bitrate poll

I usually use 256. i was using 320 for awhile but can not hear any real difference.

I always go with acc at 192kbps.

192 - almost CD quality but still save space

Lossless. Disk space is cheap.

192...

kinda.. space VS quality....

128, I can hardly hear to begin with!

Use to do 128 until I got another drive. Now i do 320.

Just wondering, what do you guys think will be a good bitrate for an iPod?

does the bitrate even matter? you can't even tell the difference

shaun89 said:

does the bitrate even matter? you can't even tell the difference

Click to expand...

its not that hard to tell the difference...

BurntSmore said:

Just wondering, what do you guys think will be a good bitrate for an iPod?

Click to expand...

Which iPod and what format is your music right now? If it is all ready ripped, leave it as is. Re-encoding a track that is already encoded in a lossy format leads to very poor results.

VBR or 192 is what I would use for portable listening, but not for home. On the go, with moderate to high ambient noise levels, who cares about sound quality. Bitrate makes a very big difference if you are playing it through a decent soundcard, good monitors or high end cans, and controlled noise levels.

The threshold for transparency varies by equipment and from person to person. If you have a windows machine I would suggest doing ABX tests with Foobar2k, it will give you a better idea of what I am talking about. It is sort of interesting and brings insight into what you hear. (Basically when you can not tell which is the encoded and which is the original, you have achieved transparency.)

Well, I've just ordered an 30GB iPod Photo. Most of my music is now saved as AAC at 160kbps. Should I change my default importing setting? And what are the main differences between AAC and mp3?

EDIT: And what is Lossless?

check out this article for information about lossless.
http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2004/May/09/apple_lossless_encoder.html

also to shaun89- if you cant' hear the difference between 64 and 320 you should try different speakers/headphones.