Apple Lossless through iTunes vs FLAC directly?

Posted by: Somchie on 06 November 2011

Sorry if this has been covered before but I didn't find anything when searching the site.

 

Anyways... I have almost decided upon keeping the ND5 XS I have over the weekend, of course my parents came for a surprise visit so I have not been able to listen as much as I had liked to.

 

Now, I have settled for "Playback" as my uPNP server. I have to copies of my digital music, on as Apple Lossless in iTunes and one as FLAC. The FLACs are my originals and I have then converted the files with XD on my Mac to Apple Lossless and then imported them to iTunes.

 

Now, will there be a difference between streaming the Apple Lossless files through iTunes or simply "streaming" the FLACs? My question is regarding sq and not "features" like album art and so on.

Posted on: 06 November 2011 by Tog
In theory there shouldn't be a difference. However, try alac/flac comparisons of favourite tracks and see what you think.

Tog
Posted on: 06 November 2011 by Somchie

Tog - Thank you for your reply. I totally agree with you that there should not be any difference in theory. But having said that I must admit I believe there should be no difference between a UQ and a NDX through the digital output, but many says there is a huge difference. The same goes for the discussion of sq between wav and flac.

 

I guess all this new digital stuff makes me nervous

Posted on: 06 November 2011 by james n
You won't be able to stream through iTunes. Playback will just look at the directory where your iTunes music is stored and won't directly be using iTunes to serve the data.  The only difference you (may) get is at the renderer handling the different formats.

James.
Posted on: 06 November 2011 by Guido Fawkes

> should be no difference between a UQ and a NDX through the digital output, but many says there is a huge difference. 

 

My UQ is bit perfect, what is the NDX? 


Of course, give it a listen a check out what you hear, but unless the NDX works some magic then I can't envisage much difference. I won't say none as it may have a lower noise floor. If it up-samples that's a different matter as this can change the sound (for the better if done right IMHO). 


Please don't be nervous about it if you get a faithful bit stream with low jitter and noise in to your DAC (i.e. the one in the ND5 XS) it'll sound great.