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AAC, AIFF, Lossless, MP3

Hey everyone... In anticipation of receiving an iPod for Christmas I burned all of my favorite songs from my CD collection using iTunes into Apple Lossless. I have about 10 gig worth of songs that need to fit into an 8 gig Nano and would like extra space for future songs, photos, etc.

What is the best option where I won't hear too much of a difference from Lossless format but takes up less space?

Thanks!
portugal11

Showing 3 responses by tboooe

tboooe's avatar
tboooe
1,009 posts
 
Only you can tell but when I tried all the different formats I found mp3 encoded at VBR 256 offered the best compromise between quality and space. In fact, my entire 40K song library is encoded in this format. In my system, and through the internal DAC of my Cary 306 SACD, I find the sound quality to be very close to the original cd. The difference is in micro details, soundstaging, and imaging.
tboooe's avatar
tboooe
1,009 posts
 
portugal11, i actually use the Sonos wireless music system. It has a digital out that I then send into my Cary 306.

For encoding, I use EAC using LAME encoder. I never tested other formats like AAC, OGG, etc.
tboooe's avatar
tboooe
1,009 posts
 
Jeffreybowman2k, I am not the expert but I dont think there is a 320VBR. If you are using the newest version of LAME 3.97, then the highest VBR setting you can use is -V 0 which will give you an average bitrate of around 256. What quality switch are you using?
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