Flac & wave exported to aac & alac

Audacity 3 Help Forum
1

Greetings All…using v.3.7.2, win 10.

I’m attempting to convert (Export) a couple of hundred flac & wave files from my home system to play in my 2014 Honda van (Odyssey). The car’s OEM audio system only plays Mp3,m4a & wma. I have no prior experience w/ anything Apple.

After researching here & in the user manual (also checked the FFmpeg site), I’ve successfully exported a file as m4a & wma both of which played in the car. But I would like to use .alac since it’s lossless.

The only thing written in the car’s owners manual about aac files is that it needs to compatible with itunes. So I question (myself), if it would even play a alac.But I think the only way to prove it, would be to try playing it.

In Audacity I chose Custom FFMPEG export & clicked alac in the right column, but the left column & other options are beyond my knowledge.

Is there a Preset I can download? If not, I’d appreciate any suggestions.

2

DISCLAIMER - I’ve never used ALAC…

Try Kabuu Audio Converter. It has an option for Apple Lossless Codec (.m4a).

It’s a LOT easier to use than Audacity if you just want to convert without editing. Once you’ve set-up your output format and output location, it’s just drag, drop, and click, and you can convert a folder-full of files at once.

It will also be easier if you end-up choosing MP3 or AAC (=M4A =MP4).

Kabuu Audio Converter will also usually “preserve” any tags/metadata better than Audacity. Audacity always looses the artwork, but that may not display in your car anyway. (It may not be be perfect since different audio formats use different tagging standards/formats.)

If you go with lossy, AAC is supposed to be better than MP3. But at high bitrates either one can be very good and often sound identical to the uncompressed original (in a proper blind listening tests).

I’m not really sure how WMA “rates” but it’s kind-of outdated and not very popular.

3

I would be inclined to go for m4a, I think. Since the better quality audio downloads from the BBC use it, I reckon if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. In the end, it’s all about enjoying the music in the van.
Mark B

4

mp3 is not at all “Apple”. it was developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany (according to Wikipedia).
wma is “Windows Media Audio” - has alos nothing to do with “Apple”.
Remains m4a - according to Wikipedia, " Audio-only MPEG-4 files generally have a .m4a (MPEG-4 Audio) extension. This is especially true of unprotected content."

The “plain mp4 format” should be playable on 99% of the devices.

5

Thanks to all of you for your info, it’s helping me narrow down my choices.

I wasn’t clear enough (for the sake of brevity) on a couple of points…allow me to clear them up.

90% of my music collection was sourced form my CDs & LPs. I tweaked them in Audacity (it took months), then exported in high BR Mp3. They were easily copied to the van.

The other 10% came originally compressed. After editing, & not wanting to further degrade them, they were exported as wave or flac, which played on my home Sonos system. These, I would now like to save in a uncompressed format for playing in the car.

HOWEVER, the car’s owner’s manual only says, Mp3,wma & acc* can be played. I have the manual in front of me now.

*I mistakenly listed m4a in the OP, because my research indicated it contained the aac OR alac codec…a senior moment no doubt. My OP point that I wasn’t familiar with Apple products was meant to explain that acc & m4a were new to me. It seems m4a can contain either acc OR alac, but it’s not obvious to know which it uses.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. My online experience is that the younger crowd only look for keywords & their reading comprehension is poor. You folks are probably like me, old geezers, or at least middle-aged…sorry…

This entire exercise may be superfluous, since the manual only states acc, NOT alac. However, unless I test a alac file, I won’t know for sure. I couldn’t find a .alac file via google to see if it would play in the car. Any suggestions about that?

If this leads to a dead-end, I’ll follow dvdDoug’s advice & use a converter & save themin a high BR acc.