Mac AIR v MiND 180 v Auralic ARIES v totaldac d1 server

[PhilP]

You could use XLD to batch convert your ALAC files to AIFF. I don't know how many you have but it probably shouldn't take too long

A good point, sounds obvious but not something I'd thought of to be honest. Would there be any loss of sound quality vs re-ripping to FLAC or WAV? I wouldn't mind how long it takes, if you can set it going, then go to work, go for a beer & curry, go to bed etc, it wouldn't really matter. (Although about 9000 files, for what it's worth)

I transcoded a couple of hundred albums from FLAC (zero compression) to AIFF when I wanted to try iTunes AIR on my iMac and it didn't take long at all. I did it in 3 or 4 batches because I found that I wanted to listen to more and more albums so I'm not sure how long it really took. It's really just down to processor speed and how many cores your machine has.

The funny thing is AIR apparently converts everything to WAV anyway so I guess ease of tagging + your music library manager should be the main determinants of the coding you use.

I couldn't detect any loss in sound quality at all