iTunes vs FLAC.

Can iTunes play FLAC Files or not?

We all wish for everything to be of the best quality. We are striving for perfection in all areas of our lives. When it comes to brands of clothing, it is relatively easy to find the ones of a better quality. Food, too, can be chosen to be organic and from ecologically clean sources. What about the things we cannot touch?

Let’s talk about music

Not so long ago our grandparents could not imagine music to be in any form other than vinyl (well, unless it is a live performance). Our parents used cassettes, and we remember using CDs from our childhood. Trying to catch up with a fast-paced progress, music can be played now in a myriad of digital formats. But the question is: what kind of quality are they? Do they meet your expectations? During this race, most of the quality was lost. True music lovers felt it and started to look for a way to win it back. This is how the FLAC format was born.

What is FLAC? And what about iTunes?

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. It means that the music data is efficiently compressed which allows the customer to enjoy the highest quality of sound. The King of modern music formats is also very good for storage – it takes less space than the majority of other lossless formats (probably not a big difference).

So everything seems to be great, doesn’t it? We have a concise and a super high-quality music format – what more one can ask for? But here is the problem: since it is incompatible with iTunes, it does not play on any Apple device. Now, this is heart-breaking. One has to deny himself a chosen Apple product simply because they want to listen to HD music. It doesn’t sound as good a solution to the problem. So, can iTunes play FLAC files?

Is there an iTunes service/app which can play FLAC files?

Apple has also created their own lossless format: Apple Lossless Audio Codec, usually called Apple Lossless or ALAC. There is not much difference between ALAC and FLAC since they are both lossless formats, so quality-wise they should be the same. However, FLAC boasts higher compression levels which result in slightly smaller file sizes (not so critical, only nearly).

Even though they are like brothers, one has to convert FLAC file to ALAC to make sure that iTunes plays their FLAC files. There are some free programs which allow you to do that and they can be easily found on the Internet. This is the first way, and it is more suitable for those who do not have a lot of FLAC files in their music library.

For audiophiles, there is another option: one can install a special FLAC player to their Apple product and save a lot of time which could be spent listening to high-quality music. There is a range of similar media players – some of them play only lossless audio formats, some of them only FLAC, most of them are available at a small price. It depends on your needs – it’s that easy.

So: "Can iTunes play FLAC files?" - "No."

Listen FLAC Music with VOX Mac Music Player. Download for FREE!

It’s time to use VOX Music player

The ultimate leader in this field is a music player called VOX, which is available both for Mac and for iPhone. It is FREE and can play not only lossless formats (including FLAC and ALAC) but also MP3, AAC, WAV files. So, a dream becomes a reality – even though iTunes can not play FLAC, VOX can!

VOX is the best iTunes alternative for Mac and iPhone with a lightweight interface. Also, it plays formats, which you would also have to convert to listen to with iTunes such as:

• APE;
• WMA;
• FLAC+CUE and more...

And last but not least, if you are using VOX for Mac with the exclusive audio engine, you can now listen to HiRes Audio with a much higher sound resolution than usual – up to 4 times deeper!

Apart from VOX player supporting so many formats, they have also introduced a VOX Music Cloud for your music. VOX Music Cloud is a part of VOX Premium features and available at only $4.99/month or $49.99/year. With the help of this service, you can free up a lot of space on your Mac or iPhone and be able to synchronize all your music playlists. Even ads will not bother you – there aren’t any.

Start using VOX Music Player with premium features NOW.  

Did we mention that it is also very easy to use? It is simple yet has all the necessary features to make sure your experience is comfortable. In case you do have any questions, feel free to contact their customer support these guys have proven themselves to be real superheroes (it is their job since they work for the best popular music player on iPhone!).

Let's start to listen to high-quality sound!

In this article, we tried to think about how one can solve the problem of having both high-quality music format FLAC and listening to it on an Apple device even though iTunes does not support it. Unfortunately, iTunes can not play FLAC directly. That is why we had a look at two possible options: converting FLAC files to Apple Lossless format, or installing a player which will be able to play FLAC. We talked about a leader in the field of media players for iOS, macOS and Windows, VOX, and its features – not only a player for FLAC, but also for some lossless and lossy formats as well as the unlimited cloud storage for music! As you can see there really is no problem at all :-)

And for those who don’t know – here’s a link to download VOX Music Player.