| Author | Message | ||
| glocke
Advanced Member Username: glocke Post Number: 245 Registered: 9-2002 |
Hi, I am going to start the long process of moving my entire CD collection to my hard drives. I am mainly a windows user, but have gone out and purchased a mac mini since I also wanted to burn my movie collection also. Before I start my mass burning, are there any pros or cons I should be aware of when it comes to burning on a windows machine vs mac ? Im thinking of file types here, and the ability of moving files between the two computer platforms, burning cd's, etc. Thanks | ||
| dnburgess
Senior Member Username: dnburgess Post Number: 524 Registered: 1-2003 |
With the audio you'll need to decide on a file format - AAC or MP3 and a resolution (bit rate). I think AAC sounds better than MP3. I've just increased the resolution of the audio that I import - but I haven't done a close A/B - all I know is that SACD is significantly better sounding than CD. | ||
| grateful
Advanced Member Username: grateful Post Number: 233 Registered: 12-2004 |
One huge advantage of Macs is Mac OS X never crashes. Also, with a Mac, you can import CDs as AIFFs which loses no quality. Macs also produce industry standard audio CDs (no text, proper gaps between tracks) whilst PCs don't. | ||
| glocke
Advanced Member Username: glocke Post Number: 246 Registered: 9-2002 |
ok...lol..Im getting lost on the terminology. I know MP3 and I know AAC, but I have no idea what an AIFF is or what SACD is. Im not that much of a techie. My main interests are : 1) Having "lossless" sound files from my CD's. Can itunes provide an exact digital copy without any loss? 2) Once burned into my library, Id like to be able to burn back onto another CD for playback in my car. Can this be done with ACC files ? As for the Mac OS X versurs Windows, its been about ten years since I last owned a Mac. I have to admit that turning the macmini on for the first time was pleasent. No ads or trial versions of software that I dont want or need, alot more of a "friendlier" PC experience than windows. Plus, I am hoping that my Mac mini maintains its speed. All my windows machines start getting slower and slower after about 6 months to a year, as they get loaded up with spywayre that I have no idea how to remove. There are some apps I like to use in windows, such as winamp. I use winamp to burn streaming only media from archive.org, but there is no mac version available. IS there any way to run this app on a Mac? | ||
| grateful
Advanced Member Username: grateful Post Number: 234 Registered: 12-2004 |
MP3s and AACs are not lossless, whereas AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is lossless, and is supported by itunes on a Mac. You need to go to "preferences - advanced" to tell itunes to import as AIFFs. A CD created this way will be identical to the original (assuming no data errors). You can burn CDs from AACs but the this will not be identical to the original as some data will have been lost in creating the compressed AAC. Your Mac won't slow down unless you load it with software that slows it down. There is software available for Macs to capture streamed media but I personally have no experience of it. There are also Windows emulators for Macs but again I've never used them. The ultimate Mac CD software is Toast. This allows you to adjust the level of individual tracks, vary the gaps between tracks and to fade in at the beginning and fade out at the end. Hope that helps. Mark | ||
| lidon2001
Advanced Member Username: lidon2001 Post Number: 334 Registered: 4-2005 |
"What is SA-CD? SA-CD is short for Super Audio CD or, if you prefer, Super Audio Compact Disc - an optical music carrier that may or may not be intended to succeed the regular audio Compact Disc format introduced in 1983. In short it is designed to provide better sound quality, both in the form of higher fidelity and, optionally, in the form of multi-channel (surround) sound, while maintaining backward compatibility with CD." Copied from www.sa-cd.net SACD will be labeled in the fine print of the CD packaging. | ||
| jbybj
Member Username: jbybj Post Number: 90 Registered: 6-2006 |
When you import into iTunes on a Mac, (don't use or know about Windoze) you can select how iTunes imports. You can import in the same file format as the CD, AIFF, with no loss of data, or you can import with a compression scheme. I agree with previous statements that AAC sounds better than MP3. If you choose a compression such as AAC, you then get to specify the amount of compression. This is data compression, not dynamic audio compression. This is expressed in kps or kilobits per second. The higher the rate, the better the sound, and the bigger the file. 128kps seems to have become a defacto standard for a stereo file. I use AAC at the max rate of 320kps. The resulting files are about 1/5 the size of the source, and sound pretty damn good for just about everything but the most dynamic and quiet classical music. BUT! it should be noted that you can also import into iTunes using Apples Lossless compression. File size is cut in half, and the resulting CD's that you make are bit for bit identical to the source. The question you need to ask yourself is, are you digitizing your collection to serve as a convenience for listening, or as an archival copy of your music? I find AAC at 320kps to be wholly satisfactory for any listening application. If you want a true archival copy, use the Lossless compression. Storage is cheap, but a couple of huge external drives, and use one as your iTunes library, which you set up in the prefs, and use the second one as a mirror of your collection, put it in a fireproof box in the garage. Have fun! | ||
| glocke
Advanced Member Username: glocke Post Number: 249 Registered: 9-2002 |
"The question you need to ask yourself is, are you digitizing your collection to serve as a convenience for listening, or as an archival copy of your music? " Since my current living arrangement does not allow me to have all of my CD's out for listenting, and since I also end up replacing some CD's after 4-5 years due to playing them to often (they end up getting scratched, broken, lost, etc), it is for the purpose of: 1) arhcving them so that the originals can than be placed in storage at a safe location, and; 2) provide a convienient place to store my music files for listening, transfering to my ipod, etc/ So it sounds like AIFF is probably the way to go for burning them to preserve sound qaulity. Next question. I have a dell laptop that will be networked into all of this. If they are transfered to AIFF format on a hard drive, will itunes on my Dell laptop be able to play them? By the way, the impression I am getting is that for multimedia (music, photography), Apple has one up on windows based machines. Is that fairly accurate ? | ||
| hb3
Advanced Member Username: hb3 Post Number: 251 Registered: 2-2005 |
I thought .aiffs and .wavs were equivalent. No? | ||
| jbybj
Member Username: jbybj Post Number: 92 Registered: 6-2006 |
Gregory, Mac is better. Again, I would recommend Apples Lossless compression over the AIFF. You will save about 50% in disk space, and suffer no loss of bits/quality in the copies. A close friend who is far more geeky audiophile than I, did extensive listening tests and found the Lossless compression to be flawless. "I thought .aiffs and .wavs were equivalent. No?" Hugh, equivalent in that a 44.1k 16bit file in either format will, given equal playback hardware/software, sound the same. But different. Most digital audio is based on PCM, pulse code modulation, as a means of representing the audio. What differentiates the various formats is the shell, or container that holds the PCM. The shell holds all the information about the file, and provides a means of accessing the audio. AIFF and WAV are both PCM files, but they way they store non audio information is different. | ||
| glocke
Advanced Member Username: glocke Post Number: 250 Registered: 9-2002 |
Thanks all. James, Ill think about doing lossless. Ive used that before and havent been unhappy with it. Ive always used Dell machines, so I guess the AIFF option was not available to me. One more question, I am trying to capture audio streams from archive.org and dead.net (from the tapers section), but am unable to. Ive downloaded trial versions of sound studio, audio hijack, and irecord, and have not had any luck. Is there some special hardware configuration I need to do? |
