[Jo-Vo]

Hello!

I got an iPod Mini 2G and put a new battery and a 16GB CF card in it.
Most of the music I have put on it are Lame (3.98) VBR from V2 to V5 and let's say on every tenth song there is stuttering caused by the iPod not being "fast" enough for spontaneous bitrate changes.

Is there a way to use Lame VBR mode without stuttering (except for using the EQ, that I certainly won't)?

Otherwise I don't know which of the following options to choose:
a) Use Lame ABR and sacrifice SQ or storage (How inferior is ABR?)
b) Use Nero AAC (which could also have this problem in VBR mode) or ABR -> SQ? Compatibility to future other devices that don't support AAC would be lost.
c) Use Rockbox that sacrifices battery time, the "easy" interface (well you could hate it because it's from Apple, but it does have its positive sides) and propably the compatibility to the iPod car adapter (haven't checked that yet). If choosing Rockbox I also don't know which format to choose: MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis? I like Vorbis most but sometime I could get a different player without Vorbis support and then I would have to rip all my CDs again.

Thank you very much in advance!

Regards,
Jonas

 

[i_don't_know]

I use LAME mp3 at the highest setting, which is at 320kbps. Non-VBR. Sounds great, file sizes are decent.

 

[Jo-Vo]

Hello!

Thank you for your reply.
I think 320kbps files are too big for me.
Also I'm going to stick with the original firmware.

Do you think that Nero AAC ABR is significantly better than Lame MP3 ABR at ~160kbps?

Regards,
Jonas

 

[i_don't_know]

AAC is better than MP3 on paper, but from what I've read and what I've heard, the advantage is negligible. You could check out some slightly lower mp3 bitrates if you want to, but other than that, I don't know what you could do. My Sony S639F also has 16gb of flash memory, and the 320kbps files work great for me.

If you use Rockbox, however, I've heard good things about the Ogg Vorbis format. I've never tried it myself, though. Basically, it offers a higher size/SQ ratio than AAC and mp3.