Do AIFF CDs play on car stereos?

I'm afraid John Lockwood's original post was wrong and has caused confusion. Apparently he didn't understand that a 'full blown' or 'audio CD' are actually using AIFF/ WAV.

Commercial Audio CD's use the redbook format…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio

The audio contained in a CD-DA consists of two-channel signed 16-bit Linear PCM

sampled at 44,100 Hz.

WAV or AIFF is the correct format to burn if you plan on distributing it & want the widest range of CD players to play it.

AIFF is effectively the same as WAV but was developed by Apple, WAV was developed by IBM, Microsoft

If you view a commercial CD in Finder you will see AIFF files. Those are normally uncompressed audio. I suspect a PC will show WAV files - in effect the AIFF/ WAV format is how the device decides to rip the data.

See the section Data access from computers on the Digital audio page, it explains how computers rip to AIFF/ WAV. Basically the OS wraps headers around the uncompressed audio to make it a AIFF or WAV.

As for AAC and MP3 those formats are lossy, compressed formats. They should be avoided because not all CD players will read those formats.

Apple Lossless is not an industry standard & should also be avoided if distributing CD's - it will not play on all CD Players.

FriesianQueen wrote:

It seems my music files are 24-bit Linear PCM and burn that way as well.

• How are you burning the disk? Specifically what app & what options?
• A valid CD-DA doesn't support 24bit. Are you burning SACD or DVD-A or something else?

Select the disk in Finder & Get info on it. It should say it's format is 'CD Audio'.

Drag a file from the disk & then use check to see the bitdepth & sample rate (Quicktime, iTunes or the Mediainfo app from the App store may be best for seeing the details).

If the disc format is listed as anything else it probably won't play on a standard CD player. 24Bit discs are available but not everybody has the player for it.

You should probably convert to 16bit 44.1kHz to hear how it will be on an actual CD audio disk if that is how you plan to distribute.

The crucial part in making a valid audio cd is to use an app that burns CD-DA (Audio disks). If you are fussy about the quality you should test the final disk or mix to 44.1kHz/16bit as it will get re encoded unless you provide that to the burner.

See Compact Disc Digital Audio. Most CD burning software is able to take audio files in whatever format they happen to come and construct an Audio CD from the data. Nearly all CD players can handle pressed CDs and CD-R.

tt2

CDs burned by a computer in 'Audio' format are burned in RedBook format. There is no such thing as a CD format using AIFF or WAV. Whilst it is possible to burn a CD in data format containing AIFF or WAV files this would be highly unusual. What might confuse yourself and other people is that when a real Audio CD is inserted in a computer - that is a CD in RedBook format the computer operating system often will automatically and transparently 'display' this as if it contains a number of AIFF or WAV files and likewise will often automatically name these based on their track names by looking them up via Gracenote CDDB. Should your computer display an audio CD as if it contains AIFF or WAV files it is actually possible to copy these files and they will work as AIFF files. This is possible because AIFF and WAV and the original audio CD are all uncompressed PCM data - merely wrapped in a different way, as proof if you were to compare the same file size of the track on an audio CD and as an AIFF or WAV file it would be effectively identical - baring overheads for headers and if any meta tag information is included.

So to repeat, a CD burned using iTunes or WMP as an 'audio' CD is burned in RedBook format.

A CD burned as an 'MP3' CD is actually a standard data CD merely containing MP3 files although these days equally likely AAC files.

Note: CD Audio Text is an enhancement to audio CDs that is not part of the official RedBook standard but does not 'break' compatibility with CD players that only understand the RedBook standard.

PS. Apple Lossless is an open-source standard just like FLAC. Microsoft themselves officially support both Apple Lossless and FLAC. With the fact that Apple Lossless is supported on all Apple devices i.e. over 1 billion iOS devices plus all Macs, Apple TVs etc. it could be argued Apple Lossless is more widely supported and used than FLAC. Sonos, Squeezebox, WMP, dbPowerAmp, WinAmp, Foobar2000, Plex, KodiTV and many more all support Apple Lossless.

Thanks, Drew. I noticed in the Wikipedia Audio Compact Disc information, a commercially pressed CD format is actually CD-DA "as defined in Redbook." They listed linear PCM as 16-bit. It seems my music files are 24-bit Linear PCM and burn that way as well. This is okay AS LONG AS it doesn't present CD player problems with the newly burned music CD, as I strive for the best fidelity.✅

I do not be using mp3, AAC or any other compressed file formats for my audio. So I'm only concerned with whether audio CDs burned from AIFF and WAV, which retain the full integrity of the sound waves (average file is between 30-80MB per 6 minute audio file and that's how it should stay once burned) will play on any CD player regardless of firmware😉.

That clarifies it John, I may have confused myself after seeing the multiple follow up posts claim AIFF/WAV is bad - it isn't at all, it is a reasonable input format & computers display them on valid redbook audio CD's.

The only critical part is to burn an audio disc which didn't seem to be what your first post was saying, inadequate caffeine I guess 😟

Drew Reece wrote:

I'm afraid John Lockwood's original post was wrong and has caused confusion. Apparently he didn't understand that a 'full blown' or 'audio CD' are actually using AIFF/ WAV.

Apologies, I missed the nuance.

John Lockwood wrote:

PS. Apple Lossless is an open-source standard just like FLAC. Microsoft themselves officially support both Apple Lossless and FLAC. With the fact that Apple Lossless is supported on all Apple devices i.e. over 1 billion iOS devices plus all Macs, Apple TVs etc. it could be argued Apple Lossless is more widely supported and used than FLAC. Sonos, Squeezebox, WMP, dbPowerAmp, WinAmp, Foobar2000, Plex, KodiTV and many more all support Apple Lossless.

I don't see any point discussing Apple Lossless as a distribution format on CD's, it's only been open source since 2011 and was released in 2004. CD players have been around for 30-40 years before that.

Drew, I'm using Corel's Toast Audio for software on my MacBook Pro latest Apple software with Maxell music (not just audio) CDs.

Tomorrow when I get back to it, I'll take screenshots so you can see exactly the very few options Toast Audio offers me.

It does not give me the option to change the bit rate manually to 16. So I'm wondering whether it converts automatically. If not, I could use Logic Pro to adjust the file, I bet, before I burn it.

I thought it was Roxio's Toast?

Look for an option to make an 'Audio CD'. I suspect you are making a 'data' disk that will burn files without trying to make them fit any specification because there are fewer limits on 'data formatted' disks.

Toast will burn a data CD from any format you care to offer it - they are just data files, and the only question is whether the car audio player can handle them. Toast can make audio CDs from many formats, though FLAC may not be among them.

Somewhere along the line, I think Corel bought Roxio because that's what comes up as the direct seller of the app. Toast Audio is not full blown Toast Titanium 15 because I don't need DVD and BlueRay. So because it's stripped down, maybe that's why the choices are limited.

Anyway won't be able to get to screenshots today.

There are two main formats of CD that are applicable. There is a fullblown audio CD which is equivalent to the audio CDs you buy in a shop. The other kind is a data CD which usually contains MP3 files (but could in theory contain other formats such as AAC).

I would recommend using the audio CD format as this will be compatible with the widest range of CD players and the purchaser can always import the contents into their computer in MP3 or other format.

I don't believe any in-car CD players will play AIFF or WAV files (on a CD), many will play MP3 and some might play AAC, all will play a fullblown audio CD.

John,

I have 2015 C300 and play wav files using the USB port. MP3 and AAC sound horrible compare to WAV. I am sure some auto's won't play wav files, other auto companies should get with the times and a loud any format to be played.

Vince,

They should use WAV, AIFF or APPLELOSSES. MP3 and AAC you lose data and can not be recovered. Selling CD's or digital songs using MP3 and AAC they are losing sound.

John,

I forgot to mention that WAV CD's work also. Actually I tried WAV files on a CD first as Mercedes is not real clear about files.

I have tried APPLELOOSES and FLAC they don't work CD or USB. I going to try AIFF, I think that should work since it is the same file type basically. WAV has been around long time. It was invented with Microsoft and IBM.

So if not WAV or AIFF, what file format is a full blown commercial audio CD using that enables it to play on everything????