2. pc-audio
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Do I need to re-rip?

I do NOT want to resurrect the question of which is the better format - Apple Lossless or WAV. My question is about the need to re-rip my music if I want to change formats. My cd library was saved as Apple Lossless. Appears that I can go into the iTunes "preferences" menu and change my files from lossless to WAV, after-the-fact. Are these new WAV files every bit as good as a new cd that I rip as WAV? In other words, do I need to re-rip every one of my cds to obtain a quality WAV file or can I just let iTunes make that conversion?
rockyboy
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Thanks Steve. Honestly, I give the credit for me being right to you and a couple of other posters who have been very helpful.
gz3827
232 posts
 
dBpoweramp is $38, but there is a free 21-day trial. It supports AIFF and ALAC as well as WAV, FLAC, and mp3. It does automatically download album art and tags, but I find that a certain amount of tag editing is still often necessary. All in all, dBpoweramp is a great program. EAC is a freebie that gets good reviews. I've not used it, but I don't think it supports AIFF or ALAC.
jawiseman
2 posts
 
If I understand correctly, AIFF is basically just WAV with metadata added. The audio data is the same.

If you are using iTunes and like to have all of the composer, artist, dates, etc., then you probably don't want to use WAV.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
AIFF has the L and R data fields reversed. It also has different offset and control info fields. This makes it sound worse than .wav somehow. Like listening through a tunnel. I think even ALAC might be better....

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
rockyboy OP
335 posts
 
So...isn't ALAC apple lossless? If so, then I don't need to go thru the bother of re-ripping - right!
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