On Jul 12, 2004, at 4:40 PM, zorn-list-request(a)mailman.xmission.com
wrote:
> I've had no problems with AIFF files, sound-wise or function-wise, on
> any cd player. They sound just as you say, like the original.
(I used to work for Apple, so this is an issue I'm fairly familiar with)
Once you hit "burn" in iTunes, whatever music format the audio files in
your playlist are in is sneakily converted to AIFF format right before
burning anyhow, so that's not the issue.
However, if you've ripped the CD using a compressed format (MP3, AAC,
WMA) you're only going to get as good a sound quality of the compressed
file, which is to say, there will be some sort of audio quality loss,
even when it goes back to AIFF.
If you wish to maintain complete 100% audio quality, you're going to
want to rip your CDs using AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless format. Any one
of those formats will produce digital output exactly the same as the
original CD. They will take up a magnitude more hard disk space than
the compressed ones, however, so they're not that great for archiving
your entire collection on your computer, laptop, iPod, whatever, but
the sound quality will be better.
As has been pointed out, the big issue with "will this burned CD work
in my car/stereo/boombox/etc." is not the audio file format but the is
the *brand* of blank CD-R media you use (and specifically, the tint of
the backing color of the CD-R's aluminum layer). The best universal
advice seems to be to find a brand of blank CD-R that works well with
all your various gizmos and stick with it.
My apologies if this was off-topic for the list. Let me see if I can
add something passingly relevant: um, the "Bookshelf on Top of the Sky"
documentary about Zorn and his cronies was really interesting, and is
on the Netflix service if you subscribe to that.
~jeff
