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I don't often see ALAC files in the wild. High definition audio that I
see for sale or trade are almost always in FLAC format. If I ever get
anything in ALAC, I usually convert it to FLAC just so my collection is
consistent.
I believe ALAC files compress to be smaller than FLAC, so you might
consider them to be technically superior. I've heard that Apple products
in general do not support FLAC. I don't own anything Apple, so I can't
verify that. But otherwise, FLAC seems pretty ubiquitous.
On 9/29/2020 2:22 PM, Mark Fishman [email protected] [EAC] wrote:
>
> Not to disparage Fred's expertise in any way, but even the European
> Broadcasting Union uses FLAC, and not ALAC. To quote from the official
> FLAC website, "FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported
> lossless audio codec, and the only one that at once is non-proprietary,
> is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation,
> has a well documented format and API, and has several other independent
> implementations."
>
> The format is standardized. It is supported by an organization (xiph.org
> <http://xiph.org>) that guarantees that. Being also a "de facto"
> standard is actually an advantage: it means that many products,
> organizations, and people have chosen to use it in preference to
> something else, so it is more likely to be supported on any platform.
>
> Anyway, it's a non-issue, since one can convert back and forth between
> FLAC and ALAC without any loss (except your own time).
>
> Cheers -- m.