Do you lose quality ?

[landzw]

Just been looking at other sites to purchase my digital downloads from e.g Play.com as they support 320kps mp3's

When you add the mp3 to your iTunes account does it get converted to apples own codex or does it stay as an mp3?

If it gets converted do you lose much quality or experiance any other kind of issues?

 

[Trefor Patten]

AAC as used by iTunes is widely regarded as superior to MP3 in sound quality, a rough guide being that 128 kbps AAC is as good as 256 kbps MP3. However, iTunes plays MP3s without converting them, so just leave well alone. AAC at 256 would probably sound as good, if not better than MP3 at 320 (frankly there is not a lot in it to my ears, and both sound inferior to FLAC, AAC, or best of all completely uncompressed WAV or AIFF). So import away, you will lose nothing.

For what it's worth. I have found you can often buy CDs for less than their download versions. Shop around. If you buy the CD rip it at full bitrate, it is worth it now that 2TB hard drives are so cheap.

 

[Alec]

No, itunes won't change the format so stick with the MP3s.

As an aside, I'm not sold on the superiority of AAC (and use Windows and WMP anyway). To me a theoretical difference isn't really worth having*.

I think I remember a thread here quite recently in which many said they can't hear much difference, and some suggested AACs are better only at very low bitrates.

*But I listen to WMA lossless rather than 320kbps MP3 even though I hear little difference, if any, just because I might aswell.

 

[landzw]

Thanks i just spent the last hour searching eBay of most of the cd's i'm after and it would save me a small fortune , and i think i will re-rip my cd collection to apple's lossless as i have a twin 1g external drive just sitting there

 

[landzw]

Just thinking about it thoughis it going to save me money? i will have to change my ipod shuffle for the gym to play lossless and then i will need a decent set of speaker to listen to my music

 

[The_Lhc]

Just thinking about it thoughis it going to save me money? i will have to change my ipod shuffle for the gym to play lossless

No you won't, when you synchronise the shuffle with iTunes you can tell it to create compressed version of the files on the shuffle.

and then i will need a decent set of speaker to listen to my music

Wouldn't you have needed that anyway?

 

[landzw]

I didn't know that , i will give it a try compressing the files

 

[manicm]

+1

 

[manicm]

No, itunes won't change the format so stick with the MP3s.

As an aside, I'm not sold on the superiority of AAC (and use Windows and WMP anyway). To me a theoretical difference isn't really worth having*.

I think I remember a thread here quite recently in which many said they can't hear much difference, and some suggested AACs are better only at very low bitrates.

*But I listen to WMA lossless rather than 320kbps MP3 even though I hear little difference, if any, just because I might aswell.

+1