IPOD question

I use mp3 because it's the most common file format. You might try reading up on aac and mp3 at wikipedia to see the pros and cons (more/less common, bigger/smaller file size for a given quality level i.e. compression). I like 192 kbps mp3s, but that's just a personal preference. I think 128 sound ok too, but I have crappy speakers so headphones always sound fantastic to me.

One of my audiophile friends finally gave up on keeping flac (lossless) copies of stuff when he determined that even with the very best headphones he couldn't hear any difference between uncompressed wavs and 320 kbps mp3s. Personally I keep cd or flac copies of anything I really care about, as well as anything I taped myself (flac or shn) since those are the original files.

The reason these options only apply to importing from cds is that the cds start out as uncompressed audio, and iTunes needs to know how you want them compressed (so you can fit WAY more music on your ipod). When you import mp3s such as ones you downloaded, those decisions have already been made by whoever created the mp3s from the original uncompressed files.

Post again if you have more questions. Hope this helps.

Melissa

My friend keeps mp3s and Monkey's audio (.ape) files of all his music. He has 1 TB of hard drive space. At this point I'm more willing to let things go...for example, if a band is in the Live Music Archive, I don't need to keep a lossless copy of the show unless I taped it myself.

Melissa