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Topic: XRecode solves a problem (Read 7702 times) previous topic - next topic
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XRecode solves a problem

I'm a musician and sound engineer and I use ALAC for iPod listening. By way of a little background, I primarily use my iPod as the source for a high end car audio system which controls the iPod from the head unit. And since ALAC is my only lossless choice for the iPod (unless I want to monkey with the RockBox hack, which I don't) then I'm stuck with Apple's proprietary format.

My only problem? I use FLAC at home on my media server. In fact, I use it to feed a great home system which sounds killer. I love the FLAC format. I use EAC to rip to FLAC and the sound is pristine. And I wanted a similar quality of sound in my car. But here's the rub. In order to convert FLAC to ALAC for use in my iPod, I was stuck with iTunes. Now, don't ask me why, but I loathe iTunes. I hate the way it looks. I hate the way it constantly tries to assert itself and take over management of my music library. And I hate being FORCED to use it because Apple has decided not to support any other lossless formats. Call me an Apple hater. That's ok. I've always been a PC man and probably always will be. So there I was, required to use iTunes against my will.

I searched this forum pretty often, looking for an alternative for converting FLAC to ALAC, but I never found anything that fit the bill. Then one day about two weeks ago I found it. The app is called XRecode. I had never heard of it before. But it's freeware. And it does EXACTLY what I wanted it to do. It converts FLAC directly to the ALAC fomat. In fact, it transcodes all kinds of file formats. WAV, FLAC, APE, MP3 (it uses the Lame 3.98 dll), AAC, WavPack, WMA...the whole nine yards. It even does 'on the fly' conversion of cdda, similar to the way CDex rips on the fly. Of course, that's NOT secure ripping like EAC or dbPoweramp. And it doesn't grab track info from the online databases for tagging. So it's NO substitute for a high quality ripper. But I tested that function out, and the audio results were pretty impressive provided of course that the discs are in good shape.

Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested in the program. For my purposes, it was a Godsend. It's allowed me to ditch iTunes and has given me an elegant and simple way to transcode my FLAC rips to ALAC. Very sweet.

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #1 –
Well FYI, fb2k can do it.




Also, I would guess that 99% of the time while in the car your noisefloor will be high enough to make just about any lossy artifacts (that you might indeed be able to identify at home) inaudible. So,  if you don't want to kill yourself bending over backwards for ALAC, I'd imagine ACC is going to be a viable option.
elevatorladylevitateme

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #2 –
Quote
Well FYI, fb2k can do it.


Yep. I knew that. Just never really gave Foobar a try. Can't say why. Just never really appealed to me. Probably should get over it and do the Foobar thing. I use WinAmp on the PC. Have for years and I like the way it sounds. But I would imagine Foobar does a better job of decoding.


Quote
Also, I would guess that 99% of the time while in the car your noise floor will be high enough to make just about any lossy artifacts (that you might indeed be able to identify at home) inaudible.



Well...maybe. But my car is an Acura TSX, so it's a pretty quiet machine. And my system is a Sony head unit feeding USAmps into CDT components and a JL sub. So, between a well damped car and a powerful system, I would say the noise floor is much less of a factor than you might imagine.

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Hoosierdaddy on
Well...maybe. But my car is an Acura TSX, so it's a pretty quiet machine. And my system is a Sony head unit feeding USAmps into CDT components and a JL sub. So, between a well damped car and a powerful system, I would say the noise floor is much less of a factor than you might imagine.


That maybe but I'd still give it a try. After all no point wasting all that space on ALAC if there's no need

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Hoosierdaddy on
Probably should get over it and do the Foobar thing. I use WinAmp on the PC. Have for years and I like the way it sounds. But I would imagine Foobar does a better job of decoding.
Over 5 years on Hydrogenaudio and you still believe this? I'm tempted to slap you with a TOS8 warning for such nonsense, but I guess we've failed at educating you otherwise.

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Canar on
Over 5 years on Hydrogenaudio and you still believe this? I'm tempted to slap you with a TOS8 warning for such nonsense, but I guess we've failed at educating you otherwise.



Pardon me? I'm sorry. Did I misunderstand something? I definitely didn't mean to offend or violate some rule. Are you saying their are no differences between decoders? I'm not even saying there are myself, as I've done no testing. But this entire forum believes that the differences between encoders is significant and sings the praises of Lame because of it. So for clarity's sake, you're saying that all encoders are different, yet all decoders are created equal? Correct?

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #6 –
Certainly.

This is far from a perfect illustration, but think of lossy encoding like having a limb amputated. The surgeon really has all the difficult medical decisions to make and he's the one that decides how much of the limb can be left and how the everything will heal up.

The amputee will use his limb to the best of his ability, but his functionality of the limb is largely already determined by the decision the surgeon made about whether to amputate above or below the knee.


That said, foobar2000 and in_mad both provide dithering that which could possibly have a very small but hopefully favorable audible effect, while Winamp's default mp3 decoder does not.
elevatorladylevitateme

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #7 –
Or in more technical words:
MP3 specification defines the (file)format, and what a decoder has to do (although there seem there were some grey areas), while the encoder is not as strictly defined, so the tools to create the stream can make a difference.

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #8 –
That's how winamp and foobar2000 decode quiet MP3 (MP3 file was decoded to 24-bit WAV files):

Foobar2000 or in_!mpg123.dll for Winamp:


Winamp (ver. 5.55, 5.52, 5.35 were tested):


So different decoders can really decode with different accuracy.
 

XRecode solves a problem

Reply #9 –
Quote
Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?

No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of the other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.


These differences you see are not due to the decoder but rather due to the difference between dither and truncation. Proper dither fixes several noise-floor related problems, but is not part of the actual decoder. Dither sits between the decoder and the output to the audio device, converting audio material from floating-point to integer representation.

lvgcl, using graphs to substantiate quality claims? For shame!