Hi-fi nerds please - how to get FLACs onto iPhone 4S?

[mecch]

Either I have brian fog or its getting more difficult every year to find how-tos for simple stuff like this.....

How do I take my (vast) FLAC music library and load albums to my iPhone, keeping lossless quality?

Do I need to convert myself with a 3rd program, and to what?  Apple Lossless? AIFF?  And then import to itunes?

Itunes doesnt want to convert anything just by me dragging over the FLAC files.

Yeah I broke down and got an iPhone.  Thought I hated their polititcs of market control for many years and never had an iPod, just niche audiofile flac players.

Winning simple instructions will be rewarded!

Thanks.

[Miss Philicia]

FLAC and AIFF file sizes are too large for an iPhone -- you'd not be able to put much on there. Convert the files to .m4a

This program should do the conversion for you, assuming you are on a Mac -- it's also free:

http://sbooth.org/Max/

[mecch]

Thanks.
I have a 64gb phone, and usually dont load entire libraries, just a sorting for the month, depending on the season, my mood, new titles, etc.
But I never explored the MPEG 4 option, guess I haven't examined this for a few years. It says its better than MP3 yet smaller, so I am going to give it a go now!

I already have Max.  Do I convert my flacs to (AAC) - MPEG4 Audio, or (Apple Lossless) - MPEG4 Audio.  I have a choice on the menu.

What's your reward? I'll PM you with ideas!

Mecch

[Solo_LTSurvivor]

Do I convert my flacs to (AAC) - MPEG4 Audio, or (Apple Lossless) - MPEG4 Audio.  I have a choice on the menu.

Keep in mind that the lossless (ALAC) files will be much larger than the AAC files.  As someone that requires music on my head at all times, I can honestly recommend that you will be ok with 256 AAC - when it comes to the quality.  It's the standard for all things sold on the iTunes Store, so if you want to check out the quality, listen to some of the previews to get a feeling for how things sound.

Don't you guys have iTunes Match in Switzerland now?

[mecch]

What is iTunes Match?
Guess not. But I dont use Itunes all that much the last 5 years.  Since I went to lossless copies.  But now the gadgets all have big capacities so I can consider putting lossless back onto my phone.

I just figured out the AAC  and the Apple lossless, they both work now if I click off in MAX check for itunes capatability.   By ALAC you mean the Apple Lossless will be much bigger? 
I think this spring or summer I will go for a 2TB minimum drive with thunderbolt just for putting all my lossless digital music files together and go back to using iTunes to make playlists, etc.
So would I then be converting FLAC to Apple Lossless?  Because AAC, fine for my iphone now, would actually be losing some info from the flacs?

[Solo_LTSurvivor]

What is iTunes Match?
Guess not. But I dont use Itunes all that much the last 5 years.  Since I went to lossless copies.  But now the gadgets all have big capacities so I can consider putting lossless back onto my phone.

I just figured out the AAC  and the Apple lossless, they both work now if I click off in MAX check for itunes capatability.   By ALAC you mean the Apple Lossless will be much bigger? 
I think this spring or summer I will go for a 2TB minimum drive with thunderbolt just for putting all my lossless digital music files together and go back to using iTunes to make playlists, etc.
So would I then be converting FLAC to Apple Lossless?  Because AAC, fine for my iphone now, would actually be losing some info from the flacs?

Yes, the lossless files will be much bigger than AAC.  Again remember as Miss P said, FLAC files are not transferable to any portable device (iPhone, iPod, iPad, or even windoze peripherals).

The main difference between ALAC (lossless) and AAC files is the fact that the AAC files are compressed in size so that they are smaller in order to fit more songs on your device.  I am serious when I say that AAC files which have been encoded at 256 sound fantastic, even to most audiophiles. It's not like you are listening to a .wav file that has been compressed to hell leaving you with all types of nasty artifacts to the point where you can't bear to listen to your music.

Information regarding iTunes Match can be found here

The only reason I asked about it is that it's a good way to obtain decent quality copies of music in your library without the hassle of having to re-rip, re-encode/covert or whatever.  And everything is stored on the cloud, so you don't use any of your allotted space on your phone for music.  The only downside is that you have to have access to a network, unless you download tunes and store them on your phone --- meaning that unless you can access 3G or wi-fi, and have no actual copies of tunes on your phone, you will be stuck with dead air until you can access connectivity, as things have to download from the cloud.  This is something to consider.

The other reason I suggested Match is that I know people who downloaded horrible copies of lots of songs in the past and they were able to obtain high-quality versions, no questions asked -- once the songs were matched in the iTunes Store.  They downloaded the better versions and deleted the horrible ones....

[mecch]

Yes it seems I can have match, and that is a pretty incredible deal. 

One glitch is that I don't have any of my music on iTunes anymore. Since I decided to collect it all in lossless formats.  I digitized all my cds in lossless flac, for example. SO I still have to go through the time consuming step of converting this to something I can put on iTunes.  I like the idea and generosity of Match. 

I am curious about your last paragraph!  So someone who has a huge crappy MP3 collection (not me, by the way) in his iTunes can get it back as AAC quality?  Even all their what we used to call "stolen" music? And the cloud lets them play it only?  Or actually redownload it, and move it off device, so it is still there as AAC quality when the CLOUD is off?   Is that what you are saying?  How on earth did Apple fly that by the recording industry?   Is it precisely because of the technical point that Apple isn't matching (e.g. providing) lossless copies.   Or do those AAC quality "matches" come with some sort of DRM, even when moved off device?

Thanks for all the information on this and other points!