I bumped up the bitrate-- nice improvement!

[appar111]

Well, I decided to bump up the bitrate on my Iron Maiden collection. It was at 160 AAC, and I really wanted to see what the SR-71 was capable of with my ipod mini and pocketdock, so I bumped up everything from 160 AAC to 320 AAC. At first, I'm thinking "no way I'll notice a difference", but then again, at 160 AAC, the cymbals at the beginning of "Moonchild" sounded a little tizzy, so I thought it would be an interesting experiment.

Turns out, it does make a nice difference. Subtle, but noticeable. More bass & fullness, plus cymbals, etc. sound cleaner-- not that they didn't sound right before. They just sound better now (hard to explain). And this difference is noticeable not only w/ the pocketdock and the SR-71, but also straight through the headphone out (all of this is w/ the KSC-75's). Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be as much of a difference amped or unamped now (not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing-- makes me wonder if the SR-71 was worth $350 now...)

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience.

Up the Irons!

 

[Jazper]

It is a pity that the Musepack (MPC) format isn't supported by the ipod, in my experience a Standard (190-220kbps vbr) Musepack file sounds 99.9% as good as a cd. It is a wonder it isn't used more.

 

[Febs]

When you say "bump up the bitrate," do you mean that re-ripped your CDs to the higher bitrate or that you transcoded existing lossy files?

 

[appar111]

I chucked the AAC files I had and re-ripped the original cd's.

 

[blessingx]

I like to this occasionally, but you might want to see the comparison here . Also be aware 256 & 320 drains the battery much quicker than 224 and below.

Also note iTunes 5 just added VBR support.

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx I like to this occasionally, but you might want to see the comparison here . Also be aware 256 & 320 drains the battery much quicker than 224 and below. Also note iTunes 5 just added VBR support.

yep! when i get home i'm going to rip some stuff in 256VBR AAC and compare it to 320AAC!

 

[blessingx]

I can't tell between 224-320 (difference seems much less on my DAC than 320 to lossless) so I'm debating about 192 VBR. Did a few tests (see VBR thread) and the files don't change much in size. At least the album I tried showed more at 128 than 192 (compared against CBR).

 

[appar111]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx I like to this occasionally, but you might want to see the comparison here . Also be aware 256 & 320 drains the battery much quicker than 224 and below. Also note iTunes 5 just added VBR support.

Interesting to note. I've been listening to nothing but 320 AAC for about 5 hours on my 2G mini (which gets around 17-18 hours battery life) and the battery meter still shows about 4/5 full, so I'm good there (as long as I'm sticking to playlists, or straight album plays, and not jumping around from song to song, etc.)

I usually have most of my files set to 192 AAC, with certain ones being 224 AAC, and some less critical ones being 160 AAC. I figured for Iron Maiden, I wanted every little nuance, but without having to resort to Apple Lossless. Everything else will get 192 AAC.

 

[MdRex]

I remember the horror when once I accidentally listened to an old 64kbps MP3, when I ripped that, I thought that there was no way that there was a difference...

 

[leo5111]

is constant or variable bit rate better??

 

[blessingx]

Generally VBR>ABR>CBR.

So if iTunes CBR is really ABR and its VBR is actually more VBR-ish ABR, then its wait I'm confused. Anyway use VBR.

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MdRex I remember the horror when once I accidentally listened to an old 64kbps MP3, when I ripped that, I thought that there was no way that there was a difference...

How could you not tell the difference?

 

[YamiTenshi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LFF How could you not tell the difference?

Because he was using crappy headphones.

 

[ds-]

Is it worth it to re-rip all my cds to ACC? I currently have them all ripped to 320kpbs MP3 with EAC + Lame.

 

[Imyourzero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ds- Is it worth it to re-rip all my cds to ACC? I currently have them all ripped to 320kpbs MP3 with EAC + Lame.

No way IMO! 320k MP3s sound great with a lot of music and, according to the results of various double blind tests, sound virtually identical to the original CD. This is for the majority of people, of course. If you are intent on re-ripping your collection, consider lossless. The cool thing about lossless files is that they can be transcoded into pretty much any other format, which is a big plus if you listen to music on the go as well as at home.