Moving to OSX, convert lossles .wma to what?

[thl]

I have my entire CD collection ripped to lossless .wma using dbPowerAmp (thank you very much for the great tools) and am moving everything to OS X and the Mac universe.

Question: what is the recommended lossless format to convert my lossless .wma files to using the batch converter? FLAC? Apple lossless? What gives the best results and the least trouble, although in theory going from lossless to lossless should yield the same results.

Anyone that has been down this path and would like to share their experience is most welcome, and thanks to all in advance.

[Spoon]

Re: Moving to OSX, convert lossles .wma to what?

I would go FLAC, it has inbuilt checksums that ALAC does not have.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Moving to OSX, convert lossles .wma to what?

I'm not sure why Spoon suggested FLAC.....maybe he read your post differently than I did.

If you are moving to the Apple universe and presumably want compatibility there, along with lossless quality, that would suggest going with ALAC or AIFF. AIFF is not as metadata-friendly, so I would recommend ALAC. (FLAC isn't recognized by Apple devices.) As you mentioned, you're just going from lossless to lossless, so there aren't any quality issues to be concerned about. If your know the source files are good, the conversions should be fine. (You can always confirm by running them through PerfectTunes.)

I've certainly had the experience of converting between various formats for different uses (including maintaining mirrored FLAC/ALAC libraries). I haven't specifically used WMA lossless.