Apple support for flac

Apple is reportedly supporting flac in iOS11 only, even so the support will be very limited, only in Files application, not in the Apple Music app.

However, does AIFF always sound better than FLAC? At least, this is what I have experienced, therefore I always use AIFF.

banzai posted:

However, does AIFF always sound better than FLAC? At least, this is what I have experienced, therefore I always use AIFF.

They 'sound' identical.. what you hear is the sound differences from the specific devices playing the files, not the file itself...andthis is going to vary from implementation to implementation. The player has to do more processing with FLAC compared to AIF or WAV (essentially very similar file types), and there may be more electrical noise created with FLAC processing which may affect the audio quality. 

banzai posted:

Apple is reportedly supporting flac in iOS11 only, even so the support will be very limited, only in Files application, not in the Apple Music app.

However, does AIFF always sound better than FLAC? At least, this is what I have experienced, therefore I always use AIFF.

For the initial release yes. But thats down to structural limitations with Apple Music app at the moment.

You can transcode to AIFF if you wish. The issue is metadata. Outside the esoteric worlds of BWAV, wav is pain in the arse from the point of view of metadata. Look at Naim's implementation for proof positive of that. For archive storage, flac is the best choice in my opinion. Its lossless, compressed, has excellent metadata support. wav is, isnt and doesnt. 

I think the default on Core should be to rip to flac, not wav. 

Jon at least WAV has standardised industrial meta data (BWAV takes a subset of it) although optimised for general multimedia use rather than specifically published music tracks (and MS Windows supports some of the attributes of this standardised metadata) as well as today wav often uses an informal consumer music track method using  ID3 tags ... AIFF meta data is a lottery and is Apple specific... FLAC probably has the best universal meta data for consumer use. 

jon honeyball posted:

........  wav is pain in the arse from the point of view of metadata. ...........   For archive storage, flac is the best choice in my opinion. Its lossless, compressed, has excellent metadata support. wav is, isnt and doesnt. 

 That might be true of WAV with Naim & other ripper/servers who do appear to rip to FLAC by default,  all for good reasons no doubt.    However I (& so many others) don't find WAV to be a problem in practice when using good ripping software such as dBp & NAS.   

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

FLAC probably has the best universal meta data for consumer use. 

indeed

Just because apple supports flac somewhat what difference does it make, other than making life a little bit easier for some iPhone users? If Apple Music is going to support losless streaming in the future because the devices can support flac that would be an important improvement. 

Who can say?

Good news. And it took Apple only 15 years or so.

Yes 15, years because it's "Not Invented Here".

Huge posted:

Yes 15, years because it's "Not Invented Here".

Or more likely because because of the F in FLAC.

jon honeyball posted:

banzai posted:

Apple is reportedly supporting flac in iOS11 only, even so the support will be very limited, only in Files application, not in the Apple Music app.

However, does AIFF always sound better than FLAC? At least, this is what I have experienced, therefore I always use AIFF.

For the initial release yes. But thats down to structural limitations with Apple Music app at the moment.

You can transcode to AIFF if you wish. The issue is metadata. Outside the esoteric worlds of BWAV, wav is pain in the arse from the point of view of metadata. Look at Naim's implementation for proof positive of that. For archive storage, flac is the best choice in my opinion. Its lossless, compressed, has excellent metadata support. wav is, isnt and doesnt. 

I think the default on Core should be to rip to flac, not wav. 

+1 Master music collection in .flac for portability and metadata handling! If the dac/streamer sounds better on .wav, let the server transcode .flac to .wav. The ripping engine of the Core is an old, obsolete design that relies on .wav rips and a proprietary database with very limited metadata editing capabilities. Any decent ripping station should provide the option of ripping to .flac, of course.

jon honeyball posted:

if Anyone was in any doubt About the sense of using flac over anything else, the announcement that apple’s new os’s support flac natively. should nail the conversation once and for all.

Good news but I do not consider what Apple supports (or fails to support) relevant for my choices. I looked a little bit into data format options when I decided to rip my CD collection a few years ago. In those days I could not find any obvious reason not to use FLAC. I do not have the impression that things have changed in the meantime.

Lejog posted:

Huge posted:

Yes 15, years because it's "Not Invented Here".

Or more likely because because of the F in FLAC.

No, Apple are perfectly happy to make people pay for free software; such as the way they make you pay for FreeBSD.