SO what's the program for cds to Flac?

There are many out there.  I'm a Windoze-only user, so not sure about Mac's.

I use dBpoweramp for ripping CD's to ALAC format, but it'll do FLAC also.  I use it to convert FLAC to ALAC.  I believe I read somewhere the trial version will revert to a free version after the trial expires and the free version will still do FLAC rips.

I use MediaMonkey as a library and playlist manager.  I believe it'll also rip CD's to FLAC.

I think WinAmp is another choice among a multitude of others.

Apple no longer holds a majority of the market share; in fact, it's about a third on phones now, down almost 10% y/o/y.

 

The "we're the fanboi and tweeny must-have" game is fading, as fads always do.

 

Apple has always strove to lock you into their accessories and "other things" dating back to the original Macs.  In the portable device arena they started that crap with their "custom" implementation of the "fast" charger USB protocol (there already was an industry standard -- shorted data pins; Apple decided that a voltage divider across them was what they'd use) which is why you now can't buy a single USB charger that will fast-charge BOTH Apple units AND every other device out there.  Then, not satisfied to have fragmented that market on purpose (and unhappy that people reverse-engineered the voltage divider requirements; after all, they were rather trivial) they changed the connector ("lightning"), instantly destroying compatibility with hundreds of other manufacturer's add-on products (e.g. nightstand alarm clocks, etc.) that had sold through millions of units worldwide.

 

ALAC is just another example of this; FLAC has existed since 2001 and was originally released both as an open format and a free reference implementation.  Rather than adopt what already works (really well) and is cross-platform Apple again did their usual crass crap of attempting to force people to remain within their "walled garden."

 

The same is true for iTunes; with essentially every other device out there you can simply copy media files to the device's storage and it will play them.  Only Apple insists that you use their software to do so, and we have now found out that as soon as you allow that connection your iPhone's security is permanently destroyed as the unit exchanges a keyring with the computer that bypasses all encryption permanently.  If that keyring is compromised (say, by a virus or physical theft of your machine) remote and unprompted access to damn near everything on your device goes with it.  Worse, said access cannot be revoked except by a hard reset of the phone or tablet in question.  The intentional design decision renders any pretense of enterprise (or regulated industry, say much less individual) security an utter and complete farce.  Oh, and the best part of it is that Apple doesn't disclose this either; it was discovered by forensic researchers and has been present in every version of IOS (including the current ones) going all the way back.

 

The correct response to this sort of thing by consumers would be to say "Bite Me!" rather than molly-coddling a company that has demonstrated every intent to lock you into their garden by any means possible and make available to them anything on your device they might want access to, ever.

 

I very much appreciate that Pioneer (finally) supported FLAC; the presence of an open-source, royalty-free and cross-platform lossless audio format on these head units is in fact the reason I bought a NEX over competing products.

You must be one of those droid, apple haters I hear so much about. See, here in America, we have free choice. We can choose to buy the products that we like, and that work well for our lifestyle. I happen to buy apple products because they are well engineered and just plain work. I am also an engineer and a software developer who does not want to spend all of my time playing with widgets and the startup screen for kicks. I have more important things to do. You have the ability to choose what you want as well. You have that right.

Now, as to some of your comments, I think they are beyond the scope of this forum. But since you brought a few things up, let me at least correct you on a couple of things. The security paring that you are referencing is for diagnostic information and for enterprise uses. The Apple ecosystem is by far the most secure when It comes to data and virusus. As an android user your must (or should) reliaze the risks your platform has in the way of security and viruses. The entire google android operating system was created to collect user information and push adds back to the user. Google exists to collect as much information as possible about you so they can market to you better and to sell that information to their advertisers. As business owner, I do not allow any of my employees to use an android phone for busienss.

Change brings innovation. If we stick with the same old cable connection, pin out or compression standard, we get stuck in the past. I applaud Apple in their many innovations over the years. The phone you are holding in your hand right now, is what it is because of the original iPhone and the change it brought about. Remember the Blackberry?

@tickerguy. Who was talking about iPhones? Are you forgetting the half a billion iPods in circulation?

Now, as to some of your comments, I think they are beyond the scope of this forum. But since you brought a few things up, let me at least correct you on a couple of things. The security paring that you are referencing is for diagnostic information and for enterprise uses.

Uh, no, it's not.  Indeed, most of what is made available has no conceivable diagnostic purpose.  Further, the entire premise of an encrypted device (if you've enabled encryption) is that the locus of authorization never leaves that device.

(I've done this sort of thing -- security and forensics -- for more two decades.  You're preaching BS at a bishop here..)

And finally, I don't care for the so-called "security model" on Android either, having ported Android to two different devices and thus having quite-intimate knowledge of its security model on both an operating system and application basis.  My personal phone, incidentally, is a BlackBerry Z10.

Bringing one's anti-Apple rhetoric to a conversation about an Apple codec is nothing more than a thread fart.

You've made your feelings known with other comments in other threads. We get it. You don't like Apple and don't use their products. This thread should not concern you then.

ALAC is a hack that Apple put into place in the face of a perfectly good codec that was (1) free and (2) lossless, including a public reference implementation.  They tried to force licensing and proprietary uptake of it for close to 10 years, abandoning that model only after it failed to gain traction.  This is their business model and has been repeated time and time again.

Pioneer adopted (not surprisingly) the freely available, with reference implementation, industry standard for lossless music files.  That a minority of people who bought a product that was known to come with a walled garden are now butt-sore as a consequence isn't Pioneer's problem, it's yours -- you knowingly purchased a product that is the antithesis of competition and open standards.

The complaint is IMHO misplaced and what you seek to accomplish can be.  The pressure should be aimed at Apple -- to support FLAC, not the other way around.

And Microsoft should force Apple to use WMA. ALAC works fine for apple and even HD Tracks and B&W offer downloads so the "industry standard" label does not go far.

If anything iTunes and iPod are more of an industry standard than FLAC. If Apple offered 1TB iPhones my music would be in ALAC and played through my phone and I wouldn't need a USB drive. 

Again, we get it. You do not use Apple, do not like the company or their products. Why do you care?

Really

Deleted! Thanks for reporting Shackleton. Yeah what a tool.

Deleted for what? Telling the truth about Pioneers shoddy implementation of FLAC support? Being a moderator I'd expect calling your forum users "a tool" isn't good practice.

Now banned! Oh you can edit your post to excluded calling people ugly names but the email I get shows the original comment.

I searched for the best lossless cd ripping software for Mac, and there was a lot of talk about dbpoweramp, but was windows app. I found they have a beta app for mac and downloaded it. I am going to rip a few cds in FLAC, to see if I can see(hear) the difference. If there is a good deal of difference, i will start ripping again. I just replaced my 240gb ssd with my ripped dvds with a 480gb ssd, so that leaves me with a 240 to start my FLAC collection. 

I am not aware of a Mac application like EAC; there are many that will make FLAC files, but EAC has access to a database and is able to verify (in most cases) that the rip was accurate at the bit level from the original CD media.  It also has the ability to access both forward error correction (if your drive supports it) and "simple" CRC-style retries if not.

Some people cannot hear the difference between a moderately high bit-rate MP3 and a FLAC file.  I can and the difference is not small, provided the equipment I'm listening to it on is of sufficient quality (both my near-field setup on my home PC and my car are good enough.)

Is the additional quality worth the monstrous size difference in the files?  That's up to you, but these days storage is cheap.

Download XLD for Mac if you want to rip to FLAC.

3 years later....any updates on we use ALAC files?