[screwglue]

 
Hey all,
 
I couldn't find much with regards to my problem so here goes. I have quite a few 24 bit albums that I would like to have in my ipod. The problem of course being that Ipods do not support 24 bit. Now, I have all of these songs in ALAC format in my Itunes library already. I have several conversion programs I could use (dbpoweramp, max, xld). I never really figured that the bitrate really matters above 256kbs, but after converting these songs to mp3 lame at the highest quality, the songs sounded horrible. The highs were distorted and it almost sounded like one of those portable amps were running out of batteries ( believe me, I was not comparing apples to oranges).
 
So I am wondering which file format should I convert my 24 bit alac songs to? Of course ideally I would like to stick with apple lossless, and only downgrade it to 16 bit, but I cannot find an option to do so. Selecting alac as the output would just result in an identical 24 bit file!
 
Some formats I have come across include:
AIFF - Linear PCM 16 bit
3GP Audio 320kbs
Wave 64 (not sure if this would turn the 24bit into 16 bit)
 
thanks in advance guys