[Damo]

Hi

A question for all you bitrate wizards out there. I am not much of an audiophile, so buy my music encoded at 160kbpsVBR WMA. When I encode this to AAC in iTunes, is it wasting space to encode at anything above the original bit rate ie: 160VBR WMA to 192 AAC? Or is there a setting to keep the source bitrate?

Cheers

[pjg50]

Originally Posted by Damo

Hi

A question for all you bitrate wizards out there. I am not much of an audiophile, so buy my music encoded at 160kbpsVBR WMA. When I encode this to AAC in iTunes, is it wasting space to encode at anything above the original bit rate ie: 160VBR WMA to 192 AAC? Or is there a setting to keep the source bitrate?

Cheers

If you are downloading music from (say) MP3sparks as WMA and then converting it to AAC for the iPod, you're both wasting time and losing quality. Simply download as AAC in the first place. It will cost the same and sound as good or better.

If your music comes from somewhere else and you are stuck with WMA, then there is no point increasing the bitrate - simply pick the nearest one that is the same or a bit higher.

As to the bit rate to use - everybody has their own opinions. I have music encoded at everything from lossless down to 128. Using my Shure earphones, I can certainly tell the 128 from the 192, but after that they all sound much alike. It's a bit different if I play back through my Kelly speakers, but even then the gap from 192 to lossless is small.

[archon.thelawgiver]

Originally Posted by Damo

Hi

A question for all you bitrate wizards out there. I am not much of an audiophile, so buy my music encoded at 160kbpsVBR WMA. When I encode this to AAC in iTunes, is it wasting space to encode at anything above the original bit rate ie: 160VBR WMA to 192 AAC? Or is there a setting to keep the source bitrate?

Cheers

Hi Damo,

If you follow the links and read through to the end you should end up a bit rate wizard yourself. The initial link is: http://www.aom3.org/forum/f10/bitrates-2394.html (Bitrates)