How can my Galaxy S5 phone play .m4a files natively?

[AC Question]

I have all my music files that I ripped with ITunes from my CD's using Apple Lossless Encoder, which made .m4a files. I don't believe there is any DRM or security on these files.
I tried copying files to the external SD card or to the internal storage, nothing works. I can play all these files on my computer with about any music player.
My phone will not play them with the "Music", "Play Music", "Google Play Music", or "MediaMonkey" players. They will play with jetAudio Basic player that I downloaded.
My whole purpose is to use the MediaMonkey player. My searching found that MediaMonkey only plays these .m4a files if they can be played natively by the phone.
Why does Samsung say the phone plays m4a files when it doesn't?

 

[Rukbat]

It does, with an app that plays .m4a files. (Phones don't play files, apps do.) Anyone saying that X app will play Y file if the phone plays Y file natively isn't really aware of how computers actually work.

 

[markypf]

Samsung says the S5 will play m4a music files, so I guess to be "technical" about it, an included app must be able to play the Y-files (or X-files, ha-ha). In reality, the apps must be able to read the various codecs to play certain music files. This could be part of the app or even natively on the phone, I don't know and it probably doesn't matter. I was under the impression that some phones can't play some music files, but maybe if you have the right app, any phone can play any type of file.
By the way, I started this thread originally as a Guest on the forum.
After my original post, I discovered if I download an m4a music file from the internet, it plays fine on my S5 with the std S5 players that came on the phone. There apparently is something wrong with the m4a music files that I originally ripped from my CD's with iTunes. I can play my ripped m4a files with jetAudio player, but they won't play with the stock Google Play Music or Sound Player, or with the free RocketPlayer or MediaMonkey.
I am wondering if there is any way to fix my ripped m4a files without re-ripping or converting? Surely I'm not the only person that has had this issue.

 

[John Shade]

Poweramp is the only app I have found that can play the .m4a files I created when I made lossless digital copies of my audio CDs with iTunes. It's also a good-looking app with a good GUI.

 

[roy ellis]

Poweramp. Tubemate will download music to various formats but I don't know if it works for your needs. Also tubemate must be sideloaded.
Side note: I wish I could get flac music from other than torrents. I don't mind supporting musicians/artists but mp3 sucks.

 

[peedroid]

I experienced the same issue with my Galaxy S6. The .m4a music I use in iPhone does not work in Galaxy S6.
The problem was where the .m4a is the "Apple Loseless Audio" format. We should use the "MPEG-4 Audio (*.m4a)" format.
The MPEG-4 (.m4a) format works for both the Galaxy Sx and the iPhone.

 

[Peaches1loveasia]

Hi my name Scott you in having problems downloading music on my phone it used mp3 to download now all my music education in got now are from mp3 download now I trying to download this song PLAY'N OLD SKOOL and it say that sorry this audio file dot support this file why that and I download all my other from mp3 and I wanted know when I download were are my music going into don't see then when they finish download

 

[nahoku]

Have you tried changing the extension of the files from m4a to mp4. Not sure if it'll work with the how the new itunes does conversion/ripping. Try changing the extension on one of your files and see if your stock player will play it.

 

[Maiselff]

Samsung says the S5 will play m4a music files, so I guess to be "technical" about it, an included app must be able to play the Y-files (or X-files, ha-ha). In reality, the apps must be able to read the various codecs to play certain music files. This could be part of the app or even natively on the phone, I don't know and it probably doesn't matter. I was under the impression that some phones can't play some music files, but maybe if you have the right app, any phone can play any type of file.
By the way, I started this thread originally as a Guest on the forum.
After my original post, I discovered if I download an m4a music file from the internet, it plays fine on my S5 with the std S5 players that came on the phone. There apparently is something wrong with the m4a music files that I originally ripped from my CD's with iTunes. I can play my ripped m4a files with jetAudio player, but they won't play with the stock Google Play Music or Sound Player, or with the free RocketPlayer or MediaMonkey.
I am wondering if there is any way to fix my ripped m4a files without re-ripping or converting? Surely I'm not the only person that has had this issue.

Simply "says" that will be compatible is not sufficient.

Itunes haves much aac+ codecs masked as m4a, and some players haves restricted bitrate and hzrate. Example:

The player "says" is m4a playable, but if the hz and bitrate of these files does not matches with the "capable" player configuration codec, the player will recuse play.

You need to convert your music one by one , or you still can try vlc media. No other solutions.

 

[jimmiri]

No, Samsung cannot play .m4a files natively.
You can convert the .m4a files to .mp3 first (with Apple Music Converter) and then copy the .mp3 to your device.

 

[jeffhaskins]

I use mxplayer. It plays all and allows you to double the volume in SW mode.