Which one is better or preferred for importing? Is the compression similar or completely different?<br><br>

completely different.<br><br>do you want to save space or have better quality?<br><br>Apple lossless will makes your files about half - a regular CD track is around 44 megs, using lossless encoding it will be around 25 megs, using AAC it will be around 6 megs depending on the bitrate<br><br>

I want to save space. <br>I imported a few CD's last night using the Apple Lossless mode and after playing it on my G5 and my car audio systems through my iPod, the sound quality was great!<br>If there's a loss in quality I can't hear it.<br><br>

Well, I'd hope that there isn't a loss of quality in lossless mode! 98% of the people out there are not going to hear the difference between lossless mode and AAC if the bitrate is decent and the originating source is digital (CD) to begin with.<br><br>

You know I just miss-read nutty's post. Apple Lossless takes up more space than AAC, oh well. I'll just have to re-import the few CD's I was transferring using Apple Lossless.<br><br>

Lossless means NO loss in quality (mostly) which means larger files.<br><br>If you're trying to save space, you should use AAC encoding, it's MUCH smaller file sizes and the quality is identical to all but the most discriminating listener.<br><br>

Agreed, I can't distinguish the difference. Must be all those early years at loud loud concerts. <br><br>

I think it's more to do with the quality of the sound in most pop music (and I mean pop in the greatest sense—pretty much anything outside of classical, choral or operatic). There's so much distortion, fuzz and feedback (even in acoustical music) with it's poly-rhythms and multiple voices that the average person (even with good ears) isn't going to detect the difference without hearing them side by side. <br><br>I think speakers/headphones go a lot farther in deciding how things are going to sound in the end—and in turn, how easily you can or can't detect a difference.<br><br>

So far for me the sound has been very pleasing. The audio system that comes in my Lexus obviously helps a lot as well.<br>I have some great classical CD's that I'll be transferring soon, maybe that will give me a better gauge as to where the quality stands in terms of sound.<br><br>