[Sladeophile]

Hey all,
Just wondering what bitrate and format eveyone uses. Personally I use 192 kbps mp3s on my 4th gen ipod. It seems that they sound a lot better than 128 to me. I wish I had endless hard drive space for 320, but it's mostly my ipod that is limiting me there. I suppose we would all use wav if we could, but I'm interested to see if there is a better format I should be using since I don't know a whole lot about the difference between all of them. What do you guys think?

Slade

 

[RockinOut]

For me Apple Lossless.

Everyone's different. Definitely on this issue. Many threads on this issue here at HeadFi.

For me with a 4GB iPod Mini, it means I have to transfer music back and forth a lot, but I don't mind.

Some can here a difference, some can't. It's all a give and take of space vs. sound quality given one's tastes and preferences.

Many Head-Fiers will say that all that matters is how it sounds to your ears after testing many formats yourself.

I agree.

 

[Sladeophile]

deleted

 

[panda]

i use 192 vbr aac on 4th gen ipod color. it sounds better than -v2 lame3.93 mp3. i dunno which is better for battery life however, anyone do a comparison?

 

[Uncle Erik]

Huh. I just use regular old AAC on my iPod. A lot of people here would never do that, but it sounds OK to me. The iPod amp is so-so and I also jack it into my car stereo, which is absolutely not hi-fi. I prefer to have a wide variety of music on the iPod and like how much compression affords. When I'm driving, out and about, or whatever, my primary focus is not on the music. I don't pay enough attention to it to notice higher resolution, etc. And the car is noisy, anyhow.

But at home, I do use Apple Lossless and good equipment because it is quiet and I can sit down to seriously listen to and enjoy music.

 

[Drewpy]

Well for me quality isn't a big issue when I'm listening on my iPod. I don't really hear the difference at higher bitrates when I'm on my bike using Sony MDR-J11G phones (I know they suck, but I don't have to worry about them falling out of my ears). I just stick with Lame -V5. I'd rather have quantity over quality. Besides, I need all the help I can get climbing hills (for now anyways) so going to lossless and using a headphone amp just doesn't make sense for me. More stuff weighing me down when I don't need it.

I'm content with it, and that's all that matters to me.

 

[kunuggs]

I use 192 vbr aac on my 4gb ipod mini and lossless on my home rig. Honestly though, I can't tell the difference between the two. However, both of my setup's are far from stellar:

Portable rig = ipod mini -> 192 vbr aac -> ksc-75
Home rig = itunes -> Apple Lossless -> SB Extigy -> Klipsch 4.1

I really only ripped them in 2 diff. formats because a) the ipod mini has such small storage capacity (compared to my massive library) while the pc has a huge storage capacity (370gb and a dvd-r just in case) and b) I figured I would upgrade in the future and be pissed off if I could, in fact, tell the difference between the two and then have to re-rip all my cd's again.

Hope this helps.

 

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kunuggs I use 192 vbr aac

I was about to type there's no such thing as vbr AAC until I checked the menus on Itunes - lo and behold there it is under custom settings! Taken me about 3 years to realise that!

 

[ameyer17]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiron99 Taken me about 3 years to realise that!

FWIW, I believe that itunes added VBR AAC recently.

 

[Bones13]

I use MP3s made by ripping CDs using EAC, and using LAME at --alt preset extreme. This looks to make 196ish VBR files. I use these only on my ipod devices. I use FLAC with foobar for all my main listening.

Lossy MP3s, at a "good" rate, sound fine when I am traveling on public transportation with an ipod/amp/IEM. Besides, when I can put 600 songs on a 4 gig Nano, I don't have to worry about swapping them out very often, I can have songs to match whatever my mood is.

 

[mrarroyo]

192 VBR set at the highest setting

 

[krmathis]

Bitrate: 350 - 1200kbps, encoder: Apple Lossless

 

[Veniogenesis]

Apple Lossless. The HD650 and SA5K demand it.


That is... when I still had an iPod. *cries*