Today, higher bit-rate MP3 and AACs are much better than they were. This is due to historically low bit-rates in lossy consumer music formats like MP3 or AAC (a lossy compression format is one that permanently removes some of the file's data in some cases it will remove more data than it leaves behind). To the audiophile market and to a lesser extent for some music lovers, digital music has a pretty bad name. Do you think this is practicable? Also, would Apple Lossless be the best format to choose to temporarily compress Aiff or Wav files for storage, in order to uncompress them for playback later? Also, to stream music to hi-fi etc, are these files the best formats to use, or are they problematical? Michael, via emailĪ When ripping your CD library, it's important to choose the best storage format to preserve your music collection's original quality. If I were to rip the collection as a backup to an external drive and/or place the files in the cloud, I would want to retain the quality with Aiff/Wav or compression to Apple Lossless (m4a) with the idea of being able to convert back to the uncompressed original in due course.

Q My large (1,500-strong) CD collection consists of classical music and jazz.

Best lossless cd ripper