Lossless (ALAC) iTunes downloads?

luismarcilio wrote:

Can't believe I'm the only one who liked this answer.

Hi Luis,

This thread is now over 7 years old but the story is still the same: the iTunes Store does not sell lossless downloads.

However, music download stores that sell lossless downloads are nowadays more likely to offer ALAC as well as FLAC. I have noticed this on Bandcamp and many other sites.

Can't believe I'm the only one who liked this answer.

Turbojugend27 wrote:

Isn't that just taking the lossy file and making it an ALAC file? You aren't getting lossless, you are just creating a larger file of a song that is already compressed.

You're correct, of course, though you are answering a six-year-old post and the subject was discussed in considerable detail in the subsequent posts. The OP was asking about ripping CDs, and obviously there it's advantageous to use a non-lossy format to maintain the quality. Others have had to be disabused of the notion that you can in effect 'uncompress' a compressed audio file. Confusion with zipping, I suppose: audio compression is a quite different animal.

klbnc wrote:
Is there a way to change the iTunes store setting so if I purchase music it downloads lossless?

Looking at this thread, if I purchase an album from iTunes how can I see if it is lossless or lossy compression?

what about DRM, is there any way to tell what is DRM free?

Click the little X at the upper right of iTunes, and buy from one of the online music download stores that sell in lossless format.

I am sorry but I do not find this "X" on the upper right corner to buy from hdtracks or others.

Any help welcome ;-)

Jehany,

Here are links to some of the stores that i named that sell downloads in lossless music formats.

https://www.hdtracks.com/

http://www.eclassical.com/

http://livedownloads.com/

Here's what I do to get my iTunes downloads in lossless. After you are done downloading the song or songs, go to the purchased list on the left side of itunes. Select one of the songs and do a control click (probably a right click on a pc). Select "create Apple lossless version" and bingo, you are set.

All that does is make the file size larger. It does not get any quality back; the quality was lost in the original compression of the track and cannot be recovered. So there's abolutely no useful purpose served by convering the tracks to Apple Lossless.

That's very good to know, thank you!

jehany wrote:

Click the little X at the upper right of iTunes, and buy from one of the online music download stores that sell in lossless format.

I am sorry but I do not find this "X" on the upper right corner to buy from hdtracks or others.

Any help welcome ;-)

I believe eed2345 was suggesting you quit iTunes and purchase from somewhere else besides the iTunes store.