A little late in responding to this thread, but it's been on my mind for a few days and I wanted to weigh in....<br><br>Eck-- the experience you had in the car with Katrina has made me wonder: do you see a consistent difference between CDs and compressed music, or was that experience and isolated one? <br><br>320 kbs is awfully high by most peoples standards and I'm shocked to hear that you and she were able to perceive that much of a difference-- most particularly in an automobile. What kind of audio system do you have in you vehicle?<br><br>This issue is a really big deal to me for over the past seven years or so I've spent and inordinate amount of time not only collecting, but meticulously cataloging an iTunes library of about seven thousand songs. Most of what I have is 128-160 AAC, but the acquisition of an Apple TV in conjunction with these speakers and this subwoofer has caused me to rethink everything. Over the past few months I've begun the long arduous task of re-encodeing (and re-cataloging) my collection at 256 AAC. The new sound system has been a revelatory experience relative to the Harmon Kardon Soundsticks + Mac that had sufficed as my primary sound system before. <br><br>Now ya got me wondering... should I give a higher bitrate a try?<br><br>Last night while on my comute home from work I was listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for the first time in years (it still holds up fwiw). It occurred to me then that I should give the CD as listen on the new stereo. I actually haven't listened to a CD in years!<br><br>Acumowcheck-- learn form my mistakes! You may be encoding now for an iPod touch... but who knows what you may be listening to those files on in the future! I now need to buy a new hard disk for my MBP to cover all the extra space taken by the larger tunes. But it's an expense I'm willing to swallow. Nietsche said that without music, life would be a mistake. He was dead on. <br><br>

Isn't there some way to re-encode from CD and preserve all metadata? (Playcounts, ratings, comments, date-added.) I'd like to do that with some albums maybe.<br><br>nagr[color:red]o</font color=red>mme<br><br>I require stroyent!<br>TeamMacOSX.com | MacClan.net

<br>Hi,<br>our car stereo is nothing special at all. A Becker with built-in Navi, 6 speakers (no high end). I was astounded that Katrina not only heard a difference, but that she was able to describe what she heard. That, to me, means more than many tests and reviews by experts. And yes, the experience was repeatable with other CDs she had in both formats. All of them Mozart, most of them Opera. ;)<br><br>The question comes down to "good enough". <br>All forms of compression are attempts to offset a lack of bandwidth, a paucity of storage space, or insufficient processing prowess. (That even applies to the original CD specs.) As each of these factors loses in importance, the need for compression decreases as well. These days, 1-2 TB hard drives are affordable and common. Even at full WAV (AIFF), such a drive could hold and stream some 1600-3000 complete albums. Is there really any need, to go even down to lossless?<br>So, all CDs I am archiving, I am saving first of all as uncompressed WAV files. <br><br>The only reason to compress at all, would be for iPhone use, and with 14GB available (apart from other stuff, like photos), I could carry over 20 albums in WAV quality, and about 40 or so in Lossless.<br>To me, that's plenty, because I listen to classical music, and 20 albums would be half a dozen symphonies and concertos and lots and lots of smaller pieces of chamber music, which I like as "ambient" background.<br><br>Katrina has since dumped all her mp3 and AAC files and started to ripp everything again as Apple Lossless (she only rips what she owns and her iPod is only a 4GB G2 nano) But she said: "I rather have less, but then in top quality" Smart kid!<br><br>Now, granted, we hardly listen to rock or pop, but I think the basic principle applies: Unless you really and truly must fit hundreds of albums onto an iPod, go with the least amount of compression.... or none at all.<br>I think in your case, being able to stream the CDs in full quality to your sound system will be a super experience.<br>Have fun and let us know how the process is going.<br><br><br>ps: yes, sorting such a large collection is work .... even more reason to go with the best possible quality. ;)<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>"Woe the nation, which has no heros. ...... Blessed the one, which needs none!" (Bertold Brecht)

<br>that would be super!!!<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>"Woe the nation, which has no heros. ...... Blessed the one, which needs none!" (Bertold Brecht)

If you have already imported a CD into iTunes ..and you put it back in to reimport it ...it keeps all the metadata related to it. You keep play count, rating, and you don't have to delete anything afterwards. iTunes makes this task very simple <br><br>zweisoft<br>

See... this is why we love Apple. The things that work without having to choose anything There's no step one!<br><br>nagr[color:red]o</font color=red>mme<br><br>I require stroyent!<br>TeamMacOSX.com | MacClan.net

No doubt about it--- that's very cool.<br><br>But to what extent will the metadata be kept? I've take a lot of boxed sets (the Police, Led Zeppelin to name a couple) and a whole lot more greatest hits CDs and re-tagged the files to reflect original album information. Everything-- from artwork and track numbers to date of release. <br><br>Then (and get this for some seriously sick OCD), I delete the music from the iTunes library (but not the files from the finder) and reimport the music in reverse chronological order so that when I have the music sorted by date added in iTunes the first song of the first album is on top and the last song of the last album is at the bottom. Will iTunes preserve that? <br><br>I know I've confided with all here some really whacked out behavior on my part. But my music collection is a hobby, and I'm actually pretty proud of it. Nobody in my circle of friends and acquaintances in meatspace seems to care about this subject as much as I do. I wonder about this forum? Anyone?<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

Nope, I don't care about it as much as you And yet I would STILL want my date-added metadata to show the OLD date, not the re-import date. I hope that's how it works. I like to sort by how old my music is in terms of how long I have been listening to it, and I don't want all my old CDs to come up on top of my REAL new music.<br><br><br>nagr[color:red]o</font color=red>mme<br><br>I require stroyent!<br>TeamMacOSX.com | MacClan.net

<br>Even if you reimport the CD at a different bit-rate? <br>Will the lossless copy simply replace the old 320 rip?<br>That would indeed be nifty.<br><br><br><br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>"Woe the nation, which has no heros. ...... Blessed the one, which needs none!" (Bertold Brecht)

It works at different bit-rates ...you'd just have to try it going to a different format. Let me know if that's the case <br><br>zweisoft<br>