"I have sone lossless FLAC files on my MacBook, but it's not supported by iTunes, what can I do to make them compatible with iTunes?"
iTunes only supports limited audio format, not to mention lossless audio formats. FLAC is not supported by iTunes. But if you have lossless format on your MacBook and don't want to see them go to waste, there's an option for you. That is to convert them to AAC format, a format that's compatible with iTunes but at the same time maintains the high quality of FLAC format.
Part 1: Why Convert FLAC to AAC
You might wonder why AAC is a good choice for replacing FLAC on Mac. Maybe a little background information would help.
FLAC, short for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio. Digital audio compressed in FLAC format can generally be reduced to 50-60% of its original size and decompress to an identical copy of the original audio data.
While AAC, short for Advanced Audio Coding, is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. You might wonder why I would pick AAC over the more popular MP3. That's because AAC's designed to replace the popular MP3 format because AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates. Blind tests in the late 1990s proved that AAC delivered greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 for files coded at the same bit rate, but ever since that time various codec listening tests have shown that the best encoders in each format are often of similar quality and that the quality depends on the encoder used even within the same format. As an approximation, when using the best encoders, AAC's advantage over MP3 tends to be obvious below around 100kbit/s, but certain AAC encoders are not as good as the best MP3 encoder as they do not take optimal advantage of the addition encoding tools that AAC makes available.
In general, the AAC format allows developers more flexibility to design codecs than MP3 does.
Part 2: Convert FLAC to AAC with FLAC to AAC Converter Mac
Now that we've decided to convert FLAC to AAC, it's about time we started the conversion. On Mac FLAC to AAC converter is not that easy to find but we managed to do so. First we need a FLAC to AAC Converter Mac version to do this job. I would recommend Leawo FLAC to AAC Converter Mac, also known as Leawo Video Converter for Mac.
Why Pick Leawo FLAC to AAC Converter over Other FLAC to AAc Converters?
1. Convert audio between all popular formats with minimum quality loss.
2. Highly customizable audio parameters provided for setting.
To convert FLAC to AAC Mac uers please follow the guidance below of FLAC to AAC Mac conversion using Leawo FLAC to AAC Converter Mac.
Step 1: Launch the converter, click the tag of "Video Converter" to enter the audio converting interface.
Step 2:
Click the button on the left of the green "Convert" button, on the following drop-down menu, click "Change" button in the middle to enter the format selecting panel. Choose "AAC" as the output format in the "Format" section.
Step 3:
There's an "Edit" button on the previously mentioned drop-down menu, click it to enter the parameter setting panel. Adjustable parameters include: Audio Codec, BitRate, Sample Rate, Channel.
Step 4:
When you finish setting the parameters, click the green "Convert" button to proceed with the conversion. There should be a sidebar coming right up on the right side of the interface. You can set the output directory for the output file. And to start the conversion, click the "Convert" button at the bottom of the sidebar.
Part 3: Convert FLAC to AAC with Lossless Format Decoder
To convert FLAC to AAC Mac users also have another choice. There's an excellent lossless music format decoder that you could use to perform FLAC to AAC Mac conversion. XLD, short for X Lossless Decoder, is a program developed for decoding/converting/playing various lossless music files on Mac OS X.
XLD can decode (Ogg)FLAC(.flac/.oga), Monkey’s Audio(.ape), Wavepack(.wv), TTA(.tta), Apple Lossless(.m4a), TAK(.tak), AIFF, WAV, etc. And the output formats that XLD supports include WAVE, AIFF, Raw PCM, Ogg Vorbis(aoTuV), MPEG-4 AAC(QuickTime/CoreAudio), MP3(LAME), Apple Lossless, FLAC, HE-AAC(aacPlus v1/v2), Wave 64, WavPack, and IETF Opus.
Check out the guide below to see how to use XLD(X Lossless Decoder) to convert FLAC to AAC on Mac:
Step 1: Open XLD(X Lossless Decoder)
Step 2: On the menu bar, go to File>Preferences. In the General section, choose AAC as the output format.
Step 3: When you are done setting. Drag the file directly from your MacBook and drop it in XLD(X Lossless Decoder).
Note: When you are setting the output format in Preferences, you can also set the output directory for the converted file, or choose to add the encoded files to iTunes if possible.
Part 4: Comparison Between FLAC to AAC Converter Mac and FLAC to AAC Decoder
Both the two programs I've introduced on the above content are great in performing FLAC to AAC Conversion and have their own merits. The audio converting functions they have are pretty much similar but they have other functions that you might want to take into account when you are deciding which program you should choose. In the following content I would compare the two programs of basically all the things they can do to help you know what they are capable of.
| Features |
Leawo Video Converter |
XLD |
| Input format supported |
Audio: FLAC, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, M4A, MP2, MP3, OGG, RA, AU, WAV, WMA, MKA
Video: AVI, MP4, DAT, WEBM, RMVB, MPG, MPEG, VOB, MOV, M4V, QT,FLV, F4V, NSV, NUT, MKV, MTS/M2TS/TS/TP/TRP(AVCHD, H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 HD), MOD, TOD, DV, WMV, ASF, 3GP, 3G2, DVR-MS |
(Ogg)FLAC(.flac/.oga), Monkey’s Audio(.ape), Wavepack(.wv), TTA(.tta), Apple Lossless(.m4a), TAK(.tak), AIFF, WAV |
| Output format supported |
Audio:FLAC, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AMR, M4A, MP2, MP3, OGG, RA, AU, WAV, WMA, MKA
Video:3D video formats: 3D MP4, 3D WMV, 3D AVI, 3D MKV, 3D YouTube video, etc.
HD video formats: HD MP4,HD AVI,HD MOV,HD TS,HD TRP,HD VOB, HD MPG,HD WMV,HD ASF
Common video formats: MP4-AVC, MP4-XviD, MP4-H.264, AVI, ASF, WEBM, MOV, RMVB, FLV, F4V, TS, DAT, WMV, MKV, XviD, DV, MPEG-1 NTSC, MPEG-1 PAL/SECAM, MPEG-2 NTSC, MPEG-2 PAL/SECAM, DVD-Video NTSC, DVD-Video PAL/SECAM, 3GP, 3G2, DPG |
WAVE, AIFF, Raw PCM, Ogg Vorbis(aoTuV), MPEG-4 AAC(QuickTime/CoreAudio), MP3(LAME), Apple Lossless, FLAC, HE-AAC(aacPlus v1/v2), Wave 64, WavPack, and IETF Opus |
| Multiple conversion |
 |
|
| Merge audios into one |
|
|
| Convert videos between all formats |
|
|
| Convert video from 2D to 3D |
|
|
| Play lossless music |
|
|
| Price |
Trial:Free;1 year:$29.95;life time:$39.95 |
Free |
Sep. 23, 2014 by 
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