Which Audio Codec?

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
I'm interested in finding out just which audio codec music fans among you prefer to use when ripping your CDs to your library (to store and listen to on a daily basis). As such, I'd be grateful if you would use the poll above and include any other information or comment below.



I would like to re-rip my 700+ (and growing) CD collection to an external 250Gb Hard Drive using a good quality (better than MP3) codec while optimizing available disk space for playback through a quality HiFi system.



Any thoughts?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    Ok it's worth stating you should really have ranges if you are going to provide options. For instance many people will think 128 kbps AAC is too low and 256 kbps AAC is too high. Second there is no point leaving MP3 in your options if you want to move away from it. It is very rare that mp3 outperfroms most of the newer codecs so the only reason to encode to it is largely portability. Never tried ogg vorbis and I tend to prefer AAC to WMA and using an iPod makes WMA a non-starter anyway now.



    Apple lossless is great if you want to retain CD quality and only want to use Apple devices or a computer but at the end of the day it depends on personal taste. I tend to hover at about 192 AAC but some people will say only lossless and some people will say lower. Encode it then change it later if you want. In my opinion AAC is certainly the codec to choose, especially as more and more devices choose to support it.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    The unlisted choice of 192 kbps AAC is my standard choice.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    Thanks for the feedback guys. I've PM'd Fran to add 192 kbps AAC option to the poll. If he is not available, could another Mod do the honours?



    Thanks.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Telomar

    Second there is no point leaving MP3 in your options if you want to move away from it.



    Thanks for your input. I only include MP3 as an option because I am interested to see just how many people use the codec for archiving, if any.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    fran441fran441 Posts: 3,715member
    It is added.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    Thanks Fran
  • Reply 7 of 9
    skatmanskatman Posts: 609member
    MP3 VBR/ MP3 Pro VBR
  • Reply 8 of 9
    trobertstroberts Posts: 702member
    I use AAC for all my music but I used to use different bit rates depending on what I am importing.



    256 - Pink Floyd, Tracy Chapman, Tori Amos, etc.

    192 - Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc.

    160 - Garth Brooks, Sass Jordan, Krokus, Britney Spears, etc.

    128 - Foghat, George Jones, Elton John, Jethro Tull, Jim Croce, etc.



    Between the high bit rates, CD purchases and iTMS (music, music videos, TV Shows, free downloads) I was running out of space so for the past few weeks I have been shrinking my music library by:



    1 - re-importing everything at 160 AAC minus the 50 MP3s from eMusic.

    2 - I was a pack rat when it came to the free iTMS downloads. I was downloading them, but not really listening to them. I used 'Party Shuffle' to play the free downloads and if I did not like a song it was deleted from the library.

    3 - I then decided to do this with songs I imported from my CD collection.

    4 - replace album art work using smaller size images. I have been able to reduce the size of my music library by a few hundred megabytes.



    As of today I have reduced my library by 4GB.
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