[X4U] importing audio CD as AIFF

[Kirk McElhearn]

On Apr 30, 2005, at 3:41 PM, DZ-Jay wrote:

>>> Personally ... I would bet that many pro musicians and engineers  
>>> would
>>> highly doubt that it is able to be decompressed to its 'original'
>>> bit-stream.
>>>
>>
>> You lose! Lossless compression for music works the same way as,  
>> say, zip compression for other types of files. When you decompress  
>> a file, you don't lose any letters, words or digits, do you?
>>
>
> But that's only because when you zip a computer file, you have  
> access to its raw data via the filesystem, and you are encoding and  
> compressing the original information bit by bit.  Audio CDs are not  
> read directly by applications, not many commercial applications  
> anyway; there are layers of abstraction in between, just to  
> lengthen the gap between the digital information stored in the disc  
> and the consumption of the user of it.  For many reasons, mostly  
> political, mere mortals like us are not supposed to have direct  
> access to the source material, at least not easy access that can  
> lead to wholesale duplication, and hence piracy, by any tom, dick,  
> or harry.

I'm not sure I get your argument. Lossless compression is lossless;  
you don't lose anything. When you decompress you have exactly the  
same thing as the original music files. Whether it is Apple Lossless,  
FLAC or SHN, they all work the same.


Kirk

                       Author of: iPod & iTunes Garage
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