Questions on SQ format for my particulars...

[fattyboombah85]

So, I decided on the squeezebox for my source. Now, I only have a mac. I don't feel like I am hardcore enough to figure out how to utilize flac on the Mac. if you know of a simple way, please tell me. So i'm looking at apple lossless versus aac 320kbps versus aac 160kbps. Now, on this system...

pair of av123 Ref 1.5 towers
ULW-10 woofer (av123)
H/k 3480 reciever
Squeezebox

Will I notice a difference between lossless versus 320? 320 versus 160?
I want the best sound I can get. There are some shortcomeings to my abilities though with only a mac laptop as my server for the squeezebox, so memory and formats are limited. If lossless will sound significantly better, is there like an external drive that is fairly affordable and would work well with the squeezebox/mac etc. THANKS.

 

[skizzerflake]

So, I decided on the squeezebox for my source. Now, I only have a mac. I don't feel like I am hardcore enough to figure out how to utilize flac on the Mac. if you know of a simple way, please tell me. So i'm looking at apple lossless versus aac 320kbps versus aac 160kbps. Now, on this system...

pair of av123 Ref 1.5 towers
ULW-10 woofer (av123)
H/k 3480 reciever
Squeezebox

Will I notice a difference between lossless versus 320? 320 versus 160?
I want the best sound I can get. There are some shortcomeings to my abilities though with only a mac laptop as my server for the squeezebox, so memory and formats are limited. If lossless will sound significantly better, is there like an external drive that is fairly affordable and would work well with the squeezebox/mac etc. THANKS.

I'm not familiar with the exact hardware but, in general, when you are listening on good equipment in a reasonably quite environment, every increment in bitrate reduces artifacts and "grit". Lossless is always best.

 

[jcPanny]

Audio formats

Go losses for the best signal quality on your new gear. Just rip a few Apple losses file and verify that they can be played by the SB3 before you rip the rest of your library.

Here are some downloads of FLAC and FLAC conversion utilities for Mac OS X.
http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html

 

[fattyboombah85]

Yes, thank you JC. The only problem I see is that these encoders do not search out the name through the CDDP database or whatever it is called. Is there anyway to tag the files through the database so I don't have to manually enter each? Perhaps one of these programs does connect to the name database and i have overlooked it? Thanks.

 

[jcPanny]

Losses with SB3

Looks like SB3 supports Apple lossless, so go with that for ease of use on your Mac. When I was using Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs to FLAC on my PC, it would look up and tag most of the files over the internet.