I've been having trouble hearing any difference between lossless and AAC, even at 128. Is there any chance you could post some snippets of tracks so that I know what to listen for? Sorry to have to ask, but this has been bugging me for a long time, and it would serve as a great example for others. I thought that I had good hearing, and my sound setup is fairly good too, so I really wonder what it is that I'm missing.
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iPod Rip CD with AAC best quality?
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Don't use iTunes
First let me say that I can tell the difference between 128 and Apple Lossless - even in my car. There is an airiness with lossless files that seems to be squashed when using any compression. It is hard to quantify and for a lot of the time there is no audible difference, but if a cymbal in the middle of a Van Morrison song sounds clipped - it really annoys me and spoils the whole song.
Having said that, an equally important factor is how well the CD is ripped, and for that, iTunes falls apart. I took a look at waveforms in a pro app and found several spikes that are in fact little clicks in the audio. I now use "Max" to rip my CDs. It is free and gives you the options to rip in paranoia mode which will not stop trying until it has a perfect copy of your disk. It also gives you options to rip to different bitrates at the same time so you can go Lossless for your 120G iPod and 128 for your Shuffle at the same time. It is not as convenient as ripping straight into iTunes but to me it was worth the effort. And if you're an audio geek - it sure is fun to go through all your CDs again!!
Cheers
First let me say that I can tell the difference between 128 and Apple Lossless - even in my car. There is an airiness with lossless files that seems to be squashed when using any compression. It is hard to quantify and for a lot of the time there is no audible difference, but if a cymbal in the middle of a Van Morrison song sounds clipped - it really annoys me and spoils the whole song.
Having said that, an equally important factor is how well the CD is ripped, and for that, iTunes falls apart. I took a look at waveforms in a pro app and found several spikes that are in fact little clicks in the audio. I now use "Max" to rip my CDs. It is free and gives you the options to rip in paranoia mode which will not stop trying until it has a perfect copy of your disk. It also gives you options to rip to different bitrates at the same time so you can go Lossless for your 120G iPod and 128 for your Shuffle at the same time. It is not as convenient as ripping straight into iTunes but to me it was worth the effort. And if you're an audio geek - it sure is fun to go through all your CDs again!!
Cheers
I should have said that I can hear a difference with MP3. At 128, an MP3 can contain obvious distortions, and at 160 an MP3 does lose something subtle - the airiness that you mention. It's only at 192 that I can't distinguish an MP3 from the original. AAC however, seems fine even at 128 (and ripped with iTunes), although I use 160 just to be "safe". I'm trying to find some specific listening examples so that I can hear for myself the differences that others have mentioned.
a cool new:
Apple begins testing Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update
Earlier this week, Apple began widespread testing of QuickTime 7.6, which should improve handling of 5.1 channel audio, in addition to delivering improvements to AAC, MPEG-1, and Apple Lossless tracks.
Apple begins testing Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update
Earlier this week, Apple began widespread testing of QuickTime 7.6, which should improve handling of 5.1 channel audio, in addition to delivering improvements to AAC, MPEG-1, and Apple Lossless tracks.