jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
As others have said, FLAC probably gives the best flexibility
The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.
- Thread starter Ed Selley
- Start date
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Counterpoint ALAC is essentially the same thing but is more versatile because while fruit based devices won’t play FLAC most other devices will play ALAC...
apholden
Well-Known Member
If you hear a difference, you need to file a bug report with your player software. The lossless compression in FLAC means that you can recover the original sound exactly.
Whenever I buy a CD or download from HD Tracks, I always go for FLAC. Then I store the FLAC on an external drive, an S3 bucket and my iBasso, and then transcode it to Opus for use with my laptop and phone.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Makes sense! I never actually looked into the differences if any.
oldschoolkirby
Well-Known Member
I ripped all my CDs to ALAC years back, so that's my preferred format whenever it's offered. And since it's all still in iTunes (or whatever they call it now), that is fine. If I do acquire FLAC files, I use Audacity to convert to ALAC for importing to the library, but keep the original FLACs as well.
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
I have ripped all my cds, and yet still seem to acquire more without even trying
apholden
Well-Known Member
ALAC is cool too. It's still lossless, so I consider it equivalent to FLAC. The main reason I went with FLAC is because it works better with Linux, or at least it did when I chose it.
Shin Hayata
Member
Any DAP users here? Just curious. I Somewhat recently procured one.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
What’s a DAP?
apholden
Well-Known Member
I have an iBasso DX220. Do you have any particular questions?
apholden
Well-Known Member
Digital Audio Player. Like the old iPods.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Oh ok! I’ve never seen that acronym before!
apholden
Well-Known Member
Makes sense. Most of them don't do vinyl!
Shin Hayata
Member
Wow, that’s a nice one. No particular questions, Was just curious in general.
I have the Hiby R6 Pro, And I’m enjoying high resolution for the first time.
It almost feels like I’m cheating on my turntable.
Shin Hayata
Member
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
I mean I had CD and iPods for a long time before vinyl, just never seen that acronym used, would have always known them by brand name or as an MP3 player if more generic lol!
apholden
Well-Known Member
I just checked out the Hiby. It looks like it has all the same features as my iBasso for half the price.
I think I got ripped off.
apholden
Well-Known Member
Same here. Apple took over that market so completely that iPod was starting to become the generic term. I think the category changed its name from "MP3 player" because they didn't want to be associated with such an obsolete format.
Both Shin's and my players can do so much more. FLAC, ALAC, HD, MQA, DSD, streaming apps. Even the modern lossy formats blow MP3 out of the water. 96 kbit Opus files sound fantastic--better than 320 kbit MP3.
Last edited:
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
I bought a Shanling MO a couple of years ago for cheap. I just use it for travelling mostly, though not sure when I will be on a plane again. It is tiny, about the size of an old iPod shuffle. Supposedly you can use it at a DAC but I have not tried that. If I was to buy a DAP now I would probably look at the Fiio M6 since it does streaming as well (basically it is an android based iPod touch).
apholden
Well-Known Member
Android seems like the go-to operating system for these devices now. Do you know if the Fiio has the Google Play Store? I ask because the iBasso doesn't. Instead, it comes with a couple Chinese app stores (APKPure and CoolAPK) one of which wasn't localized to English. I had to sideload F-Droid and Amazon Appstore.