X Lossless Decoder (XLD) is a tool for Mac OS X that is able to decode/convert/play various 'lossless' audio files. The supported audio files can be split into some tracks with cue sheet when decoding.
XLD supports the following formats:
(Ogg) FLAC (.flac/.ogg)
Monkey's Audio (.ape)
Wavpack (.wv)
TTA (.tta)
Apple Lossless (.m4a) [10.4 and later]
AIFF, WAV, etc
Other formats supported by Libsndfile are also decodable. XLD uses not decoder frontend but library to decode, so no intermediate files are generated. All of the supported formats can be directly split with the cue sheet. XLD also supports so-called 'embedded' or 'internal' cue sheet.
Currently you can choose output format from WAVE,AIFF and Raw PCM. In addition, you can choose Ogg Vorbis (aoTuV), MPEG-4 AAC (QuickTime/CoreAudio), MP3 (LAME), Apple Lossless and FLAC in the GUI version.
SWORDFISH Since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, the AAC encoder is giving me files twice as big with True VBR Q90 mode. Anyone have an idea why? (Version 20090924)
ILIKETRASH What is so great about this? There are no options to set bit depth or sampling rate on most of the formats where that makes sense. Also, there is no option to set floating point where that makes sense, and there is no raw floating point format at all. (Version 20090924)
When people who are new to Macs ask me about essential Mac apps, XLD is always at the top of my list. Stable, easy to use, and free. You can't get better than that. If you're not satisfied with just playing .mp3s, you need this app. It's awesome.
Tested and working fine in Snow Leopard. (Version 20090829)
To use, check "Encode with HE-AAC" checkbox in the option dialog of MPEG-4 AAC encoder. In HE-AAC encoder, true VBR is not available and available bitrate is limited (24-80kbps).