itunes file formats

[admin_exported]

I need to live in two places but can only afford a decent hi-fi in one place. I can afford an ipod 160gb and a decent dock system and quality headphones for the second place. I think I understand enough to realise that, for the best sound quality, I should rip my CDs using one of the three lossless file formats available through itunes: AIFF, WAV or Lossless. Now I'm confused. Technical differences aside, why are there three and is there anything to choose between either in sound quality or usability terms. Would appreciate any guidance before I start ripping because with over 1000 albums I expect to get mightily bored.

 

[fatboyslimfast]

Wav is the truest, as it is a 1:1 copy of the CD. However, the nature of lossless formats mean that should you convert them back to WAVs or CDs, the result will be identical to the WAV.

I would suggest using Apple Lossless (I use it on my iPod 160) as it is handled the best by iTunes. Also, Apple lossless allows the file to store track info etc, which WAV does not.

Apple lossless will normall reduce the file size down to around 50-60% of the original, meaning that on the 160, you should be looking at roughly 650 albums in lossless format (assuming an album length of about 55 mins).

The only way of getting the ipod to store your 1000 albums would be to use a compressed format such as AAC (it might be worth ripping the same track to 256kbps AAC and lossless to see if you can hear a difference. If you can't (and assuming you are keeping the original CDs somewhere) then I would go with AAC, as it's higher compression will allow you to store all your files on 1 iPod...

 

[Anonymous]

thanks, mate.

be careful on that bike.

 

[Anonymous]

a supplementary question, if I may...

I think I've seen this mentioned on other threads but can't find the solution now so any offers to enlighten gratefully received but, rather than clog up my computer with music files, I believe that I can buy one of those 500gb or 1tb hard drives (Seagate springs to mind) into which I could 'rip' all my CDs in Apple Lossless format (as advised above) and then vary the content of my ipod from that hard drive (the original CDs would be the back-up). Have I got that right and is it easy enough to do?

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Yes that is possible but you have to tell iTunes that is where your music library is. iTunes only allows you to have your music library in one location which you can specify under Preferences>Advanced>General. Once you have specified the location as the external hard drive, it will store all your tracks there when you start ripping them. You need to make sure your drive is on whenever you open up iTunes or the software won't see the files. Also, any tracks that you have stored on your system can be copied across to the hard drive simply by dragging them into iTunes.

 

[idc]

I store all my music files on a 520gb MyBook external hard drive I bought from Dell. Once you have told itunes where the music is all further downloads go straight there. It has really helped with the performance of the the laptop keeping it clear of music files.