I Pod with headphones

[Mark]

George, WAV is short for waveform ... which is basically sound as it is. Stay above 192kbps, and I'll bet that unless you have a trained ear and/or very high-end equipment, you'll not hear the compression artifacts that betray lossy formats.

And for the record, all this tosh about AAC or MP3 at this or that bitrate being comparative to one another is precisely that: tosh! There's never been any study or series of tests done AFAIK that conclusively proves that, say, 128kbps ACC is equivalent to 192kbps MP3. A lot of it is down to marketing, I'm afraid: Sony would have you believe that 64kbps ATRAC3+ is as good as 128kbps MP3. Get a good set of headphones and a decent hifi, and you'll quickly hear what nonsense that is.

[George]

George, WAV is short for waveform ... which is basically sound as it is. Stay above 192kbps, and I'll bet that unless you have a trained ear and/or very high-end equipment, you'll not hear the compression artifacts that betray lossy formats.

Thanks. I assume that Apple Lossless is over 192?

[Mark]

Thanks. I assume that Apple Lossless is over 192?

Apple Lossless (like WMA Lossless, it's PC counterpart) is rather like the FLAC format: a means of making file sizes smaller WITHOUT losing significant digital information. So yes, waaaaaaay better than 192kbps.

[George]

Apple Lossless (like WMA Lossless, it's PC counterpart) is rather like the FLAC format: a means of making file sizes smaller WITHOUT losing significant digital information. So yes, waaaaaaay better than 192kbps.

And I assume also faster to import/burn than WAV?

[orbital]

George, since you are not going to store these files, given the option why not go for WAV without worrying about if you're going to use any information? With a high speed internet it should not take long to download the files. When burning CDs I doubt it will make any difference in the time it takes what format you have the original file in.

Thanks Mark
Do you also know how to make WMP stop auto syncing with every USB device I plug in?

[orbital]

George, WAV is short for waveform ... which is basically sound as it is. Stay above 192kbps, and I'll bet that unless you have a trained ear and/or very high-end equipment, you'll not hear the compression artifacts that betray lossy formats.

Agreed. This is a general tendency in different aspects of life. Like wine, there sure is a difference between a $7 bottle and a $70 bottle, and in most cases it pays to pay up. But between the $70 and the $700 the difference gets less and less to justify the price difference IMO. The same with hi-fi equipment, the initial increase in quality between a $500 and $5,000 system is much more noticeable than the one between the $5,000 and $50,000 ones. It has to do with the universal law of diminishing returns. File sizes are no different, the difference of quality between 192kbps and WAV is not big enough to dedicate the disk space (at least for me).

[George]

George, since you are not going to store these files, given the option why not go for WAV without worrying about if you're going to use any information? With a high speed internet it should not take long to download the files. When burning CDs I doubt it will make any difference in the time it takes what format you have the original file in.

Thanks! I am not actually downloading them, I am just temporarily importing them to make CD mixes or copies of rare or OOP discs. 

[71 dB]

Apple Lossless (like WMA Lossless, it's PC counterpart) is rather like the FLAC format: a means of making file sizes smaller WITHOUT losing significant digital information. So yes, waaaaaaay better than 192kbps.

Without losing ANY digital information. Lossless means identical quality to the original CD. The filesize is just smaller because the information is packed carefully. They are like zip-files. Smaller but 100% is there.

[Mark]

Without losing ANY digital information. Lossless means identical quality to the original CD. The filesize is just smaller because the information is packed carefully. They are like zip-files. Smaller but 100% is there.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

[Steve]

George, WAV is short for waveform ... which is basically sound as it is. Stay above 192kbps, and I'll bet that unless you have a trained ear and/or very high-end equipment, you'll not hear the compression artifacts that betray lossy formats.

And for the record, all this tosh about AAC or MP3 at this or that bitrate being comparative to one another is precisely that: tosh! There's never been any study or series of tests done AFAIK that conclusively proves that, say, 128kbps ACC is equivalent to 192kbps MP3. A lot of it is down to marketing, I'm afraid: Sony would have you believe that 64kbps ATRAC3+ is as good as 128kbps MP3. Get a good set of headphones and a decent hifi, and you'll quickly hear what nonsense that is.

AAC enoded at 128kpbs is of considerably higher quality then 128 mp3. I've found that 128 AAC compares rather favorably to 192 mp3. Anyway, I find 256 AAC to be all one needs for good listening.

[71 dB]

I tried again iTunes to rip a CD. I have two CD drives. The other is not supported (why?) according to iTunes and the other that is supposed to be supported caused the whole program jam when I tried importing. I can use EAC to rip but I can't make AAC files. 

[Mark]

... but I can't make AAC files. 

Why the hell would you want to?

[71 dB]

Why the hell would you want to?

AAC should be better than mp3 at the same bitrate. Also, I'd like to compare myself.

EDIT: iTunes converts wav-files on HD to AAC.  Problem solved.

[George]

AAC should be better than mp3 at the same bitrate. Also, I'd like to compare myself.

EDIT: iTunes converts wav-files on HD to AAC.  Problem solved.

Yes, I was going to suggest that. Glad you found it.

[Holden]

Harry, I've set up WMP to go automatically to my MP3 player using the same window in Mark's post. The only thing you have to work out is what drive letter the USB is - on my it's drive E:

[Harry]

Harry, I've set up WMP to go automatically to my MP3 player using the same window in Mark's post. The only thing you have to work out is what drive letter the USB is - on my it's drive E:

That I can do Holden, so far my knowledge goes, luckily enough.
With all these bits of info from our personal computer Wizard Young Mark, and all others, this story will come to a successful end.

[Thom]

Harry, a warning (maybe this has already been said but i didn't notice this thread until now and have not read it all).

I use an 60 Gb iPod for some time now. I am hooked, couldn't do without it anymore. iTunes really is a $#@%%$# application but I use it only to transfer the music to the iPod. I rip my cd's with Nero (tolerably fast), 320 kbit/44100H Hz which gives app. 150 Mb. per cd.

My warning is this. It takes some time to rip your cd's and to upload them to the iPod. It may come soon, or it may come after some time but eventually the iPod will crash. F.i. it happened to me that my pc/iTunes didn't recognise my iPod anymore. A lot about this problem is to be found on the internet but I didn't manage to solve the problem and finally had to reset my iPod. Result: all the information on the iPod is lost, I had to start all over again. So what I now do is this. I bought an external harddrive and I save all ripped mp3's on this harddrive. Not so long ago I had another crash but to restore all the mp3's to the iPod didn't took me that long, luckily. I could skip the ripping fase.

I bought my iPod 1,5 year ago (it is my 2nd). I notice that the battery is losing performance fast. I have to recharge more and more often.  Anyone with experience on this? I know that it is not possible to replace the battery unfortunately.

[greg]

i have a question, not very iPod-related, but does anyone do this?

Do any of you ever buy CDs from Amazon, then save them onto your iPod (and maybe save a backup file of course on your computer) and then resell the CD? If you get a used CD, you could probably resell it for the same price. Though reselling isn't always a quick process.... but in the end, all you'll have to pay for is shipping, which means you get a great discount! And you could scan the booklet as a pdf, too, so you still have that.

It's just an idea I had, not sure how it'd work.

[Bunny]

Harry, a warning (maybe this has already been said but i didn't notice this thread until now and have not read it all).

I use an 60 Gb iPod for some time now. I am hooked, couldn't do without it anymore. iTunes really is a $#@%%$# application but I use it only to transfer the music to the iPod. I rip my cd's with Nero (tolerably fast), 320 kbit/44100H Hz which gives app. 150 Mb. per cd.

My warning is this. It takes some time to rip your cd's and to upload them to the iPod. It may come soon, or it may come after some time but eventually the iPod will crash. F.i. it happened to me that my pc/iTunes didn't recognise my iPod anymore. A lot about this problem is to be found on the internet but I didn't manage to solve the problem and finally had to reset my iPod. Result: all the information on the iPod is lost, I had to start all over again. So what I now do is this. I bought an external harddrive and I save all ripped mp3's on this harddrive. Not so long ago I had another crash but to restore all the mp3's to the iPod didn't took me that long, luckily. I could skip the ripping fase.

I bought my iPod 1,5 year ago (it is my 2nd). I notice that the battery is losing performance fast. I have to recharge more and more often.  Anyone with experience on this? I know that it is not possible to replace the battery unfortunately.

Although I haven't had a problem with Ipod crashes, I've always used an external hard drive to store the ripped music.  It makes good sense because I have so much more than 60 or 80 gigs of music.  That would be the first piece of advice to anyone getting an ipod -- Get an external hard drive dedicated to storing the music!

As far as the battery problem goes:  Get a new battery put in.  There are a number of online battery kit suppliers that will send you a new battery, a tool to open the ipod case without scratching it, and detailed instructions.  For about $50 or a little more, you can go to any genius bar in an Apple store and they will put in a new battery for you.  As is true with any rechargeable battery, they start to lose the ability to recharge after a certain number of recharging cycles.  It's got nothing to do with the ipod and everything to do with battery technology. 

i have a question, not very iPod-related, but does anyone do this?

Do any of you ever buy CDs from Amazon, then save them onto your iPod (and maybe save a backup file of course on your computer) and then resell the CD? If you get a used CD, you could probably resell it for the same price. Though reselling isn't always a quick process.... but in the end, all you'll have to pay for is shipping, which means you get a great discount! And you could scan the booklet as a pdf, too, so you still have that.

It's just an idea I had, not sure how it'd work.

I've never done this myself because I love owning cds.  However, I have a friend who is in the process of selling his collection because he has put all of his music on hard drive and backed up the music to blue ray dvds.  (You can store many, many cds on one dvd -- although I'm not sure exactly how many. He has the complete Beethoven string quartets uncompressed on one cd with some extra stuff as well.)  I'm sure he would (or maybe is) doing this.  You cannot do this for SACD, but I've been assured that you can rip dvd-a perfectly to hard drive as well.  He has kept his SACDs for multichannel playback until the time comes when he can rip those to hard drive as well.  I don't know whether he has bothered to scan the graphics or not.  He does have a very extensive database catalog of all of his music where he has the pictures of the covers as well as notes on the cds.  If I went to all that trouble I might be selling my cds too.

[marvinbrown]

Harry, a warning (maybe this has already been said but i didn't notice this thread until now and have not read it all).

I use an 60 Gb iPod for some time now. I am hooked, couldn't do without it anymore. iTunes really is a $#@%%$# application but I use it only to transfer the music to the iPod. I rip my cd's with Nero (tolerably fast), 320 kbit/44100H Hz which gives app. 150 Mb. per cd.

My warning is this. It takes some time to rip your cd's and to upload them to the iPod. It may come soon, or it may come after some time but eventually the iPod will crash. F.i. it happened to me that my pc/iTunes didn't recognise my iPod anymore. A lot about this problem is to be found on the internet but I didn't manage to solve the problem and finally had to reset my iPod. Result: all the information on the iPod is lost, I had to start all over again. So what I now do is this. I bought an external harddrive and I save all ripped mp3's on this harddrive. Not so long ago I had another crash but to restore all the mp3's to the iPod didn't took me that long, luckily. I could skip the ripping fase.

I bought my iPod 1,5 year ago (it is my 2nd). I notice that the battery is losing performance fast. I have to recharge more and more often.  Anyone with experience on this? I know that it is not possible to replace the battery unfortunately.

  I was not aware that ipods had problems of this sort.  You say you can not replace the battery?? what happens when the battery completely dies?  From what I have seen the casing is sealed.  Are we expected to throw them away and pay £100s of pounds (thats what ipods sell for in London) every 2 years??

  marvin