FLAC for beginners

[mahler10th]

Hi John - probably cannot answer your question, but a Hybrid CD/SACD has 2 layers; the CD layer is the standard 700 MB of the original 'red book' CD standards; the SACD layer is similar to a DVD w/ 4.7 GB capacity.  So, if you are 'burning' your FLAC files to a standard CD-R, this would be just a 'regular' CD.  Now whether your download had both the standard CD & also the SACD data is uncertain to me, and not sure if the FLAC codec can be used to compress the SACD data?  Not much help but will look forward to others' responses - I've been ripping & burning for years (both standard CDs and DVDs) and always want to learn more!  Good luck - Dave

Thanks Dave.  That has given me a better understanding of the subject.  Given that the downloaded tracks were regular size for what might be expected from a CD, when I get an SACD unit soon, I would be better to bide my time and stop downloading them before their actual release on CD when they're marked SACD!   

[Daverz]

Thanks Dave.  That has given me a better understanding of the subject.  Given that the downloaded tracks were regular size for what might be expected from a CD, when I get an SACD unit soon, I would be better to bide my time and stop downloading them before their actual release on CD when they're marked SACD!   

Many newer Chandos recordings are avaliable as 24/96 downloads, though Chandos charges hefty prices for this.  (Bis is much more reasonable).  You'd lose any advantages of the high-res files if you burn to CD, though.

[petrarch]

I recently bought a download of Atterberg by Jarvi from Chandos in FLAC format.  The CD itself, when released on 01 March 13, is an SACD.  When I burn the FLAC  files to CD, does that also make the CD SACD, or must I buy the CD for that quality?  Reason I'm asking is I'm messing around with audio hardware, and hope to get an SACD unit over the next couple of weeks.  Thanks for your help.   

Have you seen any consumer-grade SACD recorders? The licensing of the format is extremely expensive and the SACD digital signal is encrypted, making it nigh on impossible to rip (when you rip a hybrid CD/SACD, you are merely ripping the CD layer). That said, there's DVD-A out there, if you want a rippable and recordable hi-res format on physical media.

[amw]

So I am a Mac user and have been (more or less unthinkingly) using iTunes for years.

Is there an alternative which (a) is less bloated, (b) can read, play and rip to FLAC, (c) can support large libraries of 30000+ tracks without slowing down too much, (d) supports smart playlists? Ideally without taking up 300 MB of real memory whilst idling quietly in the background.

[HIPster]

So I am a Mac user and have been (more or less unthinkingly) using iTunes for years.

Is there an alternative which (a) is less bloated, (b) can read, play and rip to FLAC, (c) can support large libraries of 30000+ tracks without slowing down too much, (d) supports smart playlists? Ideally without taking up 300 MB of real memory whilst idling quietly in the background.

+1

I too share your question, amw.  Thanks for posting it here.  I'm bumping this up to see if we get a response soon. . .   

[Octave]

The last time I was a Mac user       I used Max (not to be confused with the multimedia toolkit):
http://sbooth.org/Max/
and I thought it was easy and fast and accurate, and I ripped/converted gigantic amounts of stuff.

This was several years ago.  At a glance, it now looks alarmingly out of development, but I'm assuming it's still freeware.

[aquablob]

I could be wrong, but I doubt you'll find a 3rd-party media player for Mac that matches iTunes in both features and speed/efficiency. In any case, here is a list of iTunes alternatives: http://www.head-fi.org/a/mac-os-x-music-players-alternatives-to-itunes

If FLAC compatibility is your biggest issue, I'd ask if you've considered converting your FLAC files to ALAC.

One big advantage of iTunes on Mac is Doug's AppleScripts: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/

[amw]

The last time I was a Mac user       I used Max (not to be confused with the multimedia toolkit):
http://sbooth.org/Max/
and I thought it was easy and fast and accurate, and I ripped/converted gigantic amounts of stuff.

This was several years ago.  At a glance, it now looks alarmingly out of development now, but I'm assuming it's still freeware.

I could be wrong, but I doubt you'll find a 3rd-party media player for Mac that matches iTunes in both features and speed/efficiency. In any case, here is a list of iTunes alternatives: http://www.head-fi.org/a/mac-os-x-music-players-alternatives-to-itunes

If FLAC compatibility is your biggest issue, I'd ask if you've considered converting your FLAC files to ALAC.

One big advantage of iTunes on Mac is Doug's AppleScripts: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/

Thanks for the responses gentlemen.

FLAC compatibility is not a massive issue right now actually, since I am short on hard drive space and listen to music mostly over cheap USB speakers. Above ~224kbps MP3 I don't notice the differences nearly as much so I just transcode all my FLACs to MP3 with XLD and then move them to an external drive. iTunes's general slowness and bugginess are annoying, but survivable, and have been cut down quite a bit since 11 was released (no longer does every click result in a 5 second hang).

However I have been thinking about the future—with the rise of smartphones and tablets my laptop is quickly becoming obsolete, and I doubt it'll be long before I'll be able to get a desktop computer with a (say) 8-10 TB hard disk. Perhaps there'll be a stable port of foobar2000 by then or some new lossless format that supersedes everything else, but if not, I would want to switch as much of my library as possible to lossless particularly if my old stereo system ever makes its way back across the Pacific.

Perhaps I may just go the ALAC route especially since it's open source now, but it's not a very pressing issue at the moment, really.