Ripping CD's in Itunes

O

Omat128

Guest
Well, i've finally decided that I'm going to get the new Ipod. I just can't resist it, i've never had a DAP before, well other than my age-old mini disc player. I think its time i've gotten rid of it. But on to my question, i don't know what format i should rip my songs in. I was thinking, that on my favorite CD's i can rip them into the highest quality they have. But what is the highest quality?
Choices are:
-320kbps MP3
-320kbps AAC
or Apple Lossless.
And one question on Lossless, does it play gapless? I'm leaning torwards Apple Lossless, size is not really an issue, since i'll only be doing this to 15-20 cd's. The rest will probably be 192kbps MP3, like they already are.
 
Hello

AAC gives more quality at the same size of mp3 (I read this in What hiFi Magazine)

Apple losseless reduces AIFF 50 % size aprox
 
Hmm. You're asking about gapless. Which means you're aware of what it is and therefore probably want that option. And yet you're getting an iPod? Strange... Isn't a Rio or Sony player more appropriate? All I've ever seen from iPods and iTunes is big gaps (never tried lossless though). Whatever, mp3 compression isn't the best (although mp3s can be played on just about anything), but you're probably best trying a couple of pieces of music to see what you can get away with. I rip at 192kbps mp3 or 160kbps ogg (for my Karma) and that's fine for headphones, but hook that up to a stereo and it'll sound a bit basic. Depends where and how you're going to play your tunes.
 
if you want higher quality, go with AAC but note that you can only play those on your ipod or PSPs (with firmware update 2.0). With mp3s you can play them on almost any DAP.

I always rip mine in mp3 in case I want to listen to them on another DAP. The quality has never been noticeably worse, and I have no complaints.
 
Lossless is the highest quality. It's the original CD data, compressed without loss (like Zip). But it's also a tradeoff between battery life and quality. Lossless saps battery life as it causes more frequent access to the data on the disc. I'd suggest that if it's solely for portable use, then you stick to ~256K level bitrates of most codecs.


If you're dividing your time between home and portable listening though, things get a bit more complicated. High-bitrate MP3/AAC is very good, but in my case for example, feeding my home gear with MP3's is a bit silly. As a result I'm currently playing around with keeping two libraries, one in FLAC and the other in MP3. It's proving to be a bit of a nightmare, and I'm not really any closer to making it manageable.
 

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