On 18/10/2017 23:03, Arthur Quinn wrote:
On 2017-10-18 16:56:45 +0000, RJH said:

On 18/10/2017 08:50, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
RJH wrote:
I'd like to convert about 4000 FLAC files to 16/44 ALAC. Most of the
FLAC files are 16/44, a few are 24/96, and a few are in between.

Speed isn't an issue - I can leave the PC (or Mac) running all day.
I've
been using this recently to no apparent ill effect:

https://www.mediahuman.com/howto/con...c-to-alac.html

However, I want to be sure that the conversion is as accurate as
possible. Is there a way of checking, or a preferred method?

I'd would love to know why you wish to do this.

With a heavy heart ;-)

I'm going to park my music on a Mac Mini, and use that as the source
for playback through my hifi. It's an old machine so not worth much if
I sold it - but it's pretty much silent and low power consumption.

And the critical thing is that iTunes (the Mac software equivalent of
Windows Media Player - or whatever it's called nowadays) can serve the
music alongside a very capable smartphone app. iTunes is a pain on its
own - I can't get it to act as a simple media player. But it works
very well as a software server.

Â* Am I not correct in
thinking that Flac is open standard and anyone can build devices that
support it and Alac is proprietary Apple?


No, not really. More a ridiculous Apple quirk. Just about any media
application will play FLAC files natively except flippin iTunes.

I just can't see the advantage unless it is just that apple don't
support
Flac by default which is a short coming of Apple not Flac. There are
plenty of Apple apps that will play hi-res flac.


Yes indeed - VLC is my app of choice. And it has half decent
smartphone support. But it has quirks like erratic gapless playback.

Try Nightingale (http://getnightingale.com/) It works perfectly on a
Mac, can construct a database from the file metadata, can play gapless
audio and flac and the scaling of the display can be fudged so that you
can use it at a distance with a wireless mouse.


Thanks for the tip. Seems to work fine. From a quick play, navigating
the ~10,000 tracks is rather clunky, and I would prefer to use it
without a screen - it is attached to a largish TV which I'd prefer to
keep switched off when listening to music.

On which, the smartphone iOS app is no longer available. Also, it's 32
bit - a problem if it doesn't get updated.

Otherwise, a Raspberry Pi with a HiFiBerry DAC+Pro and an external USB
drive is cheap and hard to beat. The complementary smartphone app would
be Rune.


Yes, thanks, one of those things I've been meaning to have a look at and
not quite managed. Again the iOS side of things (I have an iPad and
iphone) can be an issue, although Volumio seems to have it covered.

For now, though, the pain free option seems to be converting FLAC and
using iTunes.

By the way, thanks to the emailer for the tip to check that 'lossless
means lossless' - convert both files to wav, and file compare the
resultant wav files.


--
Cheers, Rob