Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

[3ME]

So is there a hands-down choice for ripping an extremely large CD collection for archiving?

And are all lossless codecs really sonically equal even to the most golden-eared, scrutinizing, hi-fi fanatic on the most high-end reference audio equipment? The codec section on this site lists OptimFROG as "High-Performance Lossless". What makes this high-performance and is it better performing than say FLAC or ALAC?

I'm interested in deciding on a format that metadata can be groomed in and will hold it's own in the future.

[Spoon]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

The choice would be between FLAC and ALAC, these two have a future. Between them there is not a huge difference.

[3ME]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

The choice would be between FLAC and ALAC, these two have a future. Between them there is not a huge difference.

Ok, so what would you do in this situation?...

I am building a Mac music server that will also be synced to large hard drive iPods. I'm sure that points hands-down to ALAC, however, my ripping machine doesn't do ALAC. I would have to rip to a format like FLAC or WMA and convert. If I ripped to WMA, I could use iTunes to convert to ALAC.

So can I easily & effectively use iTunes to clean-up & fetch any missing metadata and have it imbedded in the ALAC files so that if for some reason in the future, I needed to convert them to a different file format, all the metadata would transfer with it?

[Spoon]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

I kind of assumed you were using dbpoweramp as you are posting on the dbpoweramp forum

[3ME]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

I kind of assumed you were using dbpoweramp as you are posting on the dbpoweramp forum

Well you guys have so much ripping info around here! I posted in the General section thinking it would be appropriate for general ripping questions.

So does this mean I can't get an answer from a guru?? I've already downloaded one of your products to try. :smile2:

[Spoon]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

I cannot give advise on iTunes, never use it except for testing compatibility (and that 100MB, bloater sits on a virtual machine )

Use which-ever format has the most compatibility with end players / devices you have. dBpoweramp can convert between all the major lossless formats without any problems.

[garym]

Re: Best Lossless Codec - Listening & Archiving?

I use FLAC for archiving and mp3 (LAME -V2) for lossy versions for my ipod/iphones. I play the FLAC files in my home system (through Squeezebox players). You can use apple lossless instead of FLAC, but other than apple players, I see many reports in various contexts of hassles in trying to play apple lossless files (see squeezebox forums for example).

edit: although I use itunes for loading up my ipods/iphones, I now use foobar2000 as my computer player for music. It will play FLAC, mp3, aac, apple lossless, etc.