[mrarroyo]

raffy, I use iTunes to manage my music in the computer. When I use the my larger iPod I load it with Apple Lossless. However with the 4gB Nano I use either 192 Kbs VBR set at highest. This allows me to carry about 50 cd's in the Nano. Good luck.

 

[raffy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandbag /img/forum/go_quote.gif ALAC, 256 and 320. The 256 files were purchased online.

Where do you purchase 256 kbps files online?

 

[Orcin]

Lossless is LOSSLESS. ALAC and FLAC are the same quality. Now the rip may be better if you are using different software. However, I have found iTunes to be satisfactory.

For my portable, I cannot hear the difference between 256VBR and Lossless. I can definitely use the space with a 32GB player.

 

[royewest]

Apple lossless, because of the convenience of iTunes error-checking ripping on the Mac (well, it' not _that_ convenient, but that's another thread), on an iPod and a rockboxed iRiver iHP120 (working on a portable optical DAC solution for the latter).

 

[musicmaker]

ALAC (on my iPhone & iMod) & FLAC (on my iRiver H140)

 

[PFKMan23]

FLAC or wav.

 

[wavoman]

All Amazon MP3's are 256kb, and excellent SQ IMHO. Equal or cheaper than iTunes on everything, much more limited selection however. But it's a dream with 1-click ordering ... I buy a lot.

This is just for pop that is not critical listening. For serious stuff I agree with everyone here that it has to be lossless, and I use EAC to make WAVs. (My wife thinks it's hysterical when I say "I'm going to make WAVs").

No compression there, but although "lossless is lossless", as Orcin says, I worry about the player's firmware which has to decompress, decode and D-A-C in realtime ... if the firmware programmer took shortcuts (I'm sure Apple is perfect, but with the others who knows, so many firmware revisions on some of them) maybe little glitches creep into the bitstream from one of the compressed-but-lossless formats?

I'm probably being paranoid, and I bet I get flamed, but I'm sticking with WAVs on my non-iPods that support it.

 

[nycrob515]

Hey, i'am pretty much as noob as one can get just to let ya know. where can i get lossless files? I've heard of flac but dont understand...do i load my files onto flac and convert them to a higher bitrate? I;am downloading files off of limewire in mp3 format or itunes in whatever format that is and putting them onto an iphone...i have etymotics HF2's also with no amp....any info would be great

 

[worldman]

Non-proprietary lossless FLAC. And, however small it may be, there certainly is difference between lossless vs compressed.

 

[steviebee]

FLAC preferably, alongside OGG Q8-10
-both ripped via dBpoweramp.

 

[tfarney]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo /img/forum/go_quote.gif raffy, I use iTunes to manage my music in the computer. When I use the my larger iPod I load it with Apple Lossless. However with the 4gB Nano I use either 192 Kbs VBR set at highest. This allows me to carry about 50 cd's in the Nano. Good luck.

Miguel, how do you do this? I was under the impression that if you ripped to lossless in your system, that's what it would load to your iPod, period. I'd love to be able to do this because all of my files are lossless for home listening, and it only allows me to keep a few albums on my Nano at a time. Not a big deal, I just refresh when I get tired of them, but at the gym, or doing yardwork, with my Etys plugged directly into the Nano, I'm pretty sure I'm not really hearing the quality upgrade.

Tim

 

[tfarney]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nycrob515 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hey, i'am pretty much as noob as one can get just to let ya know. where can i get lossless files? I've heard of flac but dont understand...do i load my files onto flac and convert them to a higher bitrate? I;am downloading files off of limewire in mp3 format or itunes in whatever format that is and putting them onto an iphone...i have etymotics HF2's also with no amp....any info would be great

Most people are getting lossless by ripping cds to their hard drive as lossless files. There are some sites out there with lossless downloads, but I'm not familiar with them.

Tim

 

[webbie64]

Quote:

Originally Posted by worldman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Non-proprietary lossless FLAC. And, however small it may be, there certainly is difference between lossless vs compressed.

Agreed. I also use FLAC (HP-140) and my lossy choice is ACTRAC 352kbps (due to my player - Sony NW-HD5).

 

[dazzer1975]

I either use wav or mp3 320 vbr, used to use ogg which I felt was a definite improvement over mp3 but since I never really used my h340 and have bought other players which cant support ogg since I use wav and mp3 generally speaking.

 

[amb]

iPod users (or any other media player that doesn't support FLAC or Ogg Vorbis), you should check into Rockbox which is a replacement OS/firmware for the player. It supports FLAC and Ogg Vorbis natively and has a host of other cool features. Best of all, it let's you say good riddance to iTunes and organize your music files your own way.