Originally Posted by David2350
Ronnie

I really don't think it is as simple as that. It is necessary to take into account the equipment being used and the overall context of the system being used, i.e. how the various components interact with each other. My personal experience is that there is a considerable difference between Apple Lossless and WAV.

Your experience may be different and I agree, technically, Apple Lossless and WAV are the same. However, we are dealing with the dark art of sound quality here and technical theory and how this applies in practice is not always the same.
Again, as long as care is taken at the Ripping Stage to ensure that a Bit Perfect Copy of the CD is created and then that the Lossless file is played back on a "non-compromised" replay device, then there will be no differences

If one is talking about playing back the Lossless files on an acknowledged compromised device like the Airport Express..........or else comparing playing a WAV file on one device and the Lossless file on another, then there may well be differences

back in 2005 and 2006, I ripped about 500 CD's to WAV using EAC.......I've then used different "Players" to convert those WAV's to ALAC, FLAC, WMA Lossless amongst others..........I've then compared those to the original WAV USING THE SAME OUTPUT DEVICES (SB, SB Transporter, Sonos, Computer itself).........no differences........I've repeated this with a few other players over the years, including the SB Touch and a trial Sooloos System.........again, No Differences

Likewise, I've recreated the WAV file from the various Lossless files and ended out with a Mathematically IDENTICAL WAV file compared to the original source WAV file

Are there Audible differences between the various Player Outputs??? (I.e. SB, Sonos, Sooloos etc.,).........Yes, there most certainly are........most likely IMHO due to their Output Jitter levels, as well as their ability to Upsample (again to reduce jitter)

Are there differences between these Players and e.g. Meridian CD Players........in SOME Cases, Yes, there are IMHO

However, if the SAME Player is used to Output a WAV file compared to a Lossless file.......then there is Zero Difference

WinZIP Versions of Word Documents contain No Differences to their original Non-Zip'ed versions..........likewise for Lossless Music files compared to the WAV Originals

Using compromised playback devices like the Airport Express or even the Computer itself can lead to false impressions being created

As we know, Sooloos creates FLAC Lossless files from the original CD's..........suffice it to say that Meridian (and others) would not have have arrived at this point if they thought that Lossless Versions of the original WAV's were compromised in any way

Last edited by Ronnie; 2011-02-06 19:23.
-