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**littlesaint** · 07 December 2008, 21:21 Sunday

In iTunes you can change the import setting to AAC or MP3 at a high bitrate. Then select a group of songs and from the "Advanced" menu choose "Create AAC Version" (or MP3 if you pick that). This will duplicate your songs so make sure you have the space and only do a group at a time. Then you can delete the lossless files. You might be able to keep both versions and only sync compressed files to the iPod, but I've not tried that, and it would require a fairly large HD on your PC.

I like to stick with lossless and only sync certain playlists (usually organized by album) at a time to my iPod.

**Chris D** · 07 December 2008, 22:59 Sunday

Ah, thanks. What's the differences, advantages, and/or disadvantages of MP3 vs. AAC?

As I'm getting into the iTunes preferences, I'm seeing that for AAC, you could import at higher bit rates of 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, or 320 Kbps. Comparing to Apple Lossless, what's the difference in bit rates? I wonder how file sizes compare, too, if you were to do like the largest at 320 Kbps.

Then it gives options of Sample Rate: "Auto", "44.1 kHz", or "48.0 kHz". Any reason not to use the highest at 48? Channels are "Auto", "Mono", or "Stereo"--seems straightforward, auto seems best. Two option check boxes too, "Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding", and "Optimize for voice". Both are unchecked by default.

BTW, I'm definitely not getting rid of the physical media. I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing that will still give the best sound when run through a reference transport and D/A.

**Hdale85** · 07 December 2008, 23:12 Sunday

If you use MP3 V0 it's actually pretty decent. Not something I use on my main system by any means but for portable use its quite good. Lossless is still better of course

There are some good programs that will take 3 scans of a song and then put together the best parts of each rip to get the best possible rip. I can't think of which app I found previously that would do this and obviously it takes quite a bit longer.

**don9146** · 08 December 2008, 00:08 Monday

Dougie,

That may be L.A.M.E. (lame-@$$ mp3 encoder) you are thinking of. It is a very processor intensive program due to the extra checks it makes to ensure an accurate copy is made and due to the error correction it uses if an accurate copy cannot be determined. Several tech sites use this program as a processor benchmarking tool due to the workload it puts on the processor. LAME and Exact Audio Copy are the 2 most commonly recommended mp3 conversion programs I know of.

Later,
Don

**littlesaint** · 08 December 2008, 00:21 Monday

Originally posted by Chris D

Ah, thanks. What's the differences, advantages, and/or disadvantages of MP3 vs. AAC?

As I'm getting into the iTunes preferences, I'm seeing that for AAC, you could import at higher bit rates of 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, or 320 Kbps. Comparing to Apple Lossless, what's the difference in bit rates? I wonder how file sizes compare, too, if you were to do like the largest at 320 Kbps.

Then it gives options of Sample Rate: "Auto", "44.1 kHz", or "48.0 kHz". Any reason not to use the highest at 48? Channels are "Auto", "Mono", or "Stereo"--seems straightforward, auto seems best. Two option check boxes too, "Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding", and "Optimize for voice". Both are unchecked by default.

BTW, I'm definitely not getting rid of the physical media. I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing that will still give the best sound when run through a reference transport and D/A.

I'd stick with auto/auto. No sense in re-sampling 44.1 to 48. File size is a function of bitrate and time, so MP3 and AAC at 320kbps will be the same size. I think AAC is better at the same bitrate, but opinions vary. My lossless files are between 600 and 1200kbps, so re-encoding at 320 should cut file sizes 50-75%.

**Chris D** · 08 December 2008, 00:41 Monday

Much appreciated, Santino. Very useful info.

How about the DRM issue? Is everything still going to play ok, if I copy the audio files to another computer?

**Alloroc** · 08 December 2008, 08:15 Monday

Chris, nothing scientific to offer, just my experiences.

I rip all my CDs in to apple lossless. I also duplicate for transfer onto my ipod and iphone. Interestingly, playing lossless on a hdd based ipod eats battery life like nothing else! No biggie if docked, but on the move it's huge. I duplicate into 320k mp3s as they can be used on my wife's walkman phone and on my PS3 (shame that doesn't play apple lossless).

Also, headphones should be considered. My Shure 530s are very sesitive ad work best with lossless. MP3s - even ripped at 320k sound a bit iffy with them. I've a cheaper pair of denon buds and they're perfectly passable with mp3's.

**Chris D** · 08 December 2008, 08:44 Monday

You guys are throwing out some very useful stuff. I have some reference-grade Etymotic ER-4P earbuds. Might be interesting to do some direct A/B comparisons with those, between Apple Lossless and either MP3 or AAC at 320Kbps.

Vincent, very interesting about Apple Lossless and battery life. When listening carefully, then, are you saying you can hear a difference between 320Kbps MP3 and Apple Lossless?

**PewterTA** · 08 December 2008, 09:46 Monday

I'd put money down that when properly encoded with LAME & EAC (with the proper settings to LAME) one could not identify a VBR of 224K (which means it'll encode up to 320Kbps) and a lossless file. Even with really good equipment it would take multiple listenings to figure out which file is which.

I've done a couple blind tests with my Sennheiser on a few of my friends and they could not tell me which was which without a pure guess and a second listen.

Lossless will always kill a batter due to the HD taking the most power to use and lossless files needing to be almost constantly read (since most MP3 players have about a 8 - 12MB buffer in them).

AAC (besides lossless) I can always tell because the music does not seem as dynamic when I encode AAC for some reason. I'm sure it's because I haven't had the time to really test to find the best settings. But I'll probably stick with LAME since it has been the best mp3 encoder for a long time (and I already have it set up).

**Kevin P** · 08 December 2008, 10:12 Monday

How do you do the majority of your music listening? Critically (on your good setup, listening intently), or more for background noise?

If the former, you'll want uncompressed or lossless encoding. If the latter, MP3 will be fine.

If you do both (critical and non-critical) listening, maybe you could segregate your music collection. If you find you tend to listen critically to some stuff, while you play other stuff in the background, encode the background stuff with lossy compression to save space, and keep the critical stuff lossless.

Of course, if you build a file server with 1+ TB of storage, you could go lossless with everything. But sometimes you may want smaller copies of music files for your iPod or what have you. Maybe encode your files both ways, lossless for critical listening, and lossy for iPod/car use.

As for me, despite my audiophile tendencies (high-end tube headphone amp at work), 99% of my music listening is just background noise. So, for the other 1%, I just listen to the CD. I keep MP3s (encoded with LAME) on my MythTV box for background music, and I can copy them to my (non-iPod) MP3 player as well.

**impala454** · 08 December 2008, 10:38 Monday

That's what I do with my collection. I have a ton of old MP3 192-320k files, but the music I really like I ripped WMA lossless.

As mentioned in another thread, hard drive space is mega cheap, so you really should be able to rip anything you want to lossless. A quick glance at newegg shows a seagate 1.5 TB drive for $129.

**Hdale85** · 08 December 2008, 10:55 Monday

Well the biggest difference I find between MP3 and Flac is a slight degrade of detail in MP3 also the bottom end seems to change a bit in that it sounds more defined and even a bit deeper on Flac. I'd imagine AAC would be similar. This of course depends on the recordings if the recording isn't that great then you probably wouldn't be able to tell regardless. Even so the difference between a very well done MP3 and a FLAC file aren't going to be huge. V0 is VBR 224 I believe. It's kind of a nickname it's picked up I guess?

**littlesaint** · 08 December 2008, 11:19 Monday

I think LAME EAC encodes, VBR, and FLAC are all excellent options, but Chris is using an iPod, so the encodes for that need to use a compatible format. If the iPod can decode EAC MP3s and/or VBR, they are viable, but using them also adds to syncing complexity since you'd have to rip and encode in one tool and then import (without encoding) to iTunes.

DRM would only apply to iTunes Store purchased tracks (some are DRM-free, but rare) which should be in a compressed format already. Anything you rip is DRM-free.

**Hdale85** · 08 December 2008, 11:43 Monday

Pretty sure the iPod can do LAME and VBR. There are other programs to use to put music on your iPod and some of them probably work better. You can just drag and drop your ripped songs onto iTunes and then transfer to your iPod.

**Kevin P** · 08 December 2008, 11:56 Monday

AFAIK, you don't have to use iTunes to transfer music files to your iPod. (Maybe you do for DRMed iTunes tracks). For regular MP3s, FLACs etc. you could just copy the files straight into a folder on the iPod.

**littlesaint** · 08 December 2008, 12:14 Monday

If you're just dumping everything to the iPod I guess it doesn't matter as long as the iPod supports the encode. I like to use iTunes for keeping things synchronized with playlists since I can't fit "everything" with lossless encodes. Since I use a Mac and stick with Apple lossless, iTunes is sort of a no brainer (yes, I tried Songbird). On a PC though, the iTunes interface can be a little painful. If you do copy to iTunes after encoding, you have to be careful how you let iTunes organize its database or you'll be doubling up your tracks.

**Alloroc** · 08 December 2008, 12:40 Monday

Originally posted by Chris D

You guys are throwing out some very useful stuff. I have some reference-grade Etymotic ER-4P earbuds. Might be interesting to do some direct A/B comparisons with those, between Apple Lossless and either MP3 or AAC at 320Kbps.

Vincent, very interesting about Apple Lossless and battery life. When listening carefully, then, are you saying you can hear a difference between 320Kbps MP3 and Apple Lossless?

With my Shures lossless is definitly better - I can tell - they are really sensitive 'phones. They have three drivers. With my Denons, I can't really tell the difference. Play about and see - I'd be really interested on your finding. I've also got a Klipsch dock and can't really tell the difference in that.

Interestingly, the battery life is due to I/O on the hdd. The iPod apparently can cache an MP3and play it back from static memory but has to constantly access the hard disk for lossless files - chewign up battery life.

All been said before, but I originally went with WAV but with the lack of tagging since went ipod, i've not looked back with lossless. I just wish more devices supported it - PS/3 for example.

**Chris D** · 08 December 2008, 23:09 Monday

Cool... you guys really are firing out pearls here. I hope others are paying attention too--I'm learning a lot.

Since my ripped music will be DRM-free, what I'm going to do is transfer everything to a big portable hard drive I have, (500GB Maxtor) ripping everything to Apple Lossless. Then I'll create duplicate copies of everything in 320Kpbs, either MP3 or AAC. Still not sure which you guys would say is better, so maybe I'll have to try both.

**Chris D** · 09 December 2008, 01:49 Tuesday

Pewter and others, you mentioned configuring LAME and other programs just right to give the audio files the optimal sound. Which settings specifically have you found to work?

Think I'll download the LAME program.

[EDIT: Huh... on the LAME site, it says it's only open source, and you have to use other programs to use it. Here's the page with links from LAME: http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php Basically, I'm just looking for anything that will turn my Apple Lossless files into MP3 or AAC, without having to re-rip everything.]

**don9146** · 09 December 2008, 03:52 Tuesday

Yes, LAME is only the "back-end" portion needed to convert CD tracks to .mp3 files. You also need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that will use the LAME program. I use Audiograbber (which is also free from http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/ ), but I am not sure if it will work on a Mac. There should be something available somewhere that will enable LAME to run on a Mac or run in PC emulation mode. Try searching on the Audiograbber forums.

Hope that helps,
Don

**PewterTA** · 09 December 2008, 09:54 Tuesday

I'll post up the EAC settings so that you get the best rip possible and the best compression settings for LAME. I'm at work so it'll have to wait until I get home today to post up what you need to do.

-Dan

**PewterTA** · 09 December 2008, 19:24 Tuesday

Okay so get yourself EAC and configure it and make sure you 2 things.

Configure your drives for best quality. In the welcome/setup wizard it will do this, but go back into the Drive Options and make sure you drive you are ripping from is set to Secure Mode. You don't want Burst or Synchronized if your drive will support Secure Mode. Best thing to do is put in a CD and let it detect the read features. Once that's dones you will need to pop in about 3 or 4 bought CDs to allow Accurip to set the offset of your CD/DVD-Rom. This will help (again) with the quality of the data coming off your drive.

Once that's done you can configure Filename structures (which I use "%A %N - %T", Artist Track# - Name), but set it to whatever you want. Make sure you put in an e-mail address in the freedb options so it can download the track names! That's a nice feature instead of renaming everything.

For the Compression Options, go under external decoder and find your copy of LAME (I use version 3.98.2 right now as they fixed a sybalince (sp?) issue with the earlier copy of 3.98. I always make sure ID3 tag is checked and it's set to High Quality as well as to 320KB. The options I use in the additional command line are "-V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d" Minus the quotes. This will get you a ~250kb/s Mp3 with it varying from 32-320kb throughout the track. This will also put in the ID3 tag properly.

That "should" be it unless I'm forgetting something.

**Chris D** · 11 December 2008, 03:02 Thursday

Interesting that with this discussion, I just found these articles. Good poop in there, and CNet actually made some good instructional videos.

Page not found | PCWorld

http://www.pcworld.com/article/149042/turn_any_pc_into_a_media_center.html

Page not found - MSN

http://tech.msn.com/guides/multimedia/article.aspx?cp-documentid=12258176

Page not found - MSN

http://tech.msn.com/products/articlecnet.aspx?cp-documentid=14991504&GT1=40000

**Chris D** · 15 December 2008, 07:33 Monday

Ugh... just finished burning my entire CD collection to disk. Roughly 230 GB of Apple Lossless files, 1200 discs, and 9,185 songs. Took me 2+ weeks of burning them every night after work and sitting around on my butt on weekends.

Now I have to go back in and clean it up--I've been adding missing cover art as we go along, but now have to check for the cover art that was downloaded wrong. I'll delete duplicate songs (i.e. same song, same version came from both the original album and a compilation) check for songs that were ripped with errors, etc. Then I'll create a 2nd copy of every song in 320Kbps AAC, and then choose which version of each song to use. (will mostly use AAC to save space, with Lossless used for my favorite material)

This is a LOT of work. Better turn out good, or I'll be pissed.

**Alloroc** · 15 December 2008, 18:31 Monday

Did that last year, Chris - I share your pain - I had similar numbers too! It is worth it though. All you have to worry about now are new adds to the library. It can get a little messy though when trying to convert your new adds to MP3s as you go. Not quite figured that out myself!

**Crimson** · 23 December 2008, 19:21 Tuesday

Just my 2c, but if you're going to transfer your entire music collection to disc it's best to rip using a compressed lossless algorithm (ALAC, FLAC, etc) at a minimum, or possibly going with uncompressed lossless (AIFF, WAV) as disc space is quite cheap. You only want to go through the motions once. From that point on, lower resolution copies can be made from the original rips for whatever purpose and managed via smart playlists, separate libraries, etc.

And DON'T FORGET TO BACKUP your libraries. :T

**Chris D** · 24 December 2008, 04:37 Wednesday

Thanks, that's good advice. I did just get back from Best Buy--bought a 1TB external hard drive. Plan is for the 1TB hard drive to be the master storage location, with multiple back ups on my 500GB hard drive and laptop hard drive.

Final count after all CD's, including ones I had forgotten about, is over 10,000 songs, and a 241 GB iTunes folder. Yikes!

Will maintain one folder of the original Apple Lossless master files. Another folder of all the 320Kbps versions of the same files. (still haven't decided on AAC or MP3) And then the third folder will be the actual iTunes folder, which is a combination of the other two. 320Kbps versions for most songs, and Apple Lossless for my favorites. Shooting to keep entire final iTunes folder at about 100GB, which would give me 10-20GB of room left on my iPod for games, videos, and files.

I just started the copy of the iTunes folder from one hard drive to the other. 241GB is going to take the next 8 hours.

Man, this is a lot of work, and a lot of big files. Hope I don't screw this up, and hope it ends up being worth it!

**PewterTA** · 25 December 2008, 14:30 Thursday

I'd go out and buy another 1TB drive so that you can back up that TB drive. This way when the drive fails you can keep a full backup of it on another drive. And at under $100 for the 1TB drive, it's a good sound decision.

I use a tape backup and have close to 4TB backed up, all retail CDs as either .cue/.bin or .nrg to remake the discs if I ever need to, plus all are made in ~250Kb vbr mp3s.

So at least I have the actual discs, plus images, plus compressed files, and all backed up onto tapes. Then the tapes are all stored in a fireproof safe in the house. I figure at least if the house burns down I have a way to get it all back. Course that's if I can find a drive for the tape format. lol

But definitely the more places you can put the files, the better off you are incase anything would happen!

**Allegiance** · 25 December 2008, 20:46 Thursday

I store all my music in WMA lossless. I have a vista media centre in my lounge room so that allows me to have my entire collection in there. I don't have any portable player so no need to worry :P

**Chris D** · 26 December 2008, 01:32 Friday

Started the process last night of having iTunes create 320Kbps MP3 versions of all the Apple Lossless files. Looks like for the 9,000-10,000 songs, it's going to take about 24 hours solid for the computer to do that. Sheesh.

After that, I'll do it all over again for AAC versions.

Of course, I got a couple new CD's as gifts for Christmas, so I'm not even done with this massive process, and already I'm at the point where I need to add new files to it. Have to figure out how to do that, but it'll be something like ripping it to Apple Lossless, then having iTunes create MP3 and AAC versions of the album, then deciding which versions to include in the final iTunes master library.

**Allegiance** · 26 December 2008, 09:34 Friday

You should check to see if your encoder is multi-threaded (assuming you have a dual, triple or quad processor). You may also want to look into possible advantages of 64bit with the process.

**audioqueso** · 27 December 2008, 08:12 Saturday

I don't really get WHERE you are trying to get the best possible sound... on a portable device to listen with headphones... or using a portable device to listen to on a home system?

With headphones, I'm fine with compressed VBR 224k or VBR 192k.
But on a home system, the biggest flaw that I have found with all compressed formats (at their best) is the lost of soundstage. My music goes from 3D to 2D when I use a compressed format. So everything I have ripped is lossless. Sure, it sounds almost identical to me on headphones, but not on my speakers.

**Chris D** · 28 December 2008, 08:45 Sunday

Yeah, primary purpose here is to create audio files for use on a portable iPod, portable use.

Secondary purpose, that is emerging, is to use the portable iPod, plugged into the home audio system.

But third purpose, which is about to arrive, is to stream audio files from a server to the home audio system. For this purpose, this is why I'm starting by ripping everything lossless, and then creating compressed copies for portable use when space is a commodity. But you can't create quality from compressed lossy products, so that's why I'm starting lossless and then making copies.

Getting to the final stages of the project now.

**mjb** · 30 December 2008, 04:42 Tuesday

Chris,

I use apple lossless for main listening, and 128K AAC for iPod listening (my head phones aren't worth anything better!). AAC is a newer codec, and more efficient than MP3 - but MP3 is compatible with more hardware.

Instead of having the same file show twice in iTunes, consider making two libraries: one for main listening, one for syncing the iPod to. You can switch between libraries either with a library switching utility (there are a few around), or by holding the Option key while launching iTunes (on a Mac, not sure what the Windows key is).

If you want help with this, either PM me, or Google it. There are plenty of tutorials online.

**Chris D** · 30 December 2008, 06:15 Tuesday

Thanks, mjb, I appreciate the info on mp3 vs. AAC. I've heard that about opening different libraries with iTunes. On Windows, it was something like holding down "Shift", or "Ctrl" while launching iTunes, but I can't remember, and neither one is working for me.

Perhaps another Windows user knows this trick?

**Martyn** · 31 December 2008, 21:52 Wednesday

I've been using EAC to rip to FLAC (lossless compressed) format for my Squeezebox, but have just switched to dBpoweramp. This is much simpler to use and finds cover art as well (FLAC files are smaller than AAC, but with no loss of audio quality).

For my iPod (I have just been given one for Christmas), I'm going to convert to mp3 at 160 kbps. These files seem to occupy about a quarter of the space of FLAC files. dBpoweramp offers a handy file converter that can convert single files or batches of files. I think it can do AAC to FLAC as well as FLAC to mp3.

Although I admire the clean styling and usability of Apple products, I prefer to avoid proprietary formats if I can. dBpoweramp seems to offer what I need, but I'm still learning about PC-based audio, so I'd welcome comments on this approach. At the moment I'm grappling with the numerous tags that my Squeezebox seems intent on displaying...

Martyn

**littlesaint** · 31 December 2008, 22:45 Wednesday

Originally posted by Martyn

I've been using EAC to rip to FLAC (lossless compressed) format for my Squeezebox, but have just switched to dBpoweramp. This is much simpler to use and finds cover art as well (FLAC files are smaller than AAC, but with no loss of audio quality).

For my iPod (I have just been given one for Christmas), I'm going to convert to mp3 at 160 kbps. These files seem to occupy about a quarter of the space of FLAC files. dBpoweramp offers a handy file converter that can convert single files or batches of files. I think it can do AAC to FLAC as well as FLAC to mp3.

Although I admire the clean styling and usability of Apple products, I prefer to avoid proprietary formats if I can. dBpoweramp seems to offer what I need, but I'm still learning about PC-based audio, so I'd welcome comments on this approach. At the moment I'm grappling with the numerous tags that my Squeezebox seems intent on displaying...

Martyn

AAC and ALAC are not proprietary. Only the FairPlay DRM that comes with most songs purchased from iTunes is proprietary. Both codecs are available in the open source libavcodec.

**mjb** · 05 January 2009, 05:29 Monday

Originally posted by Martyn

Although I admire the clean styling and usability of Apple products, I prefer to avoid proprietary formats if I can.

AAC doesn't stand for "Apple Audio Codec", and there is nothing proprietary about it. AAC is supposed to be an MP3 successor, and achieves better sound quality at the same bit rate. AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony’s PlayStation 3.

Advanced Audio Coding - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

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