Worth re importing cds to aac

[MacDonaldsd]

Just wondering is it worth the trouble re importing my cds there currently at 192 kbps vbr MP3

I mainly listen to my music on my iPod

Also how big do the files end up if you use apple lossless

[crees!]

Originally Posted by MacDonaldsd

Just wondering is it worth the trouble re importing my cds there currently at 192 kbps vbr MP3

I mainly listen to my music on my iPod

Also how big do the files end up if you use apple lossless

I wouldn't bother as I think 192 VBR would sound just fine to the normal audiophile.

Isn't Apple lossless like 1/2 the size of a WAV file? The files would be pretty big. Depends how many songs you have on your iPod and how big the HD is.

[asherman13]

Don't re-import, just convert to AAC. It definately saves space; give it a try (with just one song) and don't delete your MP3 files, and see if it saves as much space as you think would be needed and see if the quality is alright for you.

[Eric5h5]

Originally Posted by asherman13

Don't re-import, just convert to AAC. It definately saves space; give it a try (with just one song) and don't delete your MP3 files, and see if it saves as much space as you think would be needed and see if the quality is alright for you.

But then you're making a lossy file out of an already lossy file. Like loading a jpeg and making some changes and then saving it out again. Do this a few times and it looks like junk, so I imagine the same thing would happen to audio because you lose information each time.

Funnily enough, I also have my CDs as 192kbps MP3s (not vbr though), and was wondering the same thing a few days ago. I re-imported some as AACs and upped the bitrate to 256 while I was at it. I compared them to the MP3 versions, and it's possible I can tell a slight difference, but I might be imagining it. I'm not sure if I'm going to bother re-importing the rest.

--Eric

[NicP]

Originally Posted by asherman13

Don't re-import, just convert to AAC. It definately saves space; give it a try (with just one song) and don't delete your MP3 files, and see if it saves as much space as you think would be needed and see if the quality is alright for you.

As already mentioned this is NOT a good idea

[alexstein]

Originally Posted by MacDonaldsd

Just wondering is it worth the trouble re importing my cds there currently at 192 kbps vbr MP3

I mainly listen to my music on my iPod

Also how big do the files end up if you use apple lossless

How much music are we talking about here. If you are really anal and you want everything the same then go ahead and re-rip your music to aac.

I know it is arguable but I think there is not a big difference between mp3 at 192kbps vbr and 192kbps aac especially listing through your iPod without any amplification.

[steve_hill4]

Originally Posted by Eric5h5

But then you're making a lossy file out of an already lossy file. Like loading a jpeg and making some changes and then saving it out again. Do this a few times and it looks like junk, so I imagine the same thing would happen to audio because you lose information each time.

Funnily enough, I also have my CDs as 192kbps MP3s (not vbr though), and was wondering the same thing a few days ago. I re-imported some as AACs and upped the bitrate to 256 while I was at it. I compared them to the MP3 versions, and it's possible I can tell a slight difference, but I might be imagining it. I'm not sure if I'm going to bother re-importing the rest.

--Eric

Well, you're certainly right about converting a lossy file into another lossy file. You already have artifacts embedded in the file, you'll just get more if you convert. If you are going to go for AAC, slowly re-import all your music from source CD. It's actually more like changing from jpg to png files. You have one type of compression and then you take that data and apply another compression algorithm. You will lose even more quality as they compress the files in different ways, so even though the file is the same size, one compression has removed one thing, the other has removed something else. Certainly not advisable, (which is why instead of converting all my 256kbps aac to a lower bitrate on my computer, I will re-import at 192kbps).

I can tell much more of a difference at home listening through my computer than I can on my iPod and since I almost always either have my iPod or the original CDs to hand, I shouldn't need as high a quality stored on my computer to listen to. Occasionally I use party shuffle, but I'm much more of an album man, so crack open the CDs.