FLAC On A Mac

I'm not sure what you mean, but I am a total newb to this, so you may be right. What I do know is that I can download the hi-res files and play them without any conversion necessary with Songbird. If I want to play them in itunes I have to convert them to Apple Lossless, but these files have a lot of static noise in them. Songbird allows me to play them without the noise.

I know it is an older thread but....

where is the link forSoungbird? will Mojave support it?

RE WAV vs
i’ve found at times, this media player or that one tends to do better with some file types than it does with others.

this is of course a subjective appraisal using likely very different hardware and PC arrangements than the poster indicating a glaring disparity between FLAC & WAV..

some FLAC encoders offer varying levels of compression, as with Dbpower amp when encoding FLAC while ripping 16/44 CDs.

I've always opted for level 1, with zero being the least compressed and 8 being the most *compressed (* for lack of a more accurate term).

a brief test using different levels for encoding showed me level 1 was best overall. zero began to show glare, and level 5 and above began showing less insight into the cut, but had much smaller file sizes.
 
back then I had only JRiver to use for comparison.

that said, IF any media player supports FLAC and WAV, and or other lossless formats, and their higher sampling rates and word lengths, it stands to reason   ALL formats should be rendered equally despite their word or bit rates.

apparently, sometimes it just don’t come out of the speakers like it does on paper.

as to sQ being ’sqquelched’ or tunneled, I’ve not realized that result per se, what I have discerned is a flattr, less involved result when a particular media player seems to like say, FLAC over AIF, all else being equal.

the prime EX is with JRiver up to ver 19/20. it likes FLAC to my ears, better than it does aIF

In the same context, WAV & FLAC do not have the same degree of disparity however, and sounded so similar differences were undetectable.

that all said, should blame sit squarely on the rendering or decoding, or should the encoding itself carry some of the lesened sQ burden?

additionally, what if a conversion of formats occurs? should we then point a finger at that process ntirely for the now better or poorer result?

or perhaps the encoding was done on one pc and the conversion done on another? what then?

retail HD tracks, once converted domestically to merely another format have to receive consideration and or suspicion as culpible if the outcome to some other format does not duplicate SQ once the process is complete.

Ascertaining the real culprit for diminished SQ if percieved, lives in deeper waters than what may be observed at first hand.


Personal confusers! Whada ya gonna do?

Hi Richard. I do not know your Marantz unit well. If it has a USB input you are all set. Channel D's Pure Music program is designed specifically for Mac computers. It utilizes iTunes as the library and will play pretty much any file available. But, if you down load your files from HDtracks in ALAC they will download directly into iTunes with any conversions. Pure Music will do all the conversions for you. If you do not have a USB input anywhere you can get a USB to SPDIF converter.
Pure Music does a lot of neat stuff like up sampling and streaming. 
I have used it for three years and the only complaint I have is that it crashes once in a while. Support is great. Updates are free and if you want to upgrade to Pure Vinyl you just pay the difference. This is the program Michael Fremer uses. 
Another way to do it is change iTunes storage to ALAC and download ALAC files directly to iTunes which then will output the music in its native rate just like an MP3 file.This will take up a lot of space on your hard drive. 
I wanted to keep all my high res music separated from my MP3 library which I keep on my Macbook so I got a Mac Mini i7 with a fast small SS hard drive I think it was 125 GB and a 6 TB outboard hard drive. This computer does nothing but play music and surf the internet. Having your music in iTunes is great fun. You can make any play list you want easily, shuffle tunes etc. The only hang up is that you can only store music by one category, artist or composer not both. Modern music you store by artist but classical music you have to store by composer. I talked to Apple and the only way you can get around this is to make composer play lists or get a second computer for classical! Needless to say I started making playlists.