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hi garym
as noted previously, I'm ripping in AIFF. This is due to careful research. Wanted a pure uncompressed master copy of my CD collection and between AIFF and WAV, AIFF was clearly the better choice based on all my research. While FLAC is most common, didn't want a compressed, anit-Apple format. Plus AIFF was best for retrieving all the metadata. Always wanting to get it right, and to your comments about FLAC, was just reading further some comments about AIFF vs FLAC saying that AIFF's support for metadata is not as comprehensive as FLAC, and that AIFF only offers basic info and no support for cover art within the audio file. This confuses me as I have been ripping in AIFF, cover art and all. Am I missing something here?
Thanks
sculenComment
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There are plenty of audio format choices out there.
AIFF is the Apple equivalent to WAV and both support uncompressed audio. But they are still digitally sampled versions of analog audio and take up significant file space. Streaming these large files will consume more bandwidth. WAV files has mixed metadata support, AIFF is a little better but still has limits.
FLAC and ALAC use lossless compression codes, which means when they are decoded they are 100% identical to the original digital file. But they do take up less space and are more efficient for streaming if the end point natively handles them and doesn't require any kind of transcoding. Both formats have extremely flexible tagging support.
Any modern device or desktop machine can easily manage any of these without much horsepower. When it comes to ripping CD data, this is a 16-bit/44.1kHz 2-channel package which is also a simple lift for any of these formats. You have picked AIFF, so go with that confidently if they suit your needs. If you decide to change your mind later it is easy to convert to another lossless format without losing any audio at all.
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Thank you GBrown. my question was in picking up the metadata in AIFF vs FLAC. My extensive research said that AIFF was best. Now I'm reading that AIFF is limited (no cover art) and FLAC is most thorough. But I am ripping in AIFF and everything looks like it's picking up cover art. Am I missing somethiong in the "picking up of metadata" in FLAC that AIFF does not do? The more one reads, the more confusing one gets. Thanks againComment
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There may be some confusion when you compare "compression" in FLAC with let us say mp3.
FLAC (and ALAC) are lossless compression. You are probably familiar with zip files, you likely have downloaded zip files of software which you then unzip with software on your computer to install it. You probably realize that the unzipped file is identical to the copy that was zipped to send to you over the Internet. The software must be identical or it would not run on your computer. Zip files are commonly used with software, documents, web contents, etc. Lossless compressed audio files, like FLAC or ALAC are the zip files of audio. It is just that FLAC and ALAC do a better job of shrinking the lossless file size of the particular sequences of data that typically appear in audio files than zip does. You can zip a WAV (or AIFF) file and then unzip it, you'll have the original file after unzipping. But lossless audio codecs like FLAC do a better job, making the resulting files smaller (in most cases) than zip does. And by converting the FLAC file back to WAV or AIFF, you have a bit perfect copy of the original the same as if you had zipped and unzipped it.
I could go into how "zipping" a file (or saving audio as FLAC) can make it smaller without losing any of the content, and unzipping can give you the bit accurate copy of the file, but that is beyond what is important here. If you are curious, I'm sure you can Google material on how zipping a file works. It isn't that complicated.
Players that play FLAC or ALAC have the equivalent of unzipper software built in. They convert the audio back to the original PCM which was in the audio of the WAV/AIFF before converting the digital audio back to analog audio to listen to. While it is potentially possible for a player to have a mistake in their software, it is no more likely for there to be a mistake in undoing the FLAC encoding than there being a mistake in the software recovering the PCM audio from a WAV or AIFF file, or having a crappy Digital to Analog converter which would make any filetype play back incorrectly. And most of the common players have been around for some time and had plenty of tests run to prove they work correctly.
Compare this with the compression in lossy codecs, like mp3 or m4a. This is called psychoacoustic compression. It uses an understanding of how most human brains listen to music (or other audio). Most brains only are able to "hear" a small part of the audio the ears are picking up. For instance if there is a loud note being played, the brain generally won't hear softer simultaneous notes at nearby frequencies. This is called masking. It is possible to "throw away" a considerable percentage of the audio before it is perceptible. There are some caveats, which is why best practice is to rip and save audio in lossless formats. First, different people have different sensitivity as to how much psychoacoustic compression can take place before it is noticeable. Interestingly, some people with damaged hearing may hear the compression more than those with normal hearing. Second, if you start off with a psychoacoustically compressed file, like an MP3 file, convert it to an uncompressed file (like WAV) and then compress it again to an mp3, having compressed it twice has the effect of doubling the loss of audio, making it more easy to hear the degradation. The same is true if you convert one type of psychological compressed format (let us say mp3) to another (let us say m4a).
General best practice these days has been to rip tracks to FLAC or ALAC, for maximum compatibility with players (both in playing the audio and reading the metadata). Play those files on your high quality home system. But for a large library, those FLAC files (even though somewhat smaller than a totally uncompressed WAV or AIFF) will not fit on most portable storage devices like your phone. So make a copy as an m4a (or mp3, but generally m4a is considered superior) directory to store on your portable device. If listening in your car (at any reasonable loudness), you'll never hear the difference because of the noise in the car and the poorer quality of most car speakers. Listening with earbuds is no better, probably worse than even the car radios. The dBpoweramp batch converter will do this well, or you can somewhat automate the process with another product by the makers of dBpoweramp, TuneFusion.
Obviously, in the end it is your decision as to what you do, but those of us here are just trying to provide you with accurate information and avoid possible misconceptions so you can make your best choices.Comment
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Why do you say FLAC is anti-apple given it's open source? Apple is anti-consumer by not supporting it but I'm not sure how you can blame that on FLAC.
I believe the native tagging standard is very limited so you're probably using ID3 (the MP3 standard), which is better, as long as it's ID3v2.4.
At the end of the day, as long as you have a semi-capable streamer all the lossless formats will sound the same, but AIFF support is more limited so make sure that your software and hardware supports it.
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I have no personal knowledge of how AIFF handles artwork. I think it does. Just try it and see if it works for you. AIFF (and WAV) are both "old school" formats that are not much used anymore. And they both have limitations on metadata handling. But you may find that the core metadata you want to use works just fine with AIFF. Experiment a bit (rip some different sort of albums, single disk, mulitdisk, single artist, multiartist (compilations), etc. Then load these on your chosen server and player and see if you like how things are handled. As has been said, if you ever want to change to another format (FLAC, ALAC, etc.) it will be a few mouse clicks, run overnight and you can easily convert, given that all these different formats (AIFF, ALAC, FLAC) are *Lossless* codecs.
A couple of points, the first being the most important.
1. FLAC is the only lossless file format that contains an embedded checksum, created when you rip your files and create the initial digital file. Why is this important? If you ever have a file become corrupted then you'd like to know this (not something that happens often, but does happen, bad drive segments, etc.). Keeping good backups won't completely help, as you may end up backing up corrupted files! Let's say you start noticing a few bad files. Then you wonder how many you have and can you find them. With AIFF, WAV, and ALAC, you'd have to listen to every file and see if you heard a problem or it wouldn't play. With FLAC you run a simple utility that (in a batch manner) computes the CRC from each file, compares this to the embedded CRC that was created orginally, and if these two CRCs match, then all is good. At the end of running this batch job, the program will tell you specifically which files don't have a match (corrupted). Only FLAC has this built in benefit.
For example, every so often, I'll run such a utility to make sure my library contains no corrupted files. Many ways to do this, but I use dbpoweramp batch converter program. I simply point the dbpa batch converter to the top folder of my music collection (which then selects this and ALL subfolders), tell it to "convert to" [TEST CONVERSION], and off it goes. I recall it takes about 5 hours to run on my about 130,000 track library. I also do this any time I'm putting all my files on a new HDD (which I do every 4 years or so). Once I've copied all my files to a new HDD, I really want confirmation that the new HDD doesn't have any corrupted files. The above process does this easily because these are FLAC files with embedded CRCs. It wouldn't be possible with AIFF, WAV, or ALAC.
2. I know lots of people with digital music collections. They all use FLAC. Maybe that's just the people I know (in person and on the internet). I can play FLAC files on my iphone and ipad. My brother plays his FLAC library via his Mac. In modern times, FLAC will work on apple devices (although not if using the iTunes or MUSIC apple program I believe....I don't use those).
But whatever works for you is the key and AIFF is lossless so that's good. You say you've done your research. Unfortunately there is a ton of bad or misleading info on the internet when it comes to digital music. Some of the purveyors of this bad info are well meaning. They believe it! But there are tons of "audiophool" websites and discussion boards that put out all sorts of nonsense on how the "conversion" of FLAC, etc. back to the PCM file that plays on your player causes noise, lower sound quality, interference, subtle changes in bits delivered that cause subtle changes in sound quality (my favorite bad info, as this is impossible given the science and engineering of digital music file delivery; if the bits don't get delivered properly to your player, there will be dropouts, etc. It will be obvious--there won't be any changes to sound stage, deepness of bass, etc.). I suppose if you are using early 1990s computers and player, there could be something to the idea of a server "struggling" to convert the FLAC file to PCM data that plays on your player (again, it won't be subtle audio changes, it will be dropouts, etc.). But this hasn't been an issue with digital music for 25+ years.
BOTTOM LINE. Whatever codec you choose, do some ripping and testing to see how your setup handles it. If it suits you then you are OK. And experiment with your tagging and your file naming and organization. Many of us have ripped a bunch of CDs only to eventually realize we want some additional metadata, or we don't like the way the files are named and put in folders (and keep in mind that metadata and file names are related, but not necessarily the same thing. If you have lots of classical music you may want WORK, MOVEMENT, SOLOIST, etc. tags. You may want SORT tags (ARTISTSORT, ALBUMARTISTSORT, etc.). Test things out before you commit to your final metadata and naming plan. And whatever you do, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP. I have several that I maintain, at least 3 backup HDDs, stored at 3 different locations (backups that are all stored in a single house that burns down won't be helpful). Lots of programs that can keep backup drives synched to your main drive, without copying all the files each time (just new and changed files). i personally use freefilesync on windows, but lots of similar programs.
Happy ripping!Last edited by garym; Today, 11:14 AM.Comment
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From a quick test it looks like dBpoweramp does use ID3 for AIFF, which is supported by the documentation: https://dbpoweramp.com/Help/dMC/aiff.htm
Examining the output in Mp3tag it's ID3v2.3, which can cause compatibility issues, but I don't think can be changed (I tried 'Audio Codecs > List / Options > mp3 ID Tagging').
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Regarding artwork and AIFF, it *may* be that AIFF does not allow one to embed the art in the metadata tag itself. This is not a deal killer for me, as I don't embed the artwork in my tags in any case. I use dbpa to create a single artwork file (named "cover.jpg", or one can use "folder.jpg") in the subdirectory containing the album tracks. This then shows up in my server/player for such album.Comment
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Thanks everyone. Very helpful. Since I'm new to a lot of this, while I can guess .. but not exactly sure what is meant by a "tag" or "tagging"?Comment
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metadata is embedded in a digital music file. This metadata includes various "fields". Such fields contain information about the digital music file read by digital music servers and players. Common metadata fields are ARTIST, ALBUMARTIST, TRACK, TITLE, ALBUM, GENRE, YEAR. COMPILATION. But there could be hundreds of fields one can use. Most people simply refer to "metadata" as tags. And confusingly for some, we often simply refer to a metadata field as a "tag". I might refer to the ARTIST tag. But this is shorthand for referring to the ARTIST field contained in the metadata tag.
And tags have different formats depending on what codec one uses for the files (mp3, aac, m4a, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, OGG, etc.). For example, mp3 files use ID3v1, ID3v2.3, or ID3v2.4 tag formats (I use ID3v2.3 myself in my own mp3 files). mp3 files can also use APE tag format. And mp3 files (maybe other formats) can also have multiple tags in the same file. This can create lots of confusion later on. A user thinks he has edited the tag to change something, but it doesn't change in his player. That's because he's editing the ID3v2.3 tag, but not the OTHER tag, the APE tag. FLAC files use something called a VORBIS or VORBUS COMMENT tag. These are very flexible and custom tags can be created. (note that some rippers incorrectly add ID3v? tags to FLAC files, dbpa will not do this). m4a and ALAC files have their own tag format. I'm not sure that format tag AIFF uses. The good news is that if you are ripping with dbpoweramp, the program will automatically use the correct format/style tag.
See some background:
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And "tagging" is just the act of entering information in each of these metadata tag fields. For example, entering the ARTIST name in the metadata tag field for ARTIST. dbpoweramp tries to do this for you when you are ripping a CD. You see all this filled in at the top of the ripping screen. Note that it is worth reviewing this info before you finalize the rip. The metadata is "crowd sourced" meaning that it is based on databases on the internet (the cloud) that are using primarily tag data provided by users just like you and me. Lots of times it is correct, particularly the track numbers and track names. Album names are mostly correct, but sometimes not exactly what I prefer. GENRE is almost always wrong for me. YEAR is wrong half the time, as I prefer the date of the album's original release vs the year of the CD release decades later. In dbpoweramp, you can click on the red 'tag' icon at top of ripping page and see the different sources of tag info for the disk you are ripping. You can then choose the one you like the best (or requires the least manual editing changes from you).
In any case, you can change all of this at the time of ripping by editing the info in the fields (artist, album, genre, etc.). Or you can edit tags in already ripped files at a later date. dbpoweramp has ID tag editing functions. And I use a program called "mp3tag" to do post-rip tag editing (it handles most codecs, not just mp3).Comment
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Thanks garym. That was a great summary. I thought that's what tagging meant but wasn't sure. This part I'm good with. Like you, I edit when necessary. Have noticed that dBpoweramp turns : into ; and / into -Comment
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