[SteveM324]

I just bought an 80GB iPod and I have done some searches which have helped a great deal. I'm going to rip my CDs with Apple lossless into my external hard drive. I'm about to download the library to my iPod and I'm looking for opinions. I will be using the my iPod about 80-90 percent of the time at home with a portable amp, Headroom AE2 on order, and K701, HD650, K501, or CD3000 headphones and for very infrequent travel, my Ety 4P. I'm thinking of using 320AAC or 256AAC with VBR. I'm a newb with portable devices so I'm looking for your expert opinions althougth I know its best to try it myself. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveM324 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just bought an 80GB iPod and I have done some searches which have helped a great deal. I'm going to rip my CDs with Apple lossless into my external hard drive. I'm about to download the library to my iPod and I'm looking for opinions. I will be using the my iPod about 80-90 percent of the time at home with a portable amp, Headroom AE2 on order, and K701, HD650, K501, or CD3000 headphones and for very infrequent travel, my Ety 4P. I'm thinking of using 320AAC or 256AAC with VBR. I'm a newb with portable devices so I'm looking for your expert opinions althougth I know its best to try it myself. Thanks in advance for any help.

If those are the two choices that you have narrowed it down to. I doubt that you would be able to tell a difference (unless you kept them in lossless. Even then many cannot hear the difference) so I would go with 256AAC and save the room.

If you have a small library than use the best encoding you can because there is not a space issue. IMO of course!

 

[jinp6301]

well the best thing is to do a blind test with both of those and see if you could hear the difference between those two bitrates. If you cant, stay with the lower bitrate so you save space and battery life but if you can really tell the difference between the higher bitrate and the lower one, stay with the higher one so you get the most of your listening experiance

 

[SteveM324]

Since most of my listening will be at home, I'm also considering loading lossless to the iPod. Since all my music will be in lossless format on my external hard drive, I can easily add/delete what is loaded on the iPod. How much battery life would I get if go lossless? I just loaded a few CDs and it seems like a pain in the ... to convert to a lossy format, then load the iPod and finally delete the lossy music.

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveM324 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Since most of my listening will be at home, I'm also considering loading lossless to the iPod. Since all my music will be in lossless format on my external hard drive, I can easily add/delete what is loaded on the iPod. How much battery life would I get if go lossless? I just loaded a few CDs and it seems like a pain in the ... to convert to a lossy format, then load the iPod and finally delete the lossy music.

Battery life will probably be something like 40-50% of normal from my experience

 

[Chef Medeski]

320 MP3 VBR is the best in my experience. Its smaller in size than 320AAC (my defacto standard for awhile). Yet it sounds a tiny bit better. So, smaller and better why not. I mean the differences are small, I could barely percieve the difference and only mostly on piano peices which are some of the toughest to encode. But if it sounds better and is smaller, wheres the downside? If you really need size 256AAC VBR will be smaller to an extent. But I dont think the 1-2% difference in size is much. Just thought Id toss in my $.02.

 

[SteveM324]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chef Medeski /img/forum/go_quote.gif 320 MP3 VBR is the best in my experience. Its smaller in size than 320AAC (my defacto standard for awhile). Yet it sounds a tiny bit better.

That is interesting. I did not know that MP3 VBR is smaller than AAC at the same bit rate. Anyone else compare 320 MP3 VBR to 320AAC? Anyone else using 320MP3 VBR? Anyone using 320AAC? Thanks and keep your opinions coming!

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chef Medeski /img/forum/go_quote.gif 320 MP3 VBR is the best in my experience. Its smaller in size than 320AAC (my defacto standard for awhile).

This doesn't make any sense. What is "320 MP3 VBR"? The MP3 standard provides a maximum of 320kbps, so a 320kbps MP3 file can only be CBR.

 

[cherepashka]

320mp3's VBR - smaller than 320aac CBR!

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chef Medeski /img/forum/go_quote.gif 320 MP3 VBR is the best in my experience. Its smaller in size than 320AAC

That don't make any sense at all!
The bitrate (320, 256, 192, ... kbps) refer to the amount of bits used for a second of playback. Which itself tell you to the resulting file size of the audio file.
If the file is smaller, then the bitrate have to be smaller as well.

SteveM324. If storage space is no problem (80GB will bring you a lot of music) I would have gone fully Apple Lossless. If you cant sacrifice storage space, and shorter playing time, go with AAC.

 

[srozzman]

i would use 320 mp3 VBR, just because you can use it on more devices than just an ipod, if you ever decide to switch

 

[TheMarchingMule]

I keep going back this setup:

Apple OS: LAME V0 --vbr -new
Rockbox: FLAC (various levels)

But...you have a 5.5G 80GB...

Maybe it is best you do an ABX on foobar2000 before you do all this.

 

[Mandrake]

What do you all think of this from Itunes support pages? Seems like VBR is implemented a bit differently than many appear to think....

"When the Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding option is enabled in the MP3 Encoder preferences, iTunes automatically raises and lowers the compression bit rate in order to keep a consistent level of quality. For example, if there is a point in the source music that contains a wider range of frequencies, iTunes increases the bit rate. Conversely, if there is a point that contains a narrower range of frequencies, the bit rate is decreased. iTunes does not allow the bit rate to go lower than the Bit Rate settings you've chosen."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60794

So, does this mean that VBR can only increase file size? I just experimented w/Itunes 192 AAC VBR vs 192 AAC non VBR, and the VBR song was 5.0 megs, while the non VBR song was 4.8 megs.

Interesting!

 

[bowraboy]

I went with lossless because I was sick of changing encoders & bit rates all the time.

 

[mastercheif]

I have a 80 gb iPod with ~75% Apple lossless. I have no problems with batery life. I listen a good portion of the day, and when I get home I have at least 50% bat left. What is nice about the 80gig, it has a 64MB buffer, so it holds more music in solid state than the 30 gig.