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iPod What do you encode at?

Ah... encoding strategy... This is always the burning question. infact, i was disturbed to find my two yogis arguing about this very same question only last night. can't someone sticky a FAQ about this? it's getting a bit dry. ;)

{EDIT}: due to its popularity, i guess i should take back my attitude towards this thread :eek:
1. 160
2. AAC
3. ipod mini & marshall guitar amp (!)
4. 1400 songs (7.16Gb)
5. good luck to anyone trying to categorise all their music into 'genres'
 
1. 160
2. aac
3. my ipod and my JBL creatures
4. 3278 songs (13.59Gb)
5. Most played song = No, Not Now by Hot Hot Heat, favourite song at the moment Everlong by the Foo Fighters
 
dferrara said:
I'm going to be importing my collection soon, so I was wondering what you setting you guys use. :)

  1. What bit rate? (128, 192, etc.)
  2. What format (AAC, MP3, Lossless, etc.)
  3. Where do you listen to it most? (iPod, high-fidelity stereo, etc.)
  4. How big is your collection?
  5. Any other relevant tidbits.
Click to expand...

192
aac
ipod
13GB
airport expresses are cool
 
1. 192
2. MP3 for music, AAC for audiobooks, interviews etc
3. Mixed between my iBook's iTrigue speakers, my hi-fi (dock connects to amp), or car (another dock hardwired to my car stereo's AUX input). I use a Shuffle for when I'm out and about.
4. 6,733/33.5GB) around 5700 music and 1,000 audio. Eagerly awaiting an 80GB iPod 'cos I'm nearly outta space.
5. I've bumped it, scratched it, jogged with it, dropped it and my 4G Clickwheel still works :)
 
  1. 320
  2. AAC
  3. Desk - living room, same speakers just louder
  4. not large enough ;)
  5. I love 'party shuffle' but i should rate and genre more
 
1. 160
2. AAC
3. iPod & PowerBook with headphones
4. 1,875 songs - 11.57 gigs
5. No tidbits here
 
Me:

  1. 224
  2. AAC
  3. Stereo system (from computer), iPod
  4. ~50GB
  5. In the process of re-ripping everything to Apple Lossless.
 
1. 128
2. AAC
3. eMac w/ Altec Lansing 2100's, car, iPod Mini
4. 900 songs, 4.59gb

I have quite a few CD's that I haven't imported yet, though.
 
dferrara said:
I'm going to be importing my collection soon, so I was wondering what you setting you guys use. :)

  1. What bit rate? (128, 192, etc.)
  2. What format (AAC, MP3, Lossless, etc.)
  3. Where do you listen to it most? (iPod, high-fidelity stereo, etc.)
  4. How big is your collection?
  5. Any other relevant tidbits.
Click to expand...

1) 192 for regular, 256 for soundtrack/classical
2) AAC
3) iPod 10 GB
4) 1935 Songs, 5.4 Days, 10.89 GB
5) Back up all your tunes in some sort of lossless on an external. I am going to be doing that as soon as I work up the dough for an external drive and school ends...
 
I know I didn't specify the details of my music library. If I did, though, they'd be out of date in a hurry, since my music library in iTunes has changed drastically these last 3 days, and it's going to continue to change.
 
Just a couple things: As for the equivalence of AAC and mp3, I was told that 128 AAC is the same quality as 160mp3. And clearly AAC take up less space.

My real question here is this: Why do (apparently) so many people bother with these really high bit-rates? They take up a lot more space, and the human ear can't make out a difference above 160kbps.

As for my collection: it's all over the place different file types and bit-rates all over. When I get a new computer and an iPod, I'm going to convert it all to 128 AAC I think.

Also to note: I currently have 5446 songs, coming in at just over 16 days worth, and 26.27GB
 
1. 192 kb/s
2. AAC
3. 70% home on my Panasonic Theater over optical on my G5,
30% iPod with the B&O A8s
4. A mere 1.5gb
5. I always ad album art and full metadata to anything I get.
 
Astral Cars said:
My real question here is this: Why do (apparently) so many people bother with these really high bit-rates? They take up a lot more space, and the human ear can't make out a difference above 160kbps.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I used to believe this, until I really gave a hard listen. I doubt it matters through the Apple headphones, but through my stereo system (it's not audiophile, but it's certainly not something you'd get at best-buy), I really could hear the difference. I've started re-ripping my collection, this time in Apple Lossless. I have a fair amount of music encoded at 128kbps AACs (~2000 songs), so I'm starting with those. I think I'll leave off on the 224kbps AACs unless I really start hearing a difference in quality, because this is a lot of work.
 
Astral Cars said:
My real question here is this: Why do (apparently) so many people bother with these really high bit-rates? They take up a lot more space, and the human ear can't make out a difference above 160kbps.
Click to expand...

THE human ear or just your ear? You know, some people have the ears to hear a difference, some don't, some people have the equipment to hear a difference and some don't, some people care for that difference and some don't.
Choose your flavor. The difference IS audible. Now whether you have the ears or the equipment to hear it is for you to see and whether you care for you to decide.
 
Edit: just realized that this realy isn't the thread to discuss this, sry

Astral Cars said:
Just a couple things: As for the equivalence of AAC and mp3, I was told that 128 AAC is the same quality as 160mp3. And clearly AAC take up less space.
Click to expand...
I had to check this sry
mp3vsaac.png

look for 'vive ma liberté' (by Arno).
mp3 is just a tad smaller with 'smart encoding' and 'filter frequencies below 10Hz'. both are @ 320 kbps

Astral Cars said:
My real question here is this: Why do (apparently) so many people bother with these really high bit-rates? They take up a lot more space, and the human ear can't make out a difference above 160kbps.
Click to expand...
Could be, but there must be a difference between them and maybe it's just the very high frequencies that mess with your mind when listening to music they're cutting out. I sure do want to feel the music as intense as possible. And hopefully someday on a superb sound-system. ;)

Astral Cars said:
As for my collection: it's all over the place different file types and bit-rates all over. When I get a new computer and an iPod, I'm going to convert it all to 128 AAC I think.
Click to expand...
I've heard encoding twice is far from ideal, just a heads up.
By the way, this a thread on what format to encode in.

Astral Cars said:
Also to note: I currently have 5446 songs, coming in at just over 16 days worth, and 26.27GB
Click to expand...
Have fun with party shuffle!
 
  1. 192
  2. MP3
  3. 60GB iPod Photo AND Sony MP3-capable car 10-CD Changer
  4. 1704 songs
  5. I always add album art using FetchArt. I switched to using 192kbps mp3 because on my car's speakers, 128kbps mp3 sound like crap.. on the Powerbook's speakers they're just fine, though. I also use the LAME encoder for iTunes, which I consider to create better-sounding mp3 files.

I have a HUGE pile of CDs waiting to be ripped... a quick guess I would say I still have around 300 CDs to go through. Someday, someday...
 
Diatribe said:
THE human ear or just your ear? You know, some people have the ears to hear a difference, some don't, some people have the equipment to hear a difference and some don't, some people care for that difference and some don't.
Choose your flavor. The difference IS audible. Now whether you have the ears or the equipment to hear it is for you to see and whether you care for you to decide.
Click to expand...

The human ear.

Granted it wasn't from the end all source on things that I heard this, but I trust it and I'd believe it. I'll have to try and compare sometime. The way I understand it is most people can't really tell the difference above 128 and a good ear can't tell a difference above 160. But believe what you want.

On a really quick test (128 AAC vs. 256 MP3) I can't really tell a difference, and I've got a pretty good ear. The point being, there is no way anyone could here a song, even at 128 AAC, and say "that's 128." Maybe you can tell a little difference comparatively, but not if you just hear one.
 
Apple Lossless for my favorite albums. 192 for everything else. Though I can't really tell the difference, I have extra space that I would otherwise not use.
 
Astral_Cars, I have a couple of issues with that.

Firstly, don't you think it's possible that your preexisting bias could have influenced you? I highly doubt you can be totally objective when you so strongly believe one thing to be true.

Secondly, you might hear a bigger difference with a more radical comparison, like 128kbps to a lossless compression.
 
jestershinra said:
Astral_Cars, I have a couple of issues with that.

Firstly, don't you think it's possible that your preexisting bias could have influenced you? I highly doubt you can be totally objective when you so strongly believe one thing to be true.

Secondly, you might hear a bigger difference with a more radical comparison, like 128kbps to a lossless compression.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't have any lossless songs on hand, otherwise I would have. As for the bias, for one I played each without knowing which was which, and I really couldn't hear much difference, I'm pretty sure the only difference I might have heard was just fabricated in my mind. Now it is true that I don't have anywhere near amazing speakers, so that could have a lot to do with it. Oh, and just so it's known, I don't believe this that strongly, I just heard it was true and was trying to legitimize it by asking others and testing myself. If anyone can prove me wrong decently well I'll believe them.
 
1. 160-192/Not Applicable
2. AAC/Apple Lossless
3. 10GB iPod 2G & PowerBook
4. only 844 songs atm, gradually importing entire collection of 300+ vinyl LPs and 200+ CDs that are not yet imported...
5. I vary my bit rate based on what I'm importing: at the moment I only have two albums encoded in Apple Lossless (Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"). 160 AAC is my standard codec, but I up it to 192 for a lot of live stuff and some really good albums.

Whatever you do, don't use VBR encoding... It's absolutely awful.
 
1.)for my mp3\wma player 128 WMA usually maybe higher sometimes
for my puter WMA lossless VBR highest quality
2.)WMA
3.)computer with z540s
4.)around 100 or so songs
5.)WMA mianly have couple songs in ogg
 
1) 128
2) AAC
3) 50/50 iPod when walking to lectures (or sometimes in lectures :p) and in the gym and in the evenings or when I have days off.
4)5168 songs, 14.5 days, 22.09GB
5)some of the songs are mp3 from before I switched to mac.
 
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