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improving quality of my files?

post #1 of 12
5/26/10 at 3:32pm
Thread Starter 

ripped from cd or downloaded from itunes mainly

how can i improve the sound quality of these?

 

new to all this, read loads fo threads but got confused, sorry

any advice thanks?

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post #2 of 12
5/26/10 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by james0195 View Post

ripped from cd or downloaded from itunes mainly

how can i improve the sound quality of these?

 

new to all this, read loads fo threads but got confused, sorry

any advice thanks?


You can't

 

Itunes files you are stuck with whatever bit rate they were encoded in, files from CD you will need to re rip in  either a higher bit rate or the best options is to re rip your cd's in a lossless format and then transcode them to a lower bit rate for your portable player if you don't want lossless files on your player.

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post #3 of 12
5/26/10 at 3:36pm
Thread Starter 

ok thanks

are downloaded files from itunes that bad?

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post #4 of 12
5/26/10 at 3:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by james0195 View Post

ok thanks

are downloaded files from itunes that bad?


Depends on  what your defitinion of bad is. They are from what I remeber usually 256KBPS which isn't completely horrible but for me anyway I only listen  to lossless.

 

The best thing to do is get a big external hard drive and store all your music on it in a lossless format like .flac, you have to re rip your cd's in .flac to get the benefit of .flac. With all your music stored in a lossless format you can down sample the files to any other format to put on your player. The key is archiving  your music in lossless format so you  can do what ever you want to them at a later time.

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post #5 of 12
5/26/10 at 3:46pm
Thread Starter 

i do have an unused 80gb external hard drive under my bed lol

and im about to upgrade my mac, so now seems like a good time to update

 

ill do just what you said, (runs off to ebay to buy more cds :P) 

thanks very much

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post #6 of 12
5/27/10 at 6:59pm

If you're about to re-rip your entire library, rip to FLAC!!! I cannot stress this enough. From FLAC, you can create anything you need, whether it is ALAC, AAC, MP3, whatever. Now that I finished re-ripping my entire library, I have a box full of CD's that I'll probably stick in a closet. Unfortunately, I have also acquired about 30 - 40 CD's in digital format from Amazon. These are in MP3 VBR format. (good quality, but not lossless) I am now in the process of deciding which of those I really love enough to re-purchase in CD format.

 

Rip once, rip right!

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post #7 of 12
5/27/10 at 7:03pm

80GB isn't going to last you too long if you're ripping to lossless.  Fortunately 1TB drives are really cheap these days.

 

- Ed

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post #8 of 12
5/28/10 at 2:55am
Thread Starter 

yeah just thought 80gb wouldnt be enough, 

ill get a 1tb one soon

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post #9 of 12
6/2/10 at 4:21am
Thread Starter 

im beginning to import to lossless. 

when i click on a song in itunes under advanced it offers me the oppoortunity to convert to lossless, 

 

worth doing? 

or is it pointless and i should re rip from cd

thanks

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post #10 of 12
6/2/10 at 4:32am

Re-rip it. Converting it to lossless from the lossy source won't get you extra quality as the data was already lost in the previous rip.

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post #11 of 12
6/2/10 at 4:36am
Thread Starter 

i guessed as much, just thought best to check

back of to re ripping, 

cheers

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post #12 of 12
6/2/10 at 4:39am

even 1TB drives dont last long. I suggest getting a 2TB external or even a couple. I filled up 1 TB in 4 months.

 

I suggest storing all your music in flac format and for you mp3 player use LAME encoder set to VBR v0 quality


Edited by Freeze - 6/2/10 at 4:42am
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