itunes ripping question

smegolas · January 2006

I just bought a 30 gig Ipod and Im wondering what bit rate to rip my CD collection at. The default on Itunes is AAC (which I gather is better than MP3) 128 bit. Now I currently have about 200 CDs, so 30 gigs is tonnes of space and I can afford to rip at a higher bit rate if I want and still have room left over. I ripped a Dream Theater song at 128 and 192 and had trouble telling the diff on the earbuds, but I think it depends on the type of music you’re listening to. Also, I’d like to be able to plug it into a car stereo or home stereo some day – and I sure don’t want to have to eventually rip it all over again, so I don’t want to go at too low a bit rate.

So what are you guys using? What do you suggest?

smegolas · January 2006

Also – Im planning on buying a new computer in a year and I don’t want to rip it all over again. Will I be able to transfer my iTunes to the new computer?

And – will a higher bit rate drain my iPod battery faster?

smegolas · January 2006

cummon - surely there must be some audiophiles here that can help me out!

AtomicNinjaRobot · January 2006

At first I thought you wanted to know how to crack the DRM on your iTunes music purchases and I was gonna hook you up with a link 8)

As far as MP3's go, I wouldn't go any lower than 192. 256 is preferable if space is not a concern. Anything above 256 is unnecessary (to my ears, anyway). I think you really hear the loss below 192. The cymbals start to sound distorted and the low end gets muddy.

You can search MP3 vs. AAC vs. Ogg etc. and get conflicting answers on every other page. Ultimately you'll have to decide with your own ears, anyway.

I don't have an iPod, so I can't answer your iPod questions. 42 million other people have iPods, though, so the answers are definitely out there.

If it were me I would gradually archive my CD collection using FLAC on the current computer. When you get a new computer use the old one as a media server. Your iPod doesn't support FLAC, though, so you'd still have to convert them again to get them onto the iPod

But... your CD collection would then be preserved in pristine, lossless quality on a server that would be accessible from any computer on the network for downloading, streaming or whatever.

Hope that helps. Probably just more confusion

itunes ripping question

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