[ProParadox]

Hello all,
I just bought my WONDERFUL fourth generation 20gb iPod. So far I really like it, and I'm working on reorganizing my music collection for ease of use with the iPod. 90% of my music is stuff downloaded from archive.org. Some of it I have encoded to Mp3, others I left in flac/ape format. Many of the recordings arent amazing to begin with, so I am wondering if you guys think it is worth it to redownload, and use apple lossless on all my live shows. I will be using either Shure E2's or E3's with the iPod. Ampless.

Let me know what you all think!

 

[daveman_84]

Definitely not. Lossless formats on portable devices is pointless IMO. There's probably no way you can tell the difference between lossless and a well-encoded mp3. If you go lossless your ipod will be filled up before you know what hit you.

 

[Spankypoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveman_84 Definitely not. Lossless formats on portable devices is pointless IMO. There's probably no way you can tell the difference between lossless and a well-encoded mp3. If you go lossless your ipod will be filled up before you know what hit you.

'Definitely' not? IYO, it's definitely not. But there are those who can tell the difference between even very well-encoded MP3s and lossless formats. And for them, it may be worth it.

All I can recommend is that a person encode several of their most demanding albums (I'd make sure you use recordings from several types of genre, as sometimes encoders make themselves more apparent on certain types of music - electronica is frequently very difficult to encode well), sit down with the equipment they plan on using, and listen to things until they decide whether or not the added quality is even noticable, and if so, if it's worth the storage hit.

For some music, I find lossless worth it with a 3G iPod and ER4Ss - for other types, it's a complete waste of space. I'd say about 20% of my library (by track count) is lossless, the rest r3mix. But that 20% is blissfully better because of it.

 

[blessingx]

I'm a fan of lossless and think with the right setup, it is possible to tell the difference, but I really doubt it on your live shows.

 

[Idiot MD]

Let me ask you a question. Are you content to get by with lossy files knowing you can't hear the difference OR are you satisfied with the audio quality of lossy files from your Ipod? If you are of the former mindset then lossless is worthwhile because you might end up questioning your enjoyment of music while using lossy codec. If you can hear the difference (real or imagined) then lossless is completely worthwhile because it will remove any doubt of whether your enjoyment of the music is real or implied. You may find yourself listening for differences in the music and not LISTENING to the music. If neither of these situations apply and you can enjoy the music from a lossy codec, then do so.

(Disclaimer: This is all assuming you ask this question because you are using this for your own personal listening enjoyment and that you can not discern the differences between a lossy encoded track and a lossless encoded track.

)

 

[ProParadox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Idiot MD Let me ask you a question. Are you content to get by with lossy files knowing you can't hear the difference OR are you satisfied with the audio quality of lossy files from your Ipod? If you are of the former mindset then lossless is worthwhile because you might end up questioning your enjoyment of music while using lossy codec. If you can hear the difference (real or imagined) then lossless is completely worthwhile because it will remove any doubt of whether your enjoyment of the music is real or implied. You may find yourself listening for differences in the music and not LISTENING to the music. If neither of these situations apply and you can enjoy the music from a lossy codec, then do so.

Good point.

 

[rextrade]

I can't really tell the difference between 320 AAC and lossless--maybe on some classical recordings, but I've never done a blind test. I think my ears are pretty good, but obviously some people have much better ears and can tell the difference. But, it's definitely a good point that if you're going to be listening to the sound quality and wondering if it could be better (been guilty of that myself), just go with lossless.

 

[bangraman]

No I don't think so, not for portable use. If you have better gear at home to listen to Lossless on, or if you sometimes want to go lossless for classical albums, etc you can use the Smartlist functions of iTunes to adapt to your needs.


For the record, I'm perfectly happy with 256K VBR MP3's ripped using iTunes (!!!! Head-Fi sacriledge!!!! why am I not using pointlessly slow other software!!!!!

) for portable use with the iPods.