Quote:
Originally Posted by torifile
So for files from apple lossless to 128 we're getting the equivalent of a 128 bit rip from the source, right? All my music on my main system is in ALC and I encode again at a lower bitrate for my iPhone and iPod.
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You can convert lossless as often as you want with no quality loss. If you wanted to, you could do CD>FLAC>APE>ALAC>FLAC>ALAC with no quality loss, since all of those are lossless codecs.
However, lossy formats like AAC, MP3 and OGG should, if at all possible, be used only once in a file's "pedigree," and it should be used last.
CD>FLAC>ALAC>MP3 would be fine, CD>FLAC>ALAC>MP3>ALAC would be pointless, and CD>256kbps AAC>128kbps AAC would produce a file of notably worse quality than ripping straight to 128kbps.