Can ND5 XS stream ALAC?

Posted by: olliememate on 01 February 2012

Hi, I am new to this great forum. I am seriously considering adding a ND5 XS this month to my 5i. Have already auditioned the ND5 and to my ears it sounds very good. I have a question - does the ND5 stream Apple Lossless? Most of my CD collection is ripped in ALAC. The dealer was almost sure it would stream ALAC but he couldn't prove it as his whole collection is in FLAC format. It is not a dealbreaker since I am prepared to convert my collection to FLAC. A previous post said that ND5 has supported this since launch but the manual says Apple Lossless from iPod only so I find it all a bit confusing. Cheers ollie.

Posted on: 02 February 2012 by Iver van de Zand

Hi Ollie,

 

Yep, ND5XS natively supports ALAC, so that shouldn't be an issue. AirPlay is to be expected via a software update later in 2012

 

Interested in your findings once you have the ND5 playing in your system

 

Cheers,

Iver

Posted on: 02 February 2012 by nudgerwilliams

Can anybody comment on SQ difference between ALAC and uncompressed FLAC or WAV with ND5?  I assume there is one - and pretty significant - given same CD ripped as WAV and ALAC sounds better on my iPod in WAV.

Posted on: 02 February 2012 by olliememate

Thanks for the replies, I will get back when I have tried the ND5 with ALAC and FLAC. Also interested in if there is any difference in SQ.

Posted on: 02 February 2012 by PinkHamster
Originally Posted by nudgerwilliams:

Can anybody comment on SQ difference between ALAC and uncompressed FLAC or WAV with ND5?  I assume there is one - and pretty significant - given same CD ripped as WAV and ALAC sounds better on my iPod in WAV.

If your ALAC is really lossles and not a compressed AAC version there should not be any difference in sound, as the data is bit identical between ALAC and WAV.

Posted on: 03 February 2012 by nudgerwilliams
Originally Posted by PinkHamster:
Originally Posted by nudgerwilliams:

Can anybody comment on SQ difference between ALAC and uncompressed FLAC or WAV with ND5?  I assume there is one - and pretty significant - given same CD ripped as WAV and ALAC sounds better on my iPod in WAV.

If your ALAC is really lossles and not a compressed AAC version there should not be any difference in sound, as the data is bit identical between ALAC and WAV.

It was same CD, same computer ripped once into iTunes using the Apple Lossless encoder; tracks then deleted and re-ripped using the iTunes WAV encoder.  WAV sounds better - to the extent I re-ripped 250 CDs.  I know ALAC is "lossless" but the file is half the size of equivalent WAV so it is clearly not bit identical. 

 

In other threads I see people have suggested SQ difference is because of overhead of doing the number crunchig to convert ALAC file into the lossless bit stream.  I was wandering if with something like an NDX it does the number crunching in a way that means the SQ drop is not noticeable - compared to humble iPod.