[pomegranate]

I'm thinking of converting my 224kbps AACs to a lower bitrate, maybe 160 or 192 (using iTunes)...at the minute I can only fit about 3400 songs on my 20gig iPod...a bit inconvenient. But I don't want to re-rip all my CDs. Would I suffer quality loss higher than if I had just ripped them to the lower bitrate in the first place? Does this count as transcoding?

 

[blessingx]

Yes and yes.

3400 portable tracks sounds like an awful lot to me, but give one or two a try and see if you notice a difference. You may not. It's a no-no around these parts, but many like me do it occasionally and many MD users do it all the time (to ATRAC), so lossy to lossy transcoding isn't the end of the world. On a CD by CD basis it really takes about the same time though (3-4 minutes on my machine), but I understand you can do the whole batch at once in iTunes.

Another option is get Nero (if on a PC). It is slightly more complicated preparing tracks for the iPod (even if moved by iTunes see HydrogenAudios AAC forum), but like LAME, Nero has presets so your music could take up whatever is necessary (within a range) depending on its musical complexity. Audiophile will be 160-250 Kb/s, but Transparent will be only 110-150 Kb/s

Also if you want to see an example on space savings between 160/192/224, see here.

 

[pomegranate]

Cheers again Blessingx..can you recommend a genre or album (something popular) that I should use to compare different settings?
And re number of songs...most of the stuff on my iPod is stuff I've never got round to listening to...stick it on play all tracks and shuffle..best way of finding 'new' songs in my collection.

 

[blessingx]

Depending on your sync method (would have to automatic... I think but not sure) you can create a smartlist where you pick things by their number of times played (or last time played). Basically 0 or six months ago, etc. Find those old future gems.

I would do tests with sometime complex and simple. I've done it with Radioheads angry HTTT and Kate Rusbys gentle Ten. You know full maybe full rock band and solo piano work, etc.

 

[pomegranate]

Hmm, hadn't thought of it in terms of favourites...
I will try Hail to the Thief, and probably Brian Eno too..some of that is piano-y. What about Bach? That's the only particularly quiet stuff I have.

 

[blessingx]

Yeah, I was using Glouds State of Wonder Bach Set for a while. Was just suggesting something with male and female vocals in it also. Cover the most bases. The quiet stuff is where I hear the most differences (sometimes the only differences) between lossy and uncompressed, so it may be good for two lossys also.

 

[pomegranate]

OK cheers fella, I will eventually get round to to doing some systemised tests (have to wait for iPod to get back from Apple first, sigh, boohoo...) and will report back what difference I notice.

 

[blessingx]

Why not test on your computer before it gets back? That way you can be good to go when it arrives.

 

[pomegranate]

Haha, thought you might say that, was in two minds whether to talk about it the last post.
Two reasons: the speakers on my computer wouldn't reveal the sort of quality differences we're talking about (cheapest Creative Live surround set) and, annoyingly, I get a bad background humming noise on my PC's headphone socket (also a Creative card, bit of a let down) that is too distracting to bother with... so there you go.