Reading another iPod thread make me think. I play my iPod though headphones (Goldring NS1000) and through a dock in my car. I know and accept all the arguments about MP3 quality but it's the way I listen to most things now. I'm an old timer who has listened to a lot of loud music and I suspect that I've at least got diminished sensitivity and besides I've still got all my CDs.

When I first got an iPod I used the default 128k setting which sounded OK on the headphones I had then but poor in the car (not awful more sort of thin, no oomph, sorry don't know the technical terms!) So I've gradually upped the settings and 256 is acceptable but 320 is better. I've tried Apple lossless and yes Dark Side sounds lovely through headphones but I'm not sure I noticed enough benefit to rip everything at the quality/size.

What settings do others use?

at least 256 k

"we know it's a bit late but we hope you don't mind if we stay"

320k VBR
that's the setting I'm using.
As diskspace isn't a problem these days, you should go for the highest resolution.
can you hear a difference? as i haven't done a blind test yet, i can't tell you.

Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-03-09 12:30 by Palace Revolution 2000.

320. 128 is terrible. You'll also damage your ears if you listen to ultra-compressed music through headphones for a prolonged period of time.

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

Can't remember offhand I think it's settings, advanced, importing. Yes the better the quality the bigger the file.

I've just seen a handy converter on the University of leicester website which says for a 5 minute file

conversion rate 128 size 4.68
conversion rate 192 size 7.03
conversion rate 256 size 9.37
conversion rate 320 size 11.7

Of course these must be estimates as there are other settings that you can change.

The import settings are in "preferences." A panel will come up and it's kind of lower right. For the purposes of the iPod, I think you'll want at least AAC Encoder--256kbps. The "VBR" function saves some disc space and "error correction when reading CDs" is a good choice.

Even easier: If you're using an updated version of iTunes, there should be an import settings button right next to "import CD" button at the bottom of the window showing the CD you have in your drive. Same moves as above

My approach has been to rip CDs into Apple Lossless on 1TB external drive. I have more than 500GB on it at this point, but that was a decision to try and handle the music long-term. With the explosion of storage space and the free-fall of its price, I figure we'll be looking at a 1TB iPod in a few years. In the meantime, I have made 256kbps copies to another drive for syncing with iPod.

However you go about it, be sure to back everything up...

Picks for the day: "I'm Alright," "Dear Doctor," "Hey Negrita," "No Use In Crying"

256.

I remember about ten years ago when I started burning my first mix CDs. I couldn't understand why they sounded so wobbly. Turns out I was ripping my MP3s at 96 kbps!

I use Lossless for my absolute favorites and mp3 192 for the rest. On my car stereo I honestly can't really hear the difference.

[www.reverbnation.com]

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

For the love of all things audio related, please rip all of your wav files/cds so forth, to V0!!! It is the PERFECT mp3 bitrate. Variable bitrate. Shoots from 92kbps to 320kbps depending on what information is needed!

My entire music collection is in flac or v0 mp3 on my harddrives. All arrayed and constantly mirroring each other. If I want something in its original state: FLAC. V0 mp3 for the highest quality mp3 that can be created!

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

I shot myself in the foot there. I ripped all my music in the highest quality and now I can only fit a small portion of songs on my Shuffle for the car that supposedly can hold about 500 songs. I'm already filled up with just about 200 songs...

I use 320 but put wave files of all Stones LOL

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Justin

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

I shot myself in the foot there. I ripped all my music in the highest quality and now I can only fit a small portion of songs on my Shuffle for the car that supposedly can hold about 500 songs. I'm already filled up with just about 200 songs...

Is having only 200 songs available at one time a big deal? How long do you spend in your car?!

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treaclefingers

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Justin

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

I shot myself in the foot there. I ripped all my music in the highest quality and now I can only fit a small portion of songs on my Shuffle for the car that supposedly can hold about 500 songs. I'm already filled up with just about 200 songs...

Is having only 200 songs available at one time a big deal? How long do you spend in your car?!

haha...well driving in LA traffic makes your car your second home!

But yeah...there I was putting in my favorite songs and then all of a sudden it was filled. I hadn't even got to putting any Elvis songs on there. I had to then begin picking and choosing what went on the Shuffle...deleting some just to include others.

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flacnvinyl
For the love of all things audio related, please rip all of your wav files/cds so forth, to V0!!! It is the PERFECT mp3 bitrate. Variable bitrate. Shoots from 92kbps to 320kbps depending on what information is needed!

My entire music collection is in flac or v0 mp3 on my harddrives. All arrayed and constantly mirroring each other. If I want something in its original state: FLAC. V0 mp3 for the highest quality mp3 that can be created!

Thanks for the info Drake, I've never considered this option but wondered from time to time what the benefits of variable bitrate was, I must look into this a bit more

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Justin

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treaclefingers

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Justin

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

I shot myself in the foot there. I ripped all my music in the highest quality and now I can only fit a small portion of songs on my Shuffle for the car that supposedly can hold about 500 songs. I'm already filled up with just about 200 songs...

Is having only 200 songs available at one time a big deal? How long do you spend in your car?!

haha...well driving in LA traffic makes your car your second home!

But yeah...there I was putting in my favorite songs and then all of a sudden it was filled. I hadn't even got to putting any Elvis songs on there. I had to then begin picking and choosing what went on the Shuffle...deleting some just to include others.

Well that does suck.

Just and idea, and you may have already thought of it, but what about keeping 'folders' of your favorite tunes on your computer with 200 preselected tunes, and then periodically 'change' the entire 200 songs, as you would a cd? That way it keeps the mix fresh too.

Check this article out : [www.hometheater.com] .

Many years ago when 40GB was about as large as these digital music players would go, I calculated a bit rate to include my entire collection of 900 CDs on there, and it came out to 96 kbps.

I somewhat regret that now of course, seeing 80 and 120GB players. But I'm not re-ripping 900 CDs! That took over a month (and burned out a disc drive!).

However, I did want to point one thing out. And this won't work with an iPod, but'll work with every other digital music player out there for someone who wants their entire catalog in the palm of their hand whenever they want it.

I did some research and expiramenting on my own between the mp3 format and wma. Now I know there's a lot of hate out there for Microsoft...but they claim the wma format sounds as good as mp3 ripped at 1/2 the kbps.

At the time the going suggestion to store mp3s was 128 kbps. Microsoft claimed you could use 1/2 the space by using wma's at 64 kbps but with the same sound quality.

So I did some expiramenting with my several hundred concert and several decades old ears, and what I found was, at 128 kbps, both mp3 and wma sounded almost identical. But below that, there was a clear drop off of sound quality in the mp3 format, while with wma it was much less noticable.

So if you just want to cram your entire collection into limited space to play through crappy pc speakers at low volume at work, consider this alternative. Playing in a car or home stereo though...it won't sound awful, but it won't sound great either.

Once again though, iPod is about the only player that will not play wma files, so do not even attemtp this if you own an iPod. I think it'll convert wma to something compatible, but then of course you lose more sound quality during the conversion.

Oh, and if you do use wma, in the 'rip' settings, make sure you uncheck the 'use copy protection' box!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-03-10 16:16 by kovach.

It should be about the quality of the rips, not the quantity of the music. Most people have a home computer, or laptop, or a secondary drive that can hold their music collection.

I believe you should rip at lossless, or as high as possible bitrate, and then you have digital access to your collection at the highest quality, always.

It is a lot of work to do all that ripping, so I don't think you want to have to do this over and over again.

You're also then equipped to move this onto your ipod or other player as the technology and storage improve on these players.

I wish someone had a device to load 50 - 100 CDs into to rip music to your PC!

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treaclefingers

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Justin

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

I shot myself in the foot there. I ripped all my music in the highest quality and now I can only fit a small portion of songs on my Shuffle for the car that supposedly can hold about 500 songs. I'm already filled up with just about 200 songs...

Is having only 200 songs available at one time a big deal? How long do you spend in your car?!

Is the sound in the car that great that you can distinguish between wave & mp3?

Surprisingly enough, many audiophiles agree that 64kbs is your best bet. Especially when ripping vinyl LPs. The higher rates suggested by certain posters could have a negative effect on the sound quality (more bits equal more noise).

Sometimes less is better.

Also, small speakers sound better than big ones. Especially when it comes to bass. And at high volumes.

I copied my whole collection to a 1 TB hard drive in FLAC (lossless) and then copied all of that to 128 mp3 a few years ago. Then when I upgraded my iPod I converted the FLAC again, this time to AAC at a higher bit rate. As stated earlier, this is the easiest way to do it, get a hard drive, rip it all to flac once, and as the ipod storage goes up, re convert the flac to a higher quality. Your PC does all the work, and then eventually we'll have 500 gb ipods so we can just have lossless all the time.

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

Thanks Leonid, and others.
So, if I have been loading up songs at 180; if I change the size will this only affect songs I load in from now on?

Do not rip at anyting less than 256 unless you prefer listening to your tunes with a friggin metal bucket on your noggin.

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Palace Revolution 2000

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LeonidP

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Palace Revolution 2000
Guys, where are you changing these settings?
And does the size affect the number of songs you can fit on the Ipod?

They aren't giving you specific iTunes settings. If that is what you are asking, this will be under Edit | Preferences | General ... then look for Import Settings. You can change there. You have a wave option or Apple AAC option if you prefer non-compression, but of course your file sizes will be very large. Because I like to fit as much as possible on my ipod, I use mp3 @ 192kbs.

Thanks Leonid, and others.
So, if I have been loading up songs at 180; if I change the size will this only affect songs I load in from now on?

Yes, PR2k, if you change your preferences for importing to 192 or AIFF or whatever, everything you load now will be converted to that as it arrives on your computer, until you change the import settings again. Everything that was already on your computer before you changed the import rate will stay at whatever it was.

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shadooby
Do not rip at anyting less than 256 unless you prefer listening to your tunes with a friggin metal bucket on your noggin.

I hear ya on the hi-fi end, but Midnight Rambler from Brussels still just did what it always does when I listened to it at 128 AAC and 192 mp3 on built-in computer speakers.

Then again, my brain might have filled in the microscopic missing audio data on its own after hearing it for 30 years. Isn't there a word for that, like 'latency' or something?