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Going over to the Dark Side?

Oh no! So, I finally succumbed to temptation yesterday and got the new 30GB iPod. When I got it, I figured I would store all my songs in .WAV or Apple lossless. Yesterday I spent 6 hours choosing songs from a variety of disks and loading them into iTunes via Apple lossless. Sounded great. But now I'm getting greedy. I think about all the CDs I have (over 1000 easily), and the fact that the iPod would be used for listening while skiing, flying, or in the car, none of which is an excellent listening environment. I already have a reference music system, and at home I'll be listening mainly to vinyl, with the occasional foray into CDs. Now I'm thinking that I could easily triple or quadruple my storage by using the highest AAC setting (320kBS) instead of Apple lossless for my iPod and store a lot more songs.

tonight I ripped a version of a song in Apple lossless and in AAC. I keep listening back and forth through my powered studio monitors. There is a difference, but it seems slight. Then I think of the tiny earbuds, the listening environment, and I hear the siren song of the dark side of lossy compression calling. Oh no!! Run away!!!

Has anyone else faced this dilema, and what was your solution?
arafel
davidz
44 posts
 
I listen to a Sony hard drive system in my car, which rips using a 10-1 lossy compression scheme known as ATRAC (Sony's answer to MP3). Sounds great while tooling down the road.

It sounds like you're trying to unconvince yourself of somthing you're already convinced of -- that AAC will be fun, convenient and good-enough sounding for what you need at the time.

I spoke to the immortal Henry Kloss (of KLH fame) in the 1980's. He was a non-believer in a lot of the audiophile stuff (fancy wire) etc., but never mocked those who found value in them. "it's a personal entertainment medium." I.e., if it feels right for you, it is. Words to groove by. ;<)
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scottz
29 posts
 
Unless you plan on using your hard drive as your main source, it makes sense to copy all your music in AAC format for all the reasons you mentioned.
lenny_zwik
259 posts
 
I use lossless exclusively, but then again i listen using Ultimate Ears UE10 Pros and with those theres' a huge difference.
douglikesaudio
118 posts
 
I was just thinking about this and how it relates to the Squeezebox and other such items. Not to hijack here, but if you rip using lossless, can you transfer to your ipod using a more compressed format? Or, put another way, is the compression used for ripping always going to dictate how it will be transferred to ipod?

Again, not trying to hijack, but I think it relates.
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