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Topic: Players / tools for Apple (Read 3080 times) previous topic - next topic
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Players / tools for Apple

I have been a Windows user (and still am) for many years. I have all my CD collection (5000 tracks) converted to both APE and FLAC - properly tagged, and most encoded as mp3 with LAME.

(If you want to know why I use both APE and FLAC - simple... After all the effort of ripping to APE, I thought I should have a backup of my archive because disk is cheap. Storing in a second lossless format is double protection for the future.)

With windows XP I can play any of these tracks with Media Center 11 or Foobar.

Recently I bought an Apple Mac Mini (OS X) and I would like to know what you all would recommend as a player for either APE or FLAC.

Also, what should I use as a ripper (I currently use EAC with LAME 3.96) and a tagging tool?

Thanks,

Norm

Players / tools for Apple

Reply #1 –
There aren't a whole lot of FLAC & APE players, so you'd do wise in converting them to ALAC and just use iTunes I think.. iTunes is also an accomplished tagger, but there are loads of applescripts that extends it further.

For secure ripping w/ error reporting, there is xACT which is based on the cdparanoia libraries. If you need a EAC log to get ease of mind, you could use Virtual PC as well, but I've yet to see xACT produce a bad rip (or iTunes for that matter)

Players / tools for Apple

Reply #2 –
Quote
There aren't a whole lot of FLAC & APE players, so you'd do wise in converting them to ALAC and just use iTunes I think.. iTunes is also an accomplished tagger, but there are loads of applescripts that extends it further.

For secure ripping w/ error reporting, there is xACT which is based on the cdparanoia libraries. If you need a EAC log to get ease of mind, you could use Virtual PC as well, but I've yet to see xACT produce a bad rip (or iTunes for that matter)
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Thanks for the rapid response.
How would I go about converting either APE or FLAC to Apple Lossless, on either a WINXP or MAC OSX platform?

Players / tools for Apple

Reply #3 –
For the Mac: xACT will convert both FLAC and APE to AIFF, which can be imported/converted with iTunes.

For the PC: dBPowerAmp will convert it all in one step.

Quote
For secure ripping w/ error reporting, there is xACT which is based on the cdparanoia libraries.
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Is this correct? I know cdda2wav (the library that xACT uses) has the paranoia option, but I assumed xACT did not use that by default.
"Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored."
—Aldous Huxley

Players / tools for Apple

Reply #4 –
It started to use paranoia on default as of version b9 I think. It seems a new version was just released today btw.

Players / tools for Apple

Reply #5 –
For the mac there is a player called Pure Audio that will play flac and ape files with no problem. It's donation ware and can be had on any of the Mac sites.