In article <Xns9ADCC25D12EB3bob@216.196.97.136>, The Bob
<nospam@bob.com> wrote:

> nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> amazed us all with the following in
> news:150720081726222173%nospam@nospam.invalid:
>
> > In article <Xns9ADCAAC1B7256bob@216.196.97.136>, The Bob
> > <nospam@bob.com> wrote:
> >
> >> They are hardly obscure. flac is the leader in lossless file use,
> >> and shn is not far behind.
> >
> > people don't generally put lossless music on a portable music player
> > because it takes up too much space and it's impossible to hear the
> > difference anyway, so the fact that it doesn't play flac is moot.
>
> With larger storage capacity, space is not a concern.

one will always be able to load more mp3/aac songs than lossless,
regardless of how much space is on the device (any device). there's
always a tradeoff.

> And the fact that it
> does not play it demonstrates that it's not the "media-friendly" device
> that Oxtard purports it to be.

lossless (not just flac) is a niche format that doesn't really matter
to most users, whether it's an ipod or any other media player. the
vast majority of people listen to ipods and other players in situations
where any difference will not be noticable, and also using less than
perfect headphones, so why waste the space for lossless when it will
sound the same?

> >> And one more to add to the list that is also widely used and not
> >> supported by the iPhone- wma.
> >
> > itunes converts it.
>
> But it doesn't play it. With conversion comes data loss. With data loss,
> comes sound degradation. If it were the wundertoy that the fanbois claim
> it to be, conversion would not be necessary. Especially for such a common
> file type.

that only matters if a difference can be heard. but as i've said
before, if you have a lot of wma then the ipod isn't the best choice.