Question about audio formats

So I just got an iMac and I started downloading some torrents. THe songs are all in mp3 format but only some of them play in itunes. All of them play on audion and I dl'd a trial version of Amadeus and they play in that so i figured it was just itunes. But when I tried to burn the songs on cd with Toast, only some of the songs played in my cd player. Some of the songs pnly play for about 5 seconds then stop. but when I open them in amadeus to edit, the entire song plays. Anyone know what the problem might be. Is there good freeware for the mac that will let me switch them to mp4s maybe? Any help would be appreciated.

(okay, waiting for the copyright police to come down on this because people automatically think you're doing something illegal...which you very well could be, but...)

My advice would be to convert the MP3s to AIFF or WAV first, then burn the AIFF/WAVs....or better yet, don't even bother with MP3s -- MP3s use lossy compression, so you won't get the sound quality you can get. (Can you get lossless in the iTunes store???)

sounds like you got some bad downloads. a good bet to make sure the copies you get are good (assuming torrents are based on free material like how to learn bass guitar, just for the sake of argument, and to keep this thread from getting locked) is to check for good reviews. if several people comment on it as being a good copy, then you should have no problems with it.