 5878

        #4
        Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

        no. bad idea. Whether you could hear the difference, who knows. maybe not. But putting FLAC in between doesn't at all solve the problem of transcoding from one lossy format to another lossy format. This would be no different than converting the AAC file directly to mp3(lame).

        Comment

        • X720

          • Dec 2011
          • 3

          #5
          Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

          Thanks for the feedback. Looks like I'm done with itunes.

          Comment

          • garym
            dBpoweramp Guru

            • Nov 2007
            • 5878

            #6
            Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

            just curious. Why not just play the m4A files. These are 256k AAC files so are good quality for LOSSY. Just as good as the 256 mp3 files you're likely to get from Amazon or other places. Or do you have a limitation on playing AAC files?

            Of course, my preference is LOSSLESS (FLAC, ripped from CD itself or purchased).

            Comment

            • EdBrady

              • Jul 2009
              • 19

              #7
              Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

              Originally posted by garym
              just curious. Why not just play the m4A files.
              Not sure about the OP, but I do this all the time... very rarely do I download something and don't need to make some sort of change to it. Usually, I have to lower the playback level, and often I want to do other things like filter low frequency noise, clean up silence or glitches at the ends, etc.

              Comment

              • probedb

                • Sep 2006
                • 32

                #8
                Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

                Originally posted by EdBrady
                Not sure about the OP, but I do this all the time... very rarely do I download something and don't need to make some sort of change to it. Usually, I have to lower the playback level, and often I want to do other things like filter low frequency noise, clean up silence or glitches at the ends, etc.
                It sounds like you get some seriously pooped up music. I've never needed to edit any ripped CDs. Replaygain takes care of volume levels. If something is too quiet I turn up the volume or down if it's too loud.

                Comment

                • wiak

                  • Mar 2009
                  • 6

                  #9
                  Re: M4A to Flac conversion?

                  The ripped flacs from cds are basically the originals
                  they sound different because they have no quality lose
                  btw AAC is better than MP3, why?, AAC uses alot newer technology than MP3

                  Comment

                  Working...

                  ]]>