it's not a conversion, it treats it like a quicktime movie, and uses third party libraries to play it through quicktime

Personally, I use the Transporter/Squeezebox to play FLAC on a network, external HD when I'm listening to my speakers. The MBP holds AAC @224 for the ipod. Of course, I can also play my iTunes AAC through the PS3 if I wanted the convenience of using the iTunes interface. So far the PS3 won't support FLAC, but I'm hopeful that's coming. Conversion of FLAC to AAC is with Max. Used Toast for a time, but the PS3 just wouldn't play the Toast version so I went with Max and it's been smooth sailing since.

After owning a mac for about three weeks, this is what I currently do:

* Rip CD's to ALAC using MAX (w/paranoia)

* Rip Vinyl (TBD--but the ADC is Duet)

* Manage Music via iTunes

* Playback via iTunes/FrontRow->duet->etc

Really cool, I didn't know about that Fluke Flac thing. Will have to try it later as well.

I convert FLAC to AIFF through Xact, load it in iTunes, convert it to ALAC, through the Duet --- amp --- and voila, music ( a little hassle but okay)

you need to get max indra sbooth.org

so in addition to being a great file converter, is max also the eac of the mac world?

more or less.

[jayt@localhost ~]$ more Jacob

alcohol

buttermilk biscuits

love

[jayt@localhost ~]$

You are filled with love.

you need to get max indra sbooth.org

What does Max do better when ripping a cd to ALAC compared to iTunes with error correction?

The only flacs I convert are the dl's btw.

it's just for convenience in terms of flac to alac

you can convert your FLAC files directly to ALAC with it.

Yeah I know. I should have formulated my question differently:

When I rip an album as I do now I just put in my laptop, say to iTunes import as ALAC with error correction. What advantage would Max give over iTunes as in better conversion or stuff?

It makes sure more thoroughly that there aren't errors in conversion

Ah okay thanx. I'll download it though as it would save me some steps.

Is the implication then that iTunes itself does not do a good job of ripping CDs to a lossless format? I don't really need to hear that.

All this talk is helpful, coming form a soon to be convert.

To rip my CDs, I boot in Windows with Boot Camp and use EAC with some plugin that converts my tracks directly to ALAC. I don't know if the result is worth all this trouble, but I do it anyway.

To listen to my music, I use iTunes, which feeds the bits to my Duet. I love this setup a lot except for the fact that my MacBook fan can get quite noisy when I do a lot of multitasking.

major waste of time, just use Max in OS X, does all the same stuff.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll try it.

Yeah I know. I should have formulated my question differently:

When I rip an album as I do now I just put in my laptop, say to iTunes import as ALAC with error correction. What advantage would Max give over iTunes as in better conversion or stuff?

It bundles a plugin called "paranoia" that works simialr to EAC's mutliple reads. EAC, however, can calibrate itself to your optical drive's characteristics.

When you use MAX, just enable paranoia.

-m

question about these errors that may occur when using a non-EAC, non-max type ripper. I've always wondered, are they audible? I mean is it like a sound stutter or a bleep? Since I got into audio I have used EAC, but back in my pre-audiophile days I ripped everything with iTunes, and can never recall hearing an audible error in the rip.

Having said that, EAC can definitely ripped scratched CDs much better then iTunes, but still I'm curious about what kind of errors we are talking about.

Yes, sometimes with itunes rips you get all kinds of weirdness.

Wormholes.

Wormholes.

Worse. Holy worms.

the thing is reading a piece of plastic with a little laser, not generating a wormhole!

oh if only we could!

Worse. Holy worms.

Nice. Touch