Verbalism Personified: MP3, AAC and Apple Lossless, Part 1

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

MP3, AAC and Apple Lossless, Part 1

Don't you just love the stuff that Apple comes out with? About one and a half weeks ago, Apple released iTunes v4.5 and QuickTime v6.5.1.

This combo update featured an improved AAC encoder, the option to re-convert WMA files to AAC and premiered Apple Lossless, Apple's proprietary Lossless codec to audiophiles and discerning music lovers. Since then, I've begun re-encoding my entire CD collection via iTunes v4.5 on my Dell PC.

Why?

Prior to Hell freezing over and Apple releasing iTunes for Windows, all my music was WMA encoded via Windows Media Player. To my consternation, iTunes will not play back WMA files. I wanted to consolidate all my music into iTunes, Stream and Share the Library with my Mac-lovng colleagues. Switching back and forth between WMP and iTunes just wasn't the thing to do. With the improved AAC encoder and Apple Lossless came the incentive to re-encode everthing.

It is true that I could have simply re-converted my WMA library to AAC. However I wasn't confident about not suffering any further loss in musical fidelity. And knowing that I'm listening to a rehash of a hash simply makes my skin crawl. In hindsight, it would be interesting to hear the difference between WMA and AAC encoded files.

Ripping through a number of CDs everyday, my entire music library should be encoded by the end of the month.

Initially, I was content on using AAC 128kbps before settling on 160kbps. With built-in VBR, AAC is superior compared to MP3 at the same bit rate. In an informal comparison, I found 128AAC to be the approximate equivalent of 160MP3, if not slightly better. And given the amount of harddisk space available, I was prepared to be generous with the encoded file sizes.

I will update my review comparing the quality of MP3, MP3 (VBR) with that of the improved AAC and new Apple Lossless. Portable music lovers would be curious to read about what gets lost when you rip that CD. Audiophiles would also be interested to know just how close you can get to true-CD sound with Apple Lossless.