IPOD Owners.. what format/rate do you use??

DrMekon

DrMekon

DrMekon

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Just got a 30gb 5.5 video, and have been experimenting with various different encoders/rates etc, with varying results...

Id always been ok with 192kbps MP3, but since splashing out on some Ultimate Ears SUperFi 5 Pro earbuds (the apple ones were just dreadful), I can notice the sound break up, on more heavier tracks, or songs where this a lot of audio, delicate tuns are fine...

Im not too concerned about filesize, and much prefer audio quality.. and even at about 100-150mb per album, dont think I will ever fill the 30gb up (200 or so albums), well not with stuff I will want to listen to all the time, and dont see the need to carry 10s of thousands of tracks around...

Any tips/advice/suggestions...???
 
192 kbps I think, not sure I don't encode them really, most I have are 192 though.

For videos I use h.264 @ 640kbits/96 bit sound for Movies and h.264 356kbits/96 bit sound for TV shows and little clips.

h.264 is better for iPod playback, mpeg4 is better for TV-Out (Quoting some article I read)
 
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I mostly use 192Kbps, CBR/VBR depending on my mood when ripping. One thing to look at would be your encoder/sound source. Some encoders produce much better MP3s than others.
 
Hmm.. maybe its the quality of the source, or maybe im just too picky... tried some higher 256+ last night, and on some tracks, the sound distorted slightly, and loose clarity... maybe this is just somehting you have to put up with using a lossy codec...

I was never too impressed with the sound quality from my Creative JB3, yet a sony minidisk I had several years ago always sounded awesome, crisp clean, with plenty of definition... somehting which I dont seem to get anymore, well not with the mp3s I have tried anyway...
 
Use lame instead of the internal iTunes encoder its much better IMO. I use 192kps and 256kps in HQ. But with better earphones like you have you are going to notice more artifects than with cheaper earphones. Hide your wallet and head over to The Head-Fi forums.
 
Hide your wallet and head over to The Head-Fi forums.
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lol.. shouldnt take much hiding after them headphones.. they pretty much emptied it.. no more treats now til next xmas!!!! Will check thr forum out.. thanks!!

use FLAC - but I don't know if iPods support it.
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IPOD will play FLAC with the rockbox firmware, but I tired it, and I didnt like the UI.. but I know this can be customised and skinned to some extent.. so maybe when Ive got a bit more time, Ill look at it again.. although if I went down the FLAC route, a 30gb pod would last me very long!!!!
 
I listen to most things from Joss Stone to Queen and Dido and numerous soundtracks and everything encoded at 192kbps sounds decent to me with £40 headphones on my 30Gb Ipod video
 
Use Apple's AAC encoder at 192kbps VBR. Superior to the MP3 equivalent as listened through both a Hi-Fi and a decent pair of headphones.
 
256 for me, i can tell the difference for ones below, 320 is quite a bit harder and also takes up more space, with a 30giger i cant justify it.
FLAC 4tw when at home though :D
 
p4radox said:
I don't have an iPod, but I use 160kbps LAME. I can't notice any improvement at any higher bitrates.
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You need decent earphones, a new model 5.5G iPod and decent ears. The earlier iPods had poor SQ, which is only corrected on the most recent model.
 
I dont bother messing with the bitrate of my MP3s they are 192 and above. For videos i use 600KBPS but will renecode all my videos too 784 :D.
 
I use 320kbps AAC for all my stuff.

I recently did a comparison between 320kbps and Apple Lossless, and I could barely hear the difference over my Hi-fi, let alone with my iPod / headphones. I can however hear a slight difference between 320kbps and 192kbps over headphones (definately over Hi-fi). As far as i'm concerned, I might as well use the highest possible bit-rate, as long as I have enough space. Why go lower and leave loads of empty space?

I'm looking to upgrade my 2nd gen iPod, I was looking to get an 80Gb in order to use lossless, but now i'm pretty sure I can get the 30Gb model as the extra space taken up by lossless tracks really isn't worth it imo.
 
OspreyO said:
You need decent earphones, a new model 5.5G iPod and decent ears. The earlier iPods had poor SQ, which is only corrected on the most recent model.
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5g & 5.5 got the same SQ, but models earlier than the 5g are a lot worse :)
In short, the Enhanced 5G iPod is the audio equivalent of the original 5G model, so you can skip this section of the review if you're just looking for differences.
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if i download a song file and it comes as 192kbps, then i convert it to 320kbps, does it improve audio quality? may sound a stupid question but if it comes in 192kbps how does it make more from what is there?
 
taz488 said:
if i download a song file and it comes as 192kbps, then i convert it to 320kbps, does it improve audio quality? may sound a stupid question but if it comes in 192kbps how does it make more from what is there?
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No, you can't get back data that has been thrown away during compression :) I can't answer why the file size increases though, it's exactly what I was thinking a couple of days ago.

On topic: Personally I use 320Kbit :) I only use 320Kbit because I have a big enough iPod/hard drive space. I can normally tell the difference with some songs (heavy metal) but others it's quite hard compared to 128Kbit :)

iPod: 60Gb 5g vid
pc speakers: Acoustic energy Aego M
headphones: Shure e2c
 
192 for me. I can definately tell the difference between 192 and 128. The difference (for me) between 192 and 256 is minimal, even when played on a hifi. Obviously, it's all down the the listener and what the listener can discern/put up with.
 
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