Codec Wars: which do you prefer for sound/convenience/ storage
Posted by: Disposable hero on 26 February 2013
Following the fascinating reading on the matter of WAV versus AIFF when played through a Mac or Uniti and which has now become the Horsemeat scandal of the hi-fi world and audiophile fraternity, which codec would you personally endorse as being the most fine sounding, practical, convenient and best suited to your CD ripping and file storage.
It could be based on audible sound quality, the media player being used and its practicality and convenience for file storage. FLAC is often indicated as being a good option, thus requiring the right media player and another bit of software. Maybe WAV is your permium quality serloin steak, and everything else is just sub-standard contamination not fit for aural consumption.
For Apple Mac people I don't see why Apple Lossless ALAC would not do just fine (my current standard choice) - it is being sold on the Naim label too.
Would it be worth the effort, to start CD library ripping all over again with an alternative to ALAC (e.g. FLAC) if it meant more ease of use with some other media player or better (lower filesize) for hard drive storing?
I definitely prefer ripping to WAV using XLD with the lights off. It seems to add more black between the bits and hence notes, lowering the noise floor quite substantially once you replay the file with the lights on.... 
I find that shortening the file names as much as possible to a linear hexadecimal sequence sounds better as it reduces the computational overhead on the computer doing the decoding. I have no album art for the same reason. Of course this means my music listening is now completely random 
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Result: Trout Mask Replica.