batguebi01: Using iTunes with more specialized music players

Thursday 21 April 2011

Using iTunes with more specialized music players

iTunes can play 'bit-perfect' music losslessly, but only if you do several things. The internal volume control must be set to the max, all digital signal processing, including equalizers, must be turned off, and the sample rate of the track you want to play must be set properly in Audio MIDI Setup before you open iTunes, which means if there is a sample mismatch, you either have to close iTunes, reset Audio MIDI Setup to the desired value, and then restart iTunes.

For example, if you have a CD, you can rip it to Apple Lossless files. These have a bit-depth of 16 bits and a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz. If you purchase and down-load higher-definition music, perhaps 24-bit, 96kHz sampled lossless FLAC files, you can convert them to Apple Lossless without degrading the content (XLD is one such free software option). Now let's say you want to play the two sets of tracks sequentially. If you start iTunes playing the ripped CD and Audio MIDI Setup is set to 44.1 kHz sampling, ...