whats the best way to start lossless

[ImcLoud]

OK, so Im pretty much done with my 2.2 system and I would like to now start getting lossless music and playing it through there..

Right now, I buy I tunes and then plug my ipad into my purei20 dock, then the i20 is plugged into my dac through an toslink cable, and then from the dac the signal goes to the amp and then to the speakers...

What is the best way to get the best music sound from my setup?

Now dont get me wrong it sounds really good, but if going from regulst itunes to something else will sound better I would like to try it..

I know there is a flac app for ipad, but I know nothing else about lossless audio...
HELP me please

 

[JerryLove]

The format of the lossless file has no (direct) bearing on the sound quality. They all put out perfect representations of the waveforms they compressed. FLACC is cross-platform popular. I rip mostly to WMA (because my player likes it, no other reason).

You are already using an external DAC. You should then be good. Your two weakest links (as always) are the speakers and the quality of the master recordings.

That said: there was a site mentioned today that specialized in HQ audio (so presumably HQ mastered audio)... I'll see if I can find it.

 

[itschris]

I have got two complete duped set of lossless rips... WMA and iTunes and a third incomplete set of flac. I've listened very carefully many times playing each and I cannot discern any difference. I think your choice more depends on which formats your setup may be limited by.

What I learned is that it's less about which format and more about usability within your system. I'm using a PLEX media server setup streaming to my ipad which I use as my media controller and airplay to an Apple TV hooked up to my receiver. Full complete control with a super slick interface and no break down in quality.

 

[ImcLoud]

So I should be pretty good, I cant imagine the sound getting much "cleaner" or "clearer" because it sounds excellent, I just know I heard a lot of people say how mp3-mp4 compressed files are not as good as flac files.. But never paid enough attention to actually absorb any useful information..

I notice a big difference between when my son plugs his mp3 player into my system with the rca-3.5 mm plug, and the Ipad with the i20 and dac, so I thought maybe I would hear a difference between regular itunes and this...

Thanks for the info guys..

 

[BMXTRIX]

Lossless is generally a compression scheme for CDs and really isn't a way to get high quality audio. You generally are talking about CD quality audio. If you want to take the audio quality higher, then higher bit rate audio (192khz for example) will deliver more to you on your system.

Not that all recordings at this quality are actually as good as their CD counterparts, but you will find that many deliver more and truly deliver higher quality. Otherwise, lossless is (or should be) lossless and should be indistinguishable from the CD original.

 

[fuzz092888]

So I should be pretty good, I cant imagine the sound getting much "cleaner" or "clearer" because it sounds excellent, I just know I heard a lot of people say how mp3-mp4 compressed files are not as good as flac files.. But never paid enough attention to actually absorb any useful information..

I notice a big difference between when my son plugs his mp3 player into my system with the rca-3.5 mm plug, and the Ipad with the i20 and dac, so I thought maybe I would hear a difference between regular itunes and this...

Thanks for the info guys..

The benefits of taking music you've downloaded from itunes and converting it to lossless are negligible IMHO, mostly because you can't really add anything to what wasn't there in the first place. You really have to download the studio master at 96/24 or whatever to begin to notice a difference and then there's no guarantee that you will.

Here's an article on hearing in general:

NwAvGuy: What We Hear

Here's a couple articles you may or may not have read on the matter. I would advise you click on the many links scattered throughout the first article, and the second one directly pertains to your question and was actually a link in the original article:

Does “Mastered for iTunes” matter to music? Ars puts it to the test | Ars Technica

24/192 Music Downloads are Very Silly Indeed

YMMV, but I can't tell a darn difference between a well recorded and mastered 44.1/48/16 bit track and a 96/24. Well I shouldn't say that; I think I may hear a difference, but it could just be my mind playing tricks and if there is a difference I don't necessarily think they are worth the extra cost from websites like

hdtracks.com

especially since they offer some tracks/albums that are so called "high quality" when they are at a higher bitrate and bitdepth than even the studio master.

Which goes back to my original point of, simply upconverting isn't going to do a whole lot for you since you can't add back what you didn't have in the first place.

 

[JerryLove]

Lossless is generally a compression scheme for CDs and really isn't a way to get high quality audio. You generally are talking about CD quality audio. If you want to take the audio quality higher, then higher bit rate audio (192khz for example) will deliver more to you on your system.

KHz isn't a bitrate. It's a sampling rate.

Lossless is just a word meaning that there's no change in the 1's and 0's between the pre-compressed source and the post-decompressed output. Assuming you are using the same wave player, a difference in sound is not possible.

FLAC (for example) will happily compress 192khz/24-bit wave files. It is not tied to 44khz 16-bit waves (the standard in CDs) in any way. Whether such high sampling rates bring anything to the table is the topic of some considerable discussion.

FWIW: there is one reason and only one reason I use lossless... because I am concerned about future generation-loss if I change CODECs on a lossy compression method. If I have downloaded something in a format: I leave it in that format; but when I compress my own wave files, I chose lossless.

Check out these: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html

 

[BMXTRIX]

KHz isn't a bitrate. It's a sampling rate.

Way to many terms! It is what I meant even if it was not at all what I said. Thanks for the correction, I will promptly forget and write it improperly again.