A USB HU which can read lossless formats?

[tsk1979]

Hi,
There are lots of HUs in the market which can read mp3, DiVx etc., from a HDD connected via the USB port. But I am yet to see an HU which supports lossless format like FLAC read via the USB port from an external media. Do they exist in India(read, easily available)
What is the approximate cost?

[navin]

not yet.

[thefreak]

Originally Posted by navin

not yet.

OT:

Is there a way to use iTunes to play lossless formats?

[tsk1979]

Googling hinted at something from russia URAL ConceRt CDD Project | Главна�.
But I guess it means, none of the mainstream HUs support the less popular format.
But considering that it would not make much of a difference in power consumption, why not have a processor based system which can decode FLAC and OGG along with the standard formats. Since these are open, you do not even have to pay license fee to anybody!

[gunbir]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Googling hinted at something from russia URAL ConceRt CDD Project | Главна�.
But I guess it means, none of the mainstream HUs support the less popular format.
But considering that it would not make much of a difference in power consumption, why not have a processor based system which can decode FLAC and OGG along with the standard formats. Since these are open, you do not even have to pay license fee to anybody!

The URAL HU is an international mystery in itself... IIRC the Alpine IDA-X001 does stream lossless AAC from a connected iPod.

[FATAL3RROR]

Originally Posted by thefreak

OT:

Is there a way to use iTunes to play lossless formats?

hi thefreak!

iTunes and iPod support Apple Lossless Codec support. You can rip your CDs in this format using iTunes itself!

FE

[wolfff]

Originally Posted by FATAL3RROR

hi thefreak!

iTunes and iPod support Apple Lossless Codec support. You can rip your CDs in this format using iTunes itself!

FE

Yes, as of now, we are limited to ripping our cd's as apple lossless and playing them through an ipod using aux in of the HU.

[Amey]

Pio P80RS supports AAC format.

[gunbir]

Originally Posted by Amey

Pio P80RS supports AAC format.

Arrey there are plenty of HUs the support AAC... the question was about ones that supported lossless, which aren't many.

[FATAL3RROR]

Originally Posted by wolfff

Yes, as of now, we are limited to ripping our cd's as apple lossless and playing them through an ipod using aux in of the HU.

My Alpine 9883 HU supports Apple Lossless codec through the iPod connector. So i guess it might on a CD also..never tried it though!

[gunbir]

Originally Posted by FATAL3RROR

My Alpine 9883 HU supports Apple Lossless codec through the iPod connector. So i guess it might on a CD also..never tried it though!

Do try it out and let us know... as per my experience, it doesn't read lossless off CDs.

[navin]

Originally Posted by FATAL3RROR

iTunes and iPod support Apple Lossless Codec support. You can rip your CDs in this format using iTunes itself!

Apple lossless is not that great a format. there are better.

[vebmetal]

A quick somewhat OT but not really question: Is lossless basically futureproof? As in, if I was to rip all my cds into FLACs could there ever be a stage when I would want those CDs again?

[navin]

Originally Posted by vebmetal

A quick somewhat OT but not really question: Is lossless basically futureproof? As in, if I was to rip all my cds into FLACs could there ever be a stage when I would want those CDs again?

i did rip all my CD (over 600) of them into lossless. still you never know what the future holds so I still have the CDs just never use them anymore.

[rocksterraghu]

Originally Posted by vebmetal

A quick somewhat OT but not really question: Is lossless basically futureproof? As in, if I was to rip all my cds into FLACs could there ever be a stage when I would want those CDs again?

I always make copies of my Audio CDs using Nero's image recorder and burn them onto blank CDs. I keep my MP3s and iPod for casual listening like while in traffic.

IMO, these lossless formats (WAV, FLAC) should all be fine. I don't think there would be any difference in the lossless files and Audio CDs.

Further, you may be interested in this article:

Lossless audio formats comparison

Evidence that conversions really are lossless

To make sure that the audio stored in each lossless format really is the same as the original audio source, I used an uncompressed Wave file of Canon in D major from The Essential Classics Collection. This Wave file was examined using the handy HashTab Shell Extension, and the MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 hash values for the file were noted down, as was the size of the Wave file in bytes. This Wave file was converted using dBpowerAMP into a FLAC file (using the same compression settings as used in the big comparison above), and the original Wave file was deleted. The FLAC file was converted into a Monkey's Audio file, which was converted into an OptimFROG file, which was converted into a Shorten file, which was converted into a WavPack file. Finally, the WavPack file was converted into an uncompressed Wave file.
The resulting Wave file was exactly the same size as the original Wave file, and the MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 hash values matched exactly with the original. This is very strong evidence that each of the lossless formats tested preserves the original audio perfectly.
Note that this process only succeeds because Wave does not support meta tags, it only stores the audio in the track. The conversion process above will change meta tags (that describe the track name, year the track was released, etc), so these are not necessarily preserved exactly between lossless formats. This is because not all audio file formats support the same meta tags. However, as far as audio is concerned, these formats really are lossless.