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Topic: Wavy sound in Apple Lossless? (Read 3106 times) previous topic - next topic
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Wavy sound in Apple Lossless?

Hey. I began encoding my CD collection in Apple Lossless through itunes. I've noticed on some tracks the sound "waves" in and out like someone is turning the sound up and down. Any idea what can cause this?
 

Wavy sound in Apple Lossless?

Reply #1 –
I know what you are talking about.  It sounds as if the volume is fluctuating.  I believe this is an issue with iTunes and how high your headphones/speakers are turned up.  I experienced this quite a bit on my older Dell XPS Gen 2 notebook, on my older desktop from 2002, and now on my somewhat newer (purchased in 2005) Toshiba tablet PC.  All three systems would experience this fluctuating volume when iTunes was playing back the music and I had my speakers at lower volumes.  None of them had any EQs running or any sound "enhancement" software running in the background.  I solved this issue by simply turning my speakers up by a slight level.  I have experienced this with Apple lossless files (encoded with dBpowerAMP), Lame mp3 files (even going all the way back to Lame 3.90.3), and Nero AAC files.

The issue is not with your Apple lossless files but rather iTunes.  I noticed that the volume fluctuation was greater on my Dell XPS Gen 2 notebook.  It had a Sigmatel C-Major (maybe a C-Minor) soundcard.

I do have one suggestion: you might want to think about ditching iTunes for your CD ripping needs.  It appears as if you are going through the process of archiving your CDs to a lossless format.  This is a wise decision but iTunes is not a secure ripper.  For example, if there is smudge (or dust, a scratch, hair, etc.) on your CD, iTunes will simply plow through this and it could result in an audible error in your lossless files.  Other programs such as EAC or dBpowerAMP have the ability to let you know when they encounter an error during the ripping process.  They can even compare their rips to an online database (called AccurateRip) to further solidify that the track was ripped securely/accurately or if there were errors.  dBpowerAMP even has native Apple lossless (ALAC) support.  Illustrate, the company behind dBpowerAMP, was able to reverse engineer Apple's ALAC encoder.  They then implemented it into their CD ripper.  I have found that it produces results about on par with the ALAC encoder used by iTunes/QuickTime (the dBpowerAMP one normally produces files that are a few MB larger but this shouldn't really matter).