What lossless audio format should I use to store music?
I started a project to copy my large CD collection and store them. Since I care about sound quality, I decided to store them in a lossless format. Right now I have tried using FLAC. However, reading this article gives me some doubts.
I have considered using vApple Lossless Files (m4a). It looks like Apple will support this format for years to come. However, I have not found a way to play them on my Playstation 3. The m4a format is compatible with Mac (of course) and on Windows FLAC, on the other hand, it is compatible with all major platforms. The advantage of the m4a format is the ability to import into iTunes. Today I connect my NAS and use VLC for playback (on my Mac computer).
My family has a Synology NAS, Mac Book Pro, Sony PS3, and several Windows computers. So I want to be able to play audio on all these platforms. Synology Server can transcode some formats like FLAC.
What lossless format do you recommend I use to store my audio files on my NAS? It should be a playable format on most platforms. This should be forward looking, but I understand that it is difficult to predict what will continue for many years to come.
One solution would be to keep my FLAC files. You could use them as long as FLAC is supported. When another fantastic lossless format comes out, I’ll have to convert them. As long as it is a lossless format, the sound quality is preserved.
