When I first purchased my 80 Gb IPod, I loaded my CD collection into I-Tunes using MP-3 Encoder set at the "High" (160 kbps) setting. With this combination, I can occasionally detect some less than perfect playback sound quality. Recently, the computer where I had my I-Tunes library died and I'm planning to reload my collection onto a new computer.
Can anyone tell me the difference between AAC (set at it's highest setting) and Apple Lossless encoding. With the MP-3 160 kbps setting, my library took up about 20 Gb of space. Anyone know if the AAC setting would be double or triple that? How about the Lossless setting? I don't want to choose a setting that will not fit the current 20Gb on my Ipod once it's reloaded in the higher quality setting.
Are either of these formats likely to be more transportable to other hardware that might come out in the future? I don't want to load everything into Apple Lossless if no one else is making players that use this format.
VeeDub
2006 Carriage Cameo LXI F35FD3
2006 Ford F350 Dually
I re-ripped everything to Apple Lossless to try to future-proof. The cost of 500g drives are down to almost $100 and cost/bit has continued to drop faster than Moore's Law on semiconductors of half every 18 mo.
The song files run 15-20 meg each, compared to about a fourth that for high quality mp3s or aacs.
If you keep a master in Lossless format it enables you to produce an mp3 or aac copy as if it was ripped from a cd. I could make smaller copies for the various iPods but usually just prefer to use a larger iPod for the vehicle and the small iPods are usually for short things like exercise. Happy to change the playlists now and then.
The home stereo seems to be the easiest for detecting small differences in sound quality---but the main reason is to accommodate emerging new formats as Lossless is exactly that.
Dan
02 Freightliner Sprinter 2500 long tall home brew conversion
Vast and complicated subject or maybe its not. I think it is one of those "It all depends" answers. And I am no expert but I have played around a lot.
I have about 1000 CDs in formats from 128 kbps MP3 up to 320 kbps AAC and some Apple lossless. On some equipment, like my home stereo, which is decent, it is really easy to hear differences in initial recording quality between old, analog masters (some of which are very good and some that had poor production) to modern all digital production, regardless of whether it is compressed or not. In most car stereo and iPod scenarios I have found that AAC with 192 kbps encoding is more than adequate and gives me the best balance between quality and space. I can almost always tell the difference between old 128 kbps MP3 and AAC 192. I loaded hundreds of CD's onto my laptop, which is my primary iPod management machine before bumping up the bit rate to 192. I believe the default is 128? Live and learn. In an ideal world, having all of my CD's stored in Apple lossless would be great but you only get 2:1 compression and that is just too big for iPod use. And iTunes does not have very good format conversion on the fly. There are other applications that supposedly do. On the other hand, if I had a 160 GB iPod, I would have everything in 320 kbps and space would be less of a factor. As it is, my old 20 GB and 8 GB Nano are always full and I am consantly editing for space. Time for some new iPods I guess.
As far as future proofing, AAC will have a lot of staying power. But I am hanging on to my masters and if I don't have a hard copy, Apple lossless would be the next best thing. You can always reburn to a new format later. All a matter of space.
All my archived music is in FLAC (open-source lossless). As others mentioned this future-proofs. However, my 1G ipod can take either mp3 or WAV (lossless), and I can NEVER tell the difference.
AAC is the most efficient small-size encoder out there. 128 kbps should be just fine, 192 approaches overkill. At 256 kbps you might want to consider mp3 (LAME) encoding, generally considered the highest quality mid-sized encoder. But I can't tell the difference anyway.
FWIW, don't reconvert something already in a lossy format--you'll only make it sound worse. If you have the original CD's, re-ripping is fine. If I had 128's and was faced with buying all new 192's to replace them, I would not do it. 128 AAC's sound great.
I have a 110g music collection---pretty extensive and a mix of Lossless and lesser formats.
At $150 each for two 500g drives (one for backup) that comes to under $100 total for the share. And those prices are dropping every day. At about half a cent per 20m Lossless track I'm not too concerned about the storage cost.
I'm afraid the cds must have cost over $10k over the years...prefer not to think about that.
LET GO OF MP3 people... It's an old format that has been surpassed.
MP3 = music on Casette tape.
AAC which is the replacement for Mp3 and is also called MP4 = Near CD quality.
Apple Lossless = Copy of source.
Size
AAC = good size and performance.
Apple Lossless = BIG size and great performance.
Mp3 = good size and bad performance.
Also to correct a well reported myth, AAC/MP4 is open format. Apple was an early adopter of AAC and thats why people mistakenly think it's a Apple format.
AAC is higher quality than .mp3. The biggest reason to stick with .mp3 is compatability. Ideally, you rip in a lossless format, store them on a computer with a big HD, then convert those into something lossy for a portable player. A recommended software for ripping and organizing is Media Monkey. It'll convert to most of the popular formats when syncing portable devices. No MAC version though. That said, what format and compression ratio you choose depends on your needs. You already said you could tell the difference with 128kps .mp3s. Most people can. Thats not a high quality rip rate. Try one ripped at 192 or 256. You "might" be able to tell the 256 apart from a CD. But very few people can. Compare the 192 to the 128. I notice a huge difference between those two, but not much difference between 192 and 256kps.
Now consider your listening environment. An IPOD or other .mp3 player. None of these are audiophile devices, and with the cheap ear buds that most people use, the quality is actually pretty lousy. In a car, road noise will negate any benefits to higher quality rips (256kps or higher).
That said, I have found that ripping at 192kps with VBR (variable bit rate) gives me a good compromise between quality and file size. Even listening on my laptop, which has the SRS Audio Sandbox installed, qaulity is very good. If you haven't heard of SRS Audio Sandbox, check it out. Its cheap and will dramatically improve the sound of any PC or MAC.
Chuck D.
'03 Jayco Kiwi 17a, '03 Chevy Trailblazer EXT, Garmin Nuvi 200 GPS
Photography is my obsession: http://coldwater.smugmug.com/
“Adventure is just bad planning.” - Roald Amundsen
AFAIK, "mp3" is a generic term for for compression that includes several more advanced encoders than the original (awful) Fraunhofer offering. The L.A.M.E. codec (I don't know what that stands for) gets the best reviews for mid-sized compression (~256 kbps).
AAC is the current standard for small compression (128) and for tiny, where the AAC+ gives astonishing quality at 64 kbps. But people who like lossy music (I don't) tend to prefer the larger LAME mp3's. I think portability also factors in.
Yes, even half-deaf old me can tell the difference between lossy and lossless played side-by-side. But sometimes it's difficult to tell which is which. And as for the still-unverified audio quality of the iPod, I agree there's no reason to stress over codec quality. I doubt you're getting anything better than ~80 db SNR out of the iPod.
* This post was
edited 04/04/08 01:50pm by an administrator/moderator *
Do you have any sources for comparisons of ACC versus LAME mp3.
I haven't looked at it in a year or so. The last time I checked, the hydrogenaudio.org people had performed a couple of tests and concluded that, although iTunes ACC scored slightly higher 4.68 to 4.55 out of 5, statistically, the two are equivalent.
"But people who like lossy music (I don't) tend to prefer the larger LAME mp3's. I think portability also factors in."
Me, I put lossy on my iPod because it's a squeaky little toy, and it's so old there isn't much room there. As for HA's test, I honestly thought the #'s were the other way around, although equally close, which I thought I expressed clearly. I got my info second hand from (wait for it) "people who like lossy music"--I don't. Some of these people spent a ridiculous amount of time researching HA for the best method for shaving their music, even as drive space got cheaper. So I took their opinions at face value, and continued with FLAC.
I used to read HA more often, till their experts started talking about audio quality above 20.5 khz. Calling all canines!
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