AAC import bit rate?

[unc32]

I've begun reripped my CD collection (200 or so) from mp3 to AAC. I've been using the standard 128 bit rate and then about 40 or so in it occured to me that maybe the 160 maybe better, especially since I don't want to do this again. What do you think? Should I continue with 128 or bump up to 160? What do you use?

[jelloshotsrule]

i use 128. i'm not an audio phile. and i generally just listen on my computer and ipod.

i have a 5 gig pod, so to me, space is more important.

i think if you have to ask, you probably don't "need" 160.... ya know?

[unc32]

Yes, I know that. My idea is that eventually I will be using this collection and have it be connected to my stereo and will want it to sound its best.

[LimeLite]

I used to rip all of my Mp3's at 192 bits. Now, apparently AAC at 128 is supposed to be equal to Mp3 at 192, so to be safe I rip my AAC's at 160, since it's still smaller than the 192 I had the Mp3's at.

[matthew24]

On your MAC 128 is OK. As a test I reversed a 128 file to an audio CD and on my stereo system I clearly could hear a difference with the original. I talked about it with a colleague and he advised if you want to create audio CD's again from AAC or MP3 you should go for 192.

[unc32]

I've decided to stick with the 128. 99% of the songs I have I don't listen to anyway and will simply be taking up extra space. If I find that a certain piece is sounding bad or couldd sound better I can either rerip or listen to the CD. My HD is only a 40 and have little desire to start purchasing an external at this time.

[Daveman Deluxe]

I used to listen to AAC at 128 kbit, but I realized the quality sucks. I'm a music major and listen to a lot of classical music. I re-ripped them at 256 and am much happier.

My collection is still small by most standards--only 3.3 GB.

Edit: I should mention, though, that the AAC 128kbit sounds much better than MP3 at the same bit rate. For what it's worth, I was never particularly happy with my 256 kbit MP3 files, but was happier with the 128 AAC encoding. Now, with AAC 256, I am very pleased with the sound.

[zimv20]

i just did a listening test of one song i had mp3/128 which i re-ripped (from the CD) at aac/192.

huge difference when played through my near-field monitors.

i rip aac/192, fwiw.

edit:

the differences in the song i listened to:
1. in the 128, some of the higher and lower frequencies were muffled
2. for cymbal crashes, the 128 "added" sort of a phase effect on it. the 192 sounded normal
3. the high-hats in the 128 sounded a little noisy and compressed

[King Cobra]

I use 64Kbps AAC. I used to use 64Kbps VBR MPEG-2 audio, but the AAC is better.

[zim]

I use 160kbs AAC, to me it sounds just as good if not better then 192kbs mp3. I listen through Cambridge Soundworks speakers connected to my imac, my iPod connected to my car stereo and through headphones when I am on the go, all sound absolutely perfect.

[Shiesl]

I just noticed that I'm burning my CD's at 192, but downloads from iTunes is only at 128 no matter what my preferences are set to. Is there a way to change this? Thanks. Rick

[amnesiac1984]

Originally posted by King Cobra
I use 64Kbps AAC. I used to use 64Kbps VBR MPEG-2 audio, but the AAC is better.

Huh? are you deaf or do yu jsut like your songs to sound really crap. ;) :D

[amnesiac1984]

Originally posted by Shiesl
I just noticed that I'm burning my CD's at 192, but downloads from iTunes is only at 128 no matter what my preferences are set to. Is there a way to change this? Thanks. Rick

long story short, no way.

They are ripped for you into 128 AAC files by workers at Apple, if they allowed you to choose their bit rate they would have to store a file for every bit-rate of every song on their servers, and there are a number of bit-rates available, not to mention variable bit-rates, etc.

[WinterMute]

160 AAC sounds very acceptable through earbuds, even my new Sennheisser MX500's, bur I can hear the artifacts on any halfway decent system, but then, I can hear the difference between CD and .5 inch analog 2-track tape at 30ips, and I prefer the tape.

160 AAC is definitely more musical than 128 AAC and on a par with 256 MP3.

[Edot]

Originally posted by amnesiac1984
long story short, no way.

They are ripped for you into 128 AAC files by workers at Apple, if they allowed you to choose their bit rate they would have to store a file for every bit-rate of every song on their servers, and there are a number of bit-rates available, not to mention variable bit-rates, etc.

I believe that they have to have ripped the songs in higher quality bit rates. Bandwidth rates are increasing and quality will be a big issue a few years from now. Having ripped in 128,192,256 they can easily jump to a higher quality for all the songs in the store. If they have not done this I think they are making a mistake. However, you are right they do not let you choose the bit rate at this time.

[punkmac]

I've ripped some in both formats. I've chose to stick with Mp3 in case I want to burn to CD. Most new players will read Mp3. Ilike the option of 10 albums on 1 CD.

I.

[titaniumducky]

Originally posted by punkmac
I've ripped some in both formats. I've chose to stick with Mp3 in case I want to burn to CD. Most new players will read Mp3. Ilike the option of 10 albums on 1 CD.

I.

umm...

I store all my music as AACs because it sounds better (160). I still can burn CDs which will play ANYWHERE. All I did is set the burn preference to Audio CD in iTunes

[punkmac]

Sorry, I mean an Mp3 format CD. I don't want the extra convert from AAC to Mp3 or AAC to WAV.

I.

[russed]

is there a way of converting your mp3s to AAC? i cant be bothered to re-rip my entire cd collection.

[kidA]

itunes has a "convert selection to AAC" option, but that won't give you any of the improved sound benefits you'd get from reripping into AAC.

[russed]

Originally posted by kidA
itunes has a "convert selection to AAC" option, but that won't give you any of the improved sound benefits you'd get from reripping into AAC.

thats odd as mine says convert selection to mp3 but all of my files are already in mp3 format. how odd

[27407]

AAC 320 All The Way....

[virividox]

i use 192 when i can. its just sounds sweeter

[bankshot]

Originally posted by russed
thats odd as mine says convert selection to mp3 but all of my files are already in mp3 format. how odd

You have to go into Preferences -> Importing and change to using AAC encoder.

About the original question, I use 160 kbps AAC. I did a blind listening test and discovered that this was the bitrate where I couldn't reliably tell the difference between the original CD source and the encoded file. If you really want to be absolutely sure you're getting the best compromise between sound quality and file size, I suggest you do something like this:

[list=1]
Select a couple of songs you know very well.
Rip them in iTunes as AIFF and AAC at various bitrates.
Make sure you rename the AAC versions to reflect their bitrates so you don't mix them up.
Convert all of the AAC versions back to AIFF.
Select all of the AIFF versions in iTunes and drag them to a new folder.
For each AAC bitrate, have a friend make copies of the original AIFF and the AIFF that came from that bitrate of AAC. Have your friend randomly name them "A" and "B". Then have the friend randomly pick one of them and make another copy called "C".
Now you have 3 files, at least one original source, at least one compressed AAC. One of them will be there twice. Listen to all three until you think you know which is which. (If you have QuickTime Pro, you can open all 3 in QT Player and select Play All Movies; then just click back and forth between the different windows as the song plays).
Repeat for all bitrates.
[/list=1]

If you'll be listening on a good quality stereo, I'd say take it a step further and burn your A, B, and C tracks to CD and pop that in the stereo. I don't have one right now, so it's the Mac or the iPod for me, and I found 160 kbps to be my sweet spot on my equipment with nice headphones.

I'd be interested to see people's results using a method like the above. I really think there's a lot of psychological bias that you can't overcome (no matter how much you think you can!) if you know which file is which while listening. You'll automatically expect the compressed file to sound worse. I expected this, but the results of my blind test surprised me a bit.

Then again, maybe my ears are going bad after too many years of LOUD music. :D

[WinterMute]

Originally posted by russed
thats odd as mine says convert selection to mp3 but all of my files are already in mp3 format. how odd

Go into the preferences in iTunes, select "Import" and change the settings to whatever AAC rate you want, then when you go the the convert menu it'll say convert to AAC.

[jywv8]

Originally posted by limpidezza
AAC 320 All The Way....

Yeah, I do all mine at 320. I've got the space so why not.

[FoxyKaye]

Even in the days of Napster, I would look for 128kbps or higher MP3s (*ahem* not that I've ever downloaded music illegally :cool: ) because the rest sounded crappy.

Nowadays I rip music at kbps rates that are somewhat dependent on what I plan to use it for. For example, if I'm ripping a CD from my archive, I'll use 192kbps MP3 or 160kbps AAC. If I'm ripping a friend's CD for my listening pleasure, since I won't always have access to it I'll use 256kbps MP3 or 192kbps AAC. If I know in advance I'll be using my ripped files for reburning onto CDs or remixing as part of DJ mixes, I'll rip at 320kbps AAC. Sound Studio 2.5 lets you import and export stuff using Quicktime, which is a shortcut to doing sampling from AAC files.

Then again, I also have a 60GB hard drive just for music, about 28GB of which is filled with more than 5000 songs. :D

[Sedulous]

I thought the iTunes Music Store used a different method to "rip" songs to 128 AAC files... and this somehow allows them to have better quality than the natively ripped AAC files.

[Edot]

Originally posted by Sedulous
I thought the iTunes Music Store used a different method to "rip" songs to 128 AAC files... and this somehow allows them to have better quality than the natively ripped AAC files.

I think you may be thinking of when Steve said something about using original tapes and recordings instead of consumer CD's. They are then able to "re-master" the recordings to make them sound better than the CD's when they were produced. Songs ripped this way would sound better than just buying a CD and ripping it into iTunes.

[Counterfit]

Okay, here's a breakdown. I have 227 songs ripped into 256kbps AAC, and all of them I borrowed from my brother, except for two doubles I borrowed from my uncle (Hey, I ran out of CD's of my own that I want to rip, and the Sister Act soundtrack is staying at least 5 ft from my PB :p). I have 771 songs ripped into 192kbps AAC, mostly from my own collection, and those will soon be replaced by 256. I figure once I get some nice headphones, I's be able to hear it (even though recordings rarely do orchestras and concert bands justice). 99 songs are ripped into 128kbps AAC, 91 (plus one album I forgot to put on my PB) from the iTunes music store, and the CD from my cousin's ska band, which I ripped at 128 for some reason...

The rest (456) are in varying levels of MP3. Some are albums I haven't gotten around to re-ripping in AAC yet, and the rest are from more questionable methods :P
And here's the breakdown of those: 16 at 320kbps, 66 at 192kbps, 106 @ 160kbps, 215 at 128kbps (one VBR), 5 at 112kbps, 2 at 96kbps, 3 at 64kbps, 1 each at 48, 32, and 24 kbps, and 5 unkown, three of which are streams.

[DJY]

before I had an iPOD / iTUNES I used to rip 128 MP3...

bought an iPOD and ripped everything at 128 AAC...

plugged iPOD into a few home theatre systems / stereos...
and now rip everything at 192 AAC.

I definitely noticed the difference!

Sure some music on my system is still MP3 (if I didn't have the original CD handy / or at all) and if I haven't played a CD for years -then I've left them at 128 AAC.

Re-ripping was a real pain in the arse - and I'm still not done yet... but I strongly believe it sounds much better - over a range of systems... don't notice it eith iPOD earpieces - but do with certain songs on PC (as I did some blind trials) and definitely on stereos.

[Counterfit]

Hmm, don't think I told anyone here yet (unless they're also on macfora.com...) but:

I'M GETTIN AN IPOD! w00t!
Should be arriving Saturday (and I'll slap FedEx if it's late :))

[absurdio]

I use 128kbps aac. I realize that this is evidently a major sin in the audio community, but consider this: I have some 300 odd cds, all of which are now in my powerbook, and in my ipod. In both of these devices I have somewhat limited space (granted a 60Gb hd isn't going to fill up immediately, but then again, i don't really want it to...). My 4,468 songs take up just under 16Gb of space, which is a significant chunk. More than that, I connect my powerbook to my reciever in my basement AND in the coffeehouse in which i work, and in both places my music sounds gorgeous on the big surround sound speakers. I'm willing to admit that it probably sounds better at 192kbps and definately at 256 or 320...but that's also insane. I had some doubts about whether i should be using a higher bitrate at first, too, but really, as long as you're ripping straight from cd and not pulling any shady-ass import from a burned mp3 cd into aac or any such silliness, 128 sounds just fine. I listen to my cds against my 128kbps aac files and the two sound almost identical.

128 isn't romantic, but **** it. it's efficient and sounds great. *shrug*

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by punkmac
Sorry, I mean an Mp3 format CD. I don't want the extra convert from AAC to Mp3 or AAC to WAV.

I.

That's why I have mine all in 256Kbps mp3. No lost bits on the floor when I make an mp3 CD for the car.