Hi Folks I'm pretty lame at this. Bear with me. I am in the process of Ion Turntabling my albums and am burning them to MP3 discs. I don't as of yet have an IPOD but it's inevitable. Not sure if I will keep all of the MP3s in my ITUNES library. Will they just be able to be transferred directly to my IPOD or is there some other step needed? Can I use my MP3 CDRs in the future to do that as well? Thanks much for lending me your brains!
If you have a large collection of CDs (I don't know for sure what Ion Turntabling means) you might want to use a good ripper. itunes is great for low bit rate music but is not geared for hi-fi. EAC is a free high end ripper. Many person have to re-rip their library because they out grow the quality of what they first ripped. I would check out Media Monkey it does everything that itunes does and most much better. WinAmp is the other popular JukeBox but it does not burn CDs. These 2 are the best of the easy to use Jukebox apps. Itunes rated last in a list of 10. Even Windows Media Player kicked its ass. Before you plunk down money, check out Sansas. They are not as popular as ipods yet but if they keep going the way they are they will be the most popular within a few years. You get a much better player for half the money. They are ahead of Apple for technology. They have the first mp3 player with a polymer battery. They have over twice the life of any other player (36hrs for audio). They will likely beat Apple with the 32 g flash player. Sansas being part of SanDisk, only makes flash players so 16g is as big as they currently sell.
Hey Mez Thanks for taking the time to write. It was informative all around. Ion Turntable has been converting my record albums to digital. The default is through itunes or audacity. I/ve been using itunes because mp3s made sense to keep on my computer and save space. But your "quality" comment is something i've been on the fence about for a while. I suppose I can spare more disc space and burn at a higher bit rate. What is the real life difference in just choosing a higher bit rate in Itunes and ripping with EAC? Thanks again for your help Mon!
OK I got it. There is a type of software that converts analog to digital and digital to analog. They are called encoders. I am guessing your turn table uses either a lossy or lossless encoder. The encoder you are using may not be the standard itunes encoder. If your tunes come out tagged maybe it is using itunes. If so, maybe itunes is an OK and easy option. Tag info is a huge pain in the ass. Sometime easy is important. The itunes encoder is one of the best for lower bit rates. Its target range is 128 BR and is great for 70-160 BR. The HiFi encoders target 320 CBR. 128 is good enough that you need good equipment and a trained ear to tell the difference between that and a higher bit rate. At some time, I suggest doing what everyone else does. Capture to audacity which ought to be a wave file. Burn that to a CD or 2. There is no tag info in an audio CD to fool with. Why? A well made, high BR mp3 sounds like live but it is a dead end. You lose audio quality converting an mp3 to any other format including an audio format CD. You must make mp3 CDs instead of an audio CD to maintain the quality. Your CDs provide a lossless archive of your vinyl in a useful form. Once you have that CD your vinyl is not really needed. If you want better quality lossy you can rip the CDs with EAC. 5 years from now when you want to have your music in ogg format, you can rip the CDs to ogg. You may want to change formats because your mp3 is not recognized by the player. You will not need to change because of quality issues.
As expected, you are perceptive indeed my friend. You definitely anticipate the debate raging inside myself. Until recently I was dead set on digitizing my albums to wav CDs. The only drag being that if and when I want to put them all on an IPOD-type of device, I would have to convert and log again. What I opted on but was never comfortable with, was to convert them to MP3s and keep them on my computer and also burn MP3 CDS just to have a hard copy. But I see your point very well...I am stuck with mediocre sounding files forever. Actually ITUNES does give the possibility to import the LPs to wav files as well. Perhaps I will give it some serious thought. I guess I might think about the feasibility/logic of letting ITUNES import them into wav form, burning wav CDS, and then converting them to MP3s to take up less space on my computer. Jeez a full time job don't you know. Thanks a truckload for your time/expertise Mez Spo
I haven't used itunes in 4 years so I don't really know what it can do. If you can set your bit rate to 160 or better your mp3s will be be in the good enough range. 160s are equivelant to about 192 CBR mp3s. That is about the limit of hearing for the over 30 crowd. The lower bit rates cut off more and more of the high frequency tones because they take up most of the bandwidth and are not really very hearable. I really need a hearing aid but I can tell the difference between 128 and 160 AAC. I can't above 160 AAC. AAC is Apple's version of advanced compression. Only old style CBR mp3s lack the advanced compression. I would guess making lossless from Apple should be fine. I distrust Apple when it comes to audio quality. They have been quite desecptive in the past. They tend to treat their users like morons or cattle. They have taken short cuts in the past that effected quality but claimed to be the best. Making the CDs can wait. You just don't want to give away your vinyl away before making a lossless copy.
Thanks again Mez You've definately helped me make my mind up. All the Best in your many Travels my friend! spodek
