When I got my first iPod, I did not realize that the default setting was to rip music in AAC format at 128kbps - which is a very lo-fi bit rate. Once I realized this, I did some listening tests and even on the iPod I could hear a distinct quality difference between 128 and 160kbps. But I could not hear a difference between 160 and 190kbps - so I began ripping at 160kbps in AAC.
[If you've not reset this on your iTunes player, do it right now: Preferences / Advanced / Importing]
All along my friend Ankur was encouraging lossless formats, but I wanted to balance iPod battery life (it takes more juice to play the hi-fi files), storage (lossless requires 10X the storage space), and discernable sound quality (these old ears have been beaten and abused at live rock shows for decades).
Even so, it wasn't long before I needed to buy an external hard drive to store my music files, and when I did I bumped up the bitrate to 190kbps because the marginal storage demand seemed reasonable and why not improve the audio quality (even if I couldn't obviously discern it).
Years have gone by, storage is cheap and I now have a 500GB drive for music files only and an 80 GB video iPod. I've also built a really fine music system for listening to my digital collection (currently 24,000 tracks). So in the last few months I have embraced Ankur's advice - and I am ripping my new music in lossless format using AIFF encoder. My belief is that music affects us on a number of levels - physical, spiritual, emotional - and the full spectrum of recorded sound should not be compressed without necessity.
My advice: always buy the music you enjoy in the greatest audio spectrum possible: CD, LP or lossless digital. If you must buy "lossy digital" - seek out the highest bitrate available.
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