Streaming from itunes

[shep1968]

 

[shep1968]

I stream music from itunes on my pc via an apple airport express to my midrange amp and speakers. My cds are ripped at 256 kbps and sound good but arent cd quality. If i rerip my cds as apple lossless will this make a significant difference? I would need to get an external hard drive to rip them onto. Would i still be able to stream from this source?

 

[philipjohnwright]

Hi

I think it will make a worthwhile difference. I'm not a higher bitrate bigot, keeping two copies of all my albums, one in 256k (mainly for use on my phone / iPad), the other CD quality for my main system. I also listen to Spotify at 320 Kbps on the main system (Mac Mini, rDac, Ayre, Harbeth) a lot and it sounds good. For proper listening (ie without distractions) I do much prefer CD quality (or higher) though.

Reripping can be a big job (took me 3 months) so before you commit to the time and expense why not rip a few favourite CD's to your hard drive and compare the two. Easily done and should say whether its worth it FOR YOU. if yes you might also want to check you've got the PC optimised as well - using the right drivers etc. I found that made a difference too. I'm now comparing Pure Music and Audivarna on the Mac and finding quite big differences (down to use of Integer play I think). Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs on the PC side of things.

n.b. you should be able to stream from a external hard drive. Although I think ( stress think) that the Airport Express limits you to CD quality. Not a great problem I would have thought.

 

[chebby]

Experiment with ripping a few favourite tracks @ 320k AAC VBR and Lossless and see what you think. I'd be suprised if you heard any difference.

Also ensure you are using 'error correction' in your import settings.

 

[shep1968]

Hi

I think it will make a worthwhile difference. I'm not a higher bitrate bigot, keeping two copies of all my albums, one in 256k (mainly for use on my phone / iPad), the other CD quality for my main system. I also listen to Spotify at 320 Kbps on the main system (Mac Mini, rDac, Ayre, Harbeth) a lot and it sounds good. For proper listening (ie without distractions) I do much prefer CD quality (or higher) though.

Reripping can be a big job (took me 3 months) so before you commit to the time and expense why not rip a few favourite CD's to your hard drive and compare the two. Easily done and should say whether its worth it FOR YOU. if yes you might also want to check you've got the PC optimised as well - using the right drivers etc. I found that made a difference too. I'm now comparing Pure Music and Audivarna on the Mac and finding quite big differences (down to use of Integer play I think). Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs on the PC side of things.

n.b. you should be able to stream from a external hard drive. Although I think ( stress think) that the Airport Express limits you to CD quality. Not a great problem I would have thought.

CD quality is fine. The different is not great but it is apparent. I know nothing about the PC side so thanks for the advice. I'm happy to re rip. I really should get all my music backed up anyway. Will have a go at ripping one at lossless and seeing what it sounds like. I know how to change the drive that itunes records to. When i have reripped cd's before it asks me if i want to replace the current tracks already stored. If i rerip to a different place do you know if i will get the same option or will i have to manually delete the older lower bitrated songs?

 

[professorhat]

If you hold down Shift as you open iTunes, you'll be prompted to create a new library. If you do this, you can store your lossless files completely separately which should make it easier to make the transition.

 

[RodhasGibson]

Hi Prof, I was aware you could do this,not tried it yet though.How would you then switch between libraries.Thanks

 

[jjbomber]

Just as easy is to create a new user, call him ipod or whatever. Now you can just switch user.

 

[professorhat]

Hi Prof, I was aware you could do this,not tried it yet though.How would you then switch between libraries.Thanks

Same thing basically - just hold Shift, open iTunes and you also have a button there to Choose Library - then browse to the other one. By default, iTunes will open to the last one you accessed so you only need to do this when switching between the two.

 

[Messiah]

Experiment with ripping a few favourite tracks @ 320k AAC VBR and Lossless and see what you think. I'd be suprised if you heard any difference.

Also ensure you are using 'error correction' in your import settings.

I agree.

I have all my iTunes files in lossless but made a 256kbps copy of all of them and I find it hard to distinguish between the two.

I would also re-itterate what others have said and be sure to have a back-up. I could not imagine having to re-rip everything again! (That is why I have 3 separate copies of my library!)

 

[RodhasGibson]

Gotcha,thanks Prof.Got two backups both on external G-Techs also.

 

[Anonymous]

You don't really need to maintain a seperate library or rip's for i-devices in iTunes, plug in the device and o nthe summary sheet it gives you an option to automatically 'down convert' music on the fly at 256, 196 or 128 bit AAC. This is what I do, i maintain everything in Apple Lossless (ALAC) and then have it all converted to 256kbps to my iPad and iPhone.

Most modern mac's convert it way quicker than the actual transfer speed .

 

[philipjohnwright]

Gary

Interesting. I know the on-the-fly conversion option is there but always assumed it would be too slow so never really tried it. I'll give it another go though as my laptop is bursting at the seams with 256k music (like 97% full). I have a Mac Mini dedicated to my main system so have both Windows and Mac options as well (ALAC music is on NAS). Not a top priority right now so may take a me a little while to get round to it, but thanks for sharing your practical experience

 

[shep1968]

Time to resurrect this post!! Got the AEX and all was going well. I stream from my computer wirelessly into the AEX and also from my iphone. However, recently although the green light is on on the AEX i cannot ge the remote on my phone to play tracks. Looking on itunes the option to change speakers had disappeared. The only way to get it to work is to unplug the AEX and replug it in. This is fine until i turn the computer off and next time i have to do the same. Has this happened to anybody else and has anybody got any suggestions as to what i can do to stop it?