decent AAC encoder

[TyWahn]

I have been using iTtunes to rip my entire CD collection to AAC.. i use 192 AAC but the songs still sound muddy to me .. am i the only one that thinks iTunes encoder could be better? The songs coming form Apple themselves obviously don't use the iTunes encoder in the songs they sell... Does anybody know of a good program that will do this at a better quality than iTunes (tag support would be great)
Thanks!!

 

[PlaceofDis]

i dont know of any other apps that encode in AAC, but i think mine sound fine at 128AAC, perhaps give other bitrates a try to see whats the best for yourself

 

[TyWahn]

can a higher bitrate actually do more harm than good?

 

[Lacero]

iTunes is one of the best AAC encoders.

 

[daveL]

can a higher bitrate actually do more harm than good?

No.

 

[varmit]

Try Apples Lossless codec. If it still doesn't sound good, get new speakers.

 

[crees!]

Try Apples Lossless codec. If it still doesn't sound good, get new speakers.

Werd \m/ Though I use 192 AAC for ripping my CDs.

 

[iPost]

Might want to try QuickTime Pro

QuickTime Pro offers better AAC encoding quality than iTunes. It takes longer to rip a CD using the "best" setting in QuickTime Pro than with standard iTunes. And, Apple has said that you shouldn't notice much of a difference between the two, but other people have noticed much better results. My guess is that Apple wants iTunes to appear as a fast encoder (iTunes uses the QT AAC encoder, but only at the faster medium quality setting), so they don't offer the higher quality setting that rips slower.

See http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/makeminempeg4.php for a nice front-end to QTPro.

See http://www.recordstorereview.com/misc/aacmp3.shtml (make sure you check out Part 2) for a comparison of QTPro to iTunes encodings.