Newby question: I have an iTunes library of nearly 15,000 AIFFs. It is getting a bit unwieldy, so I would like to convert to Apple Lossless. It would be about half the size.

If I convert back to AIFF in several years, would there be any degradation of the file due to converting back and forth?

Just out of curiosity, how about if you converted back and forth numerous times?

Thanks to all for a great forum.

Ed

Post Script!

I just found this quote at: http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm

Decoding of the Apple Lossless files was done with QuickTime Pro 6.5.1 (Export -> Sound to Wave). The decoded files were not bit-identical to the original WAVE files. Comparing the WAVE files with Exact Audio Copy showed that the decoded Apple files were a few (less than 100) samples shorter than the original files.

What do you think?

there'll be no degradation because apple lossless is lossless.

Only the chance of datacorruption that might happen to any data that are moved around alot (hardwarefailures, bad RAM, packetloss when sending files over network, whatever). In itself conversion back and forth between Aiff, Wav, etc. and any lossless codec should be without any loss or degradation, whatsoever. But ofcourse, for the sake of Murphys' law, you might want to look into stuff like MD5, PAR2, and such.....