Audacity can't handle .m4a files, so I tried with Wavepad and got the following result ( beneath is an Audacity frequency analysis from the same track, AFTER conversion to .wav with "iSkysoft iMedia Converter Deluxe")

My question; is the .m4a track lossy or not?

If you have other software to check, you can download the track in .m4a here: [we.tl] )

.m4a:



.wav



Chris from Belgium





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-11-22 22:34 by coowouters.

M4A is only a container format that can contain either AAC (lossy) or Apple Lossless Audio Codec (lossless). The iTunes stuff is usually AAC = lossy.

Quote
coowouters

My question; is the .m4a track lossy or not?

Simply open the *.m4a-Track in iTunes, right-click on the Track, then on 'Information' -> 'File' -- it'll display the properties of the file.

The QuickTime-Player can also display File-informations.

In this case it's a lossy 44.1 kHz, 128 kBit/s, Mono-File.

Thanks!!!!

I'm not familiar with Itunes, but I downloaded it (the Dutch version) and tried it out with another file .

When I look at the properties, I get the following information, and see "AAC" so that does mean it's lossy, right?



Chris from Belgium





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-11-23 01:19 by coowouters.

AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding
aac encoded audio files can have a variety of extensions that include
.aac,.m4a, .m4b, mp4, .m4v.......
so aac is the actual audio encoding scheme, m4a is simply a file extension.

your first file in foobar:


it's aac encoded with the m4a extension @ 128kbps,
almost equal to mp3@144kbps


and there is alac
ALAC stands for Apple Lossless Audio Codec


your second file says
......aac@256kbps
it's aac (is lossy) @256kbps
that is almost equal to mp3@320kbps

you don't need apple itunes or quicktime to play m4a files,
lots of windows programs can.
i usually use foobar (audio) or vlc (mediaplayer),
in both you can see used codecs, bitrates and more.

in order to play/edit m4a files in audacity, you need to
install ffmpeg

Thanks,

Got it

Chris from Belgium