ipod/apple lossless/bitrate

One Became Five

i noticed on my ipod that all of my songs are at 128 bit rate. i hope that is worded correct? a friend told me his is at 256, so i went and converted all of my songs to 256. then i was reading about apple lossless, so i went and converted all of my songs to apple lossless. then i went and bought a bigger ipod as they wouldn't fit on my 30g.

how is the bit rate on lossless so high, like 900 to 1000, compared to 128 or 256. isn't a cd recorded around 300?

sorry for the wordy post, I am just hoping someone can help me understand the differences.

thanks

HushBull

This article has a lot of information regarding bitrates and sound quality. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/do_higher_mp3_bit_rates_pay_off

2-feign-reluctance

One Became Five wrote:

i noticed on my ipod that all of my songs are at 128 bit rate. i hope that is worded correct? a friend told me his is at 256, so i went and converted all of my songs to 256. then i was reading about apple lossless, so i went and converted all of my songs to apple lossless. then i went and bought a bigger ipod as they wouldn't fit on my 30g.

how is the bit rate on lossless so high, like 900 to 1000, compared to 128 or 256. isn't a cd recorded around 300?

sorry for the wordy post, I am just hoping someone can help me understand the differences.

thanks

GREAT question! i'd like some clarification on this too. songs on my iPod sounds kinda shitty.

melva02

Note that if you convert your music from 128 kbps to 256 kbps, you aren't gaining anything. This is like taking a small picture and zooming in so that it looks pixelated. What you would want to do is start over with the original cds and re-encode from wav (uncompressed audio) to 256 kbps mp3s...not worth it for that small difference in bit rates.

If you're using the headphones that come with ipods, you probably will not notice the difference between 128 and 256 kbps.

2feign, can you be more specific about the kinda shitty music? Is it skipping/dropping out, or is it clipping, or does it just sound washed out? What kind of headphones are you using?

Skipping issues are usually either due to encoding errors in the original files or an ipod that needs to be rebooted (hold down the center button and the play button till the apple appears on the screen).

Different encoders produce mp3s of different quality even at the same compression ratio, because the encoding software has to decide which parts your ears won't miss, and they guess differently based on how they're programmed. I have no trouble with itunes mp3s, but if you're downloading pre-encoded mp3s, you don't know what program encoded them.

Melissa

EDIT to address the original poster's questions more directly:
Lossless is a form of compression similar to a zip file. It means that all of the data is conserved. mp3s drop some of the data that your ear isn't likely to need to get a full picture of the sound, but of course it's not perfect. My audiophile friend decided that even with the best headphones he couldn't hear the difference between an mp3 encoded at 320 kbps and the original wav file, so he uses that compression ratio and doesn't bother saving wavs anymore. The specification for mp3s only goes up to 320 kbps...if you google mp3 bit rates you will find many sites that describe this in more detail.

I'm not sure what you mean about cds using 300 kbps...they use uncompressed wav audio (which of course might be converted from previously compressed sound files). CDs are recorded at 16-bit resolution and 44.1 kHz sampling rate which comes out to about 1400 kbps.

Most mp3s also use a 44.1 kHz sampling rate, but some digital audio tapes (DATs) are recorded at 48 kHz. I used to set my DAT deck to 48 by mistake sometimes, and I would have to convert it to 44.1 before I could burn CDs of my recordings.

I am not that familiar with Apple's lossless compression but I recommend flac and shn for lossless compression.

fanch75

I ripped all of my Dokken CD's at 256kbps. Yeah!