Which quality for importing is better?

[gusious]

Hi.

I have no idea about this but i was wandering which quality is better for importing songs to iTunes? And why?

[gnasher729]

Hi.

I have no idea about this but i was wandering which quality is better for importing songs to iTunes? And why?

What about listening to your ears? Take a song that you know very well. Import it several times with different settings. Play it back over the best system that you have and see if you can here a difference. Then take one quality setting higher than the highest setting where you could hear a difference.

If you can't hear any difference anyway, use AAC, 192 Kbit/second, VBR.

[gusious]

Thanks for the reply.

I guess listening is a good way but i wanted something a little but faster!

So i changed my quality from 128 to 192. Will this affect any songs that i'll import to my mp3? It can't play AAC but if i convert it, will be ok?

[ivnds]

I remember reading that the normal untrained human ear won't notice a difference beyond 160Kbit, so between that and 192kbit would be m y guess.

[gnasher729]

Thanks for the reply.

I guess listening is a good way but i wanted something a little but faster!

So i changed my quality from 128 to 192. Will this affect any songs that i'll import to my mp3? It can't play AAC but if i convert it, will be ok?

Please find a music player that plays AAC. It has much better quality than MP3. But if you have a player that only plays MP3 and you can't change that, then _import_ your CDs in MP3 format, probably at 256 or 320 Kilobit/second. Do _not_ import in AAC and convert to MP3; the result is worse than importing directly in MP3 format. Every conversion to a lossy format makes the copy worse than the original.

[volvoben]

Although some people will never notice a difference between 160kbps MP3 and anything better, why not use the best quality available? Space is less and less of an issue, even if you don't want to go with lossless. Also, if you rip in lossless to begin with you can recode it to lower qualities if you want to squeeze it onto a small iPod or something, plus you'll never need to use the actual CD again.

I find AAC to be superior to MP3, and I also find that 320 AAC with VBR works quite well for nearly everyone. My audiophile father was able to tell the difference from CD on his $10,000 worth of fantastic equipment, but it's very close.

[gusious]

Please find a music player that plays AAC. It has much better quality than MP3. But if you have a player that only plays MP3 and you can't change that, then _import_ your CDs in MP3 format, probably at 256 or 320 Kilobit/second. Do _not_ import in AAC and convert to MP3; the result is worse than importing directly in MP3 format. Every conversion to a lossy format makes the copy worse than the original.

I'm probably getting an ipod to solve the problem so...

May i ask something? If i have the option to import to mp3 why should i do it at 256 and not 320? I guess 320 is better right?