(This is actually covered on wikipedia, but okay, I won't worry about telling you to stfw.

M4A is a filename extension used to represent the audio file in MPEG-4. This would imply that you could, theoretically, actually create files that are both flac and m4a, in much the same way as you can put xvid encoded video inside an avi file. 3 Best M4A to FLAC Converters Free Online and Offline Programs. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats. You can play M4A files with most popular media players, including Apple Music, Apple Quicktime, Windows Media Player (if you add the K-Lite Codec Pack), Adobe Audition, and VLC. If I understand correctly, m4a is a container, whereas flac is a codec. foobar2000 is an advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform. Trim audio: Enter the timestamps of where you. You can use the options to control audio quality and file size. Amongst many others, we support MP3, M4A, WAV and WMA. Due to their reduced file sizes, M4A files are a go-to format for sharing and downloading audio content, especially music downloaded from the Apple iTunes Store. Convert your file from MPEG-4 Audio Layer to Free Lossless Audio Codec File with this M4A to FLAC converter. CloudConvert converts your audio files online. M4A files are typically encoded with ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) or AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), compressing the files to produce smaller file sizes that retain high-quality sound. Im up to a little over 2 TB of music, and that can fit on a what - a 100 hard drive (I store it as. I try to only torrent FLAC (or some other lossless format), and even decompress files that are compressed (I notate the bitrate on the filename). You can open these files using Apple Music, VideoLAN VLC media player, Microsoft Windows Media Player and others. For an audio song album recorded at 320kbps in 3 different formats as 1.

Originally developed by Apple as a competing format to MP3, M4As are specifically used to store audio-only material such as podcasts, music, audiobooks and other auditory entertainment. MPEG 4 Audio (M4A) compresses and encodes audio files by using one of two coder-decoder algorithms: Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) or Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC).M4A files are smaller in size while simultaneously better in quality than MP3 files, with which it shares the most similarities, in comparison to all other audio file formats. To convert the audio of a track from m4a to flac, you first need to upload the m4a file. I don’t know if your AAC file is ALAC.M4A files are an extension of the MP4 container format (MPEG-4 or Moving Picture Experts Group-4). Isn’t ALAC supposed to be lossless? like FLAC? What am I missing? Is there no lossless Apple format? Your lossless files will be larger, but you don’t have to distribute those original files. You are not likely to hear any difference, especially with a spoken word, which I assume is recorded under non-ideal conditions in a “noisy” lecture hall.īTW - If you are going to use lossless, you might as well record at 44.1 or 48kHz. If your preferred media player doesnt recognize files with an m4a extension, you can try renaming them to mp4 and see if that helps. DRMed tracks from itunes will have the extension 'm4p'. These are drm-free MPEG4-AAC encoded files. (22.050kHz, 16-bit mono uncompressed is 352kbps.)Īlthough it’s a good idea to record & produce in a lossless format it’s more practical to distribute in a more-compressed format. m4a, any decent media player should play them just fine. At 22kHz, you’ve got half the data, and I assume your file is mono. VEED can do so much more than just convert your M4A files to FLAC or other audio formats. MediaInfo might tell you for sure.Ī “regular” 16-bit 44.1kHz stereo FLAC or ALAC is usually in the ballpark of 700kbps. I’ve never used ALAC or GarageBand, but I’d say the 243kbps file is probably lossless. So the question is: which file is compressed LOSSLESS and which one is LOSSY?

M4a to flac