About ITunes and IPods

[mrgorth]

I don't have an IPod yet but I'm thinking of getting one because I'm tired of carting around 100 CDs that eventually develop scratches and shit. I've only ripped a couple of my CDs onto my Mac but I have a couple of questions. IPod only plays MP3s right? So it would make sense for me to just rip CDs into MP3s. Or can IPod play AIFFs. If I rip into AIFF I can then burn them on CDs later, right? Isn't there sound quality loss from AIFF to MP3? Thanks in advance.

[onehandle]

1. iPods can play many formats.

The default in iTunes is AAC 128kbps. It's higher quality and smaller sized than MP3. And sounds great on iPods.

You can make AIFFs into CDs later. AIFFs, however are really big files. MP3s and AAC files are lower quality than AIFFs (which are native CD files).

iPod usable formats from apple.com:

"Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV"

See more here: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ and here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

[mrgorth]

3. So then

theoretically when I rip CDs I can rip them into AACs, right? Let's say that, down the road I want to convert AACs into MP3s or AIFFs for a friend would I be able to do that with ITunes?

Thanks.

[onehandle]

4. Yes, however the AIFFs would not be full quality.

Once you downconvert to AAC, you lose quality for good.

So converting to AIFF from a AAC would only be as good as the AAC (aka MP4 btw).

AIFF is full CD quality. Everything else loses quality.

If you want to eliminate the CDs, you'd have to pull the AIFFs off to guarantee quality down the line.

[Zensea]

5. I thought FLACs and Lossless did not lose quality

At least that's what I gather from here --
here as well as other sources that I'm not bothering to link.
"FLAC, an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is a popular file format for audio data compression. It does not remove any information from the audio stream and is suitable both for everyday playback and audio archival. The FLAC format is currently well supported by many software projects and hardware support is growing.<1> FLAC also supports Replay Gain. Josh Coalson is the primary author of FLAC."

Doesn't the fact that it does not remove any information indicate that you do not lose quality?
I think the same applies to Apple Lossless, although the file size is slightly larger than for FLAC which I think is because they will play automatically without an additional decoder, both are about half the size of AIFFs or WAVs generally.

[klook]

2. Another good source of info

is iLounge (formerly iPod Lounge). There you'll find tips on all kinds of stuff, including how-tos, reviews of accessories, etc.

[jayctravis]

6. My first MP3 player is a 4 gig nano...

And I *love* it.

I'm not a music freak, but it holds all the music I want to hear, purchases from iTunes is easy.

And I'm actually finding out I use it more for podcasts! There are so many niche subjects you can take with you and listen to in the car. I am subscribed to Democracy Now and many mac and gaming casts.

I also recommend the lanyard headphones -- solves having to put it in your pocket and is a much neater cord solution.