Best lossless ripping for Mac
Reply #8 – 2012-05-01 22:38:44
~ When trying to convert some CDs in iTunes, some tracks were not converted at all because the CDs were degraded (no scratches, just old). I am hoping XLD can use error correction to "fix" these issues. Does XLD do this kind of correction? XLD has a better ripping engine than iTunes so there are more chances to extract the correct data, but of course if the CD is seriously damaged can't do miracles. Use the "XLD Secure" or "CD Paranoia" options. ~ I have heard ALAC may not be a good choice because of a theoretical "jitter" issue which compromises quality. Is this true? NO!~ Assuming AIFF is the best choice based on the factors above, what would be the best settings? I see a lot of tutorials for FLAC conversion but not for AIFF. When I checked the Wiki page comparing lossless formats I also did not see any AIFF reference there. AIFF is PCM not compressed, so only a waste of space compared to ALAC.~ XLD has an option that says somethign about C2 error pointers (if your dirve supports this). How do I know if my drive supports this? I may be wrong, but from my experience the best way is to actually try to enable the option and see what it happens: I have an external USB drive which is supposed to support C2 but that hangs XLD if I enable it! ~ If you rip a gapless CD to multiple lossless tracks and then later convert those lossless files to mp3, can you join the tracks as one file when converting to mp3 so that you can remove the gaps? I've had problems playing gapless albums as multiple tracks in mp3 format on my iphone. As you are in an all Apple ecosystem, the best choice for lossy is AAC. It is equivalent to mp3 for any practical purpose and iWhatever supports it better. Supposing you have your ALAC music library managed by iTunes, it could automatically convert to AAC at a chosen bitrate upon syncing with iPhone.