What's best: 320 kbps mp3 or 256 kbps AAC from the iTunes store?

[Aragornii]

I plan to use the iTunes match trick to upgrade all my low bit rate tunes to 256 kbps AAC using iTunes match.

What about tunes that are 256 kbps mp3 and above. Are the iTunes store tracks still better? a) AAC is better than mp3 and b) iTunes tracks are made from masters and not the CD.

I know that lossless tracks will be better, but are there any higher bit rate mp3 that are better quality than the 256 kbps AAC files from the iTunes store?

[TMRaven]

What equipment are you using to playback the songs?

[miles01110]

Err... you seem to be confused. AAC is not lossless.

[Aragornii]

What equipment are you using to playback the songs?

I'm using an Apple TV 2 hooked up to a Denon 4308 receiver and Bower & Wilkins 683 speakers.

[Peace]

I don't think you will notice any difference.

[Aragornii]

Err... you seem to be confused. AAC is not lossless.

I know. My point is that I know lossless is better than 256 AAC, but is 256 AAC better than 320 mp3? Especially when the mp3 is ripped from a CD and the AAC is made by Apple straight from the master (higher sample rate) recording.

[miles01110]

My point is that I know lossless is better than 256 AAC, but is 256 AAC better than 320 mp3? Especially when the mp3 is ripped from a CD and the AAC is made by Apple straight from the master (higher sample rate) recording.

No.

[Aragornii]

I don't think you will notice any difference.

That is almost certainly true. In my personal tests using successively higher bit rates from the same CD, I could tell the difference up to about 192 kbps but anything above that I couldn't distinguish. I guess I'm still interested in what is theoretically better as there might be some subtle differences you don't pick without doing comparisons across a wide variety of music.

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No.

That's a useful opinion. I ripped about half my library at 320 k before hard drives got bigger and I did the rest lossless. My inclination is to just leave those alone, but if an easy opportunity presented itself I'd upgrade them to a higher quality.

[TMRaven]

In all honesty it probably varies from song to song. The two different codecs treat different types of complexities within a file differently.

I think the best option would be to not worry about it and give yourself some peace of mind.

[RolledUp20s]

I ripped my fave cds to apple lossless, off the top of my head its something like 928kbps - 500mb an album? ..up to 1GB, which obviously is quite a HDD muncher. I use bose ae2i headphones. Playing them on my iphone 4s was great coz it has no EU volume cap, since i bought the new nano though, the fricking volume has a hidden cap and so i cant really tell at that level. I no longer store music on my iphone, so i guess it all depends, if its portable music your after, keep 320kbps...theyre like 4x smaller file size, so you'll save more room.
On a good home sound system you will notice difference at a decent volume level though. ...but you dont seem to be going for Apple lossless anyway?? Just do the itunes match thing, you won't notice.

By the way, if you've 'downloaded' a file at say 198kbps, it will stay at that sound quality..even if changed to apple lossless. That only works direct from CD rip

[Julien]

....and the AAC is made by Apple straight from the master (higher sample rate) recording.
We don't know this and its not likely that Apple has access to record compony property (master tapes) or needs/wants this. iTunes' songs would probably be at a 48KHz sampling rate if this were so. I bet the record companies send over CD quality (44.1/16) files (maybe even just a Redbook CD) for Apple to use.

[Aragornii]

We don't know this and its not likely that Apple has access to record compony property (master tapes) or needs/wants this. iTunes' songs would probably be at a 48KHz sampling rate if this were so. I bet the record companies send over CD quality (44.1/16) files (maybe even just a Redbook CD) for Apple to use.

Here's where I got that information.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/itunes-may-upgrade-to-24-bit-files-but-why-bother.ars

[Julien]

Here's where I got that information.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/itunes-may-upgrade-to-24-bit-files-but-why-bother.ars

I also want 48KHz or 96KHz 24 bit files offered by iTunes (I still but CD's because I don't listen to (much) lossy music). However the article clearly states (and it's 10 months old) that "...record labels are supposedly in discussions with Apple to begin offering 24-bit music files...". Thats says Apple doesn't have access to Master tapes (and likely never will since Master tapes are proprietary and used for storage) or even 92/24 file copies of the Master tapes at this time.

[phrehdd]

You are going to get all sorts of responses (as you have seen)..here's my two cents -

When possible, best to have "master" copies that are the highest bitrate possible. Lossless is ideal and given a choice between AAC 256 and mp3 320, I'd take AAC 256 as I can tell on some files a difference. Some files you wont hear much difference do to their range or the quality of the original.

All my CDs are converted to Lossless. They play of course great.If I want, I can make AAC 256 from them with just the direct compression "loss."

My downloads from iTunes remain at AAC 256 and I have from days gone by some MP3's that are ranging from 128 up to 320 bitrate. I hope to replace those later.

The only advantage of Mp3 is if you have multiple "players" that don't play AAC files. Again, having a Lossless copy you can then make mp3 version for those players.

I'll be short on the iTunes store - I have downloaded very good copies of songs at 256 and then all the older material (stuff from decades ago) sound horrible. However, LP version of the same album and some CDs were evidently cut from different "masters" than what iTunes got. I often think the problem remains with the high speed method of conversion. No one checks the quality and not all "masters" (I should say original source) are the same when it comes to transfers. So if you prefer more modern stuff, iTunes is pretty darn good. If you like say some Glen Miller or Ethel Waters or...its hit and miss.

Bottom line - mp3=good, AAC 256 Superior and Lossless =can't be better

[Aragornii]

phrehdd - that's my belief as well, that AAC is a superior format so the quality is better than mp3 even at a lower bitrate. I've decided not to mess with my 320k mp3's in any case, just because it's not worth the hassle.

Instead of the next step up in sampling rate I wish the industry would start delivering multi-channel music. Most of us are hooked up to home theater type systems now and can take advantage of it, and the difference of moving from stereo to 5.1 music would almost certainly be more noticeable than a higher sampling rate or higher bitrate.

[iEvolution]

After 192 kbps there is little difference between the two unless you have some really Hq headphones.

That being said if you are only using ipods or AAC compatible media player I would pick AAC on the account that you'd save a little bit of space. If the choices were between mp3 at the same bitrate I'd pick mp3 for Max compatibility.

At 128 kbps AAC is superior to MP3 no doubt.

[lostless]

Also iTunes is not just pure CBR 256Kb/s. They are actually VBR and sometimes reach up to 320Kb/s. Found this out when getting iTunes match and my old CBR 256 mp3s were redownloaded as AAC and the files were more than marginally bigger on some songs (256kB/s is 256kB/s, regardless of file format, plus or minus a few bit difference for format meta data). Also my 3rd party sees them as VBR files.