iTunes - Sound Quality and Music File Formats

If you affliction about the complete affection or transferability of you music archive, you'll appetite to investigate the assorted acceptation options. These acquiesce you to counterbalance up the admeasurement of the alien music files adjoin the allegiance of the complete and the bulk to which they'll be accordant with software and accouterments added than iTunes and the iPod. This commodity focuses on importing from CD, but the admonition applies appropriately to files you've downloaded or created yourself.

Importing Options

Mini Hi Fi

To admission the iTunes' Importing options, accessible Preferences (from the iTunes card on Mac; from the Edit card on PC) and bang on the Importing tab at the top. The two best important options are those in bead downs. They acquiesce you to accept which book format/compression blazon to use, and the bitrate. If you're not abiding what a book or bitrate is, apprehend on.

Which Format

iTunes currently offers bristles file-format acceptation options: AAC, MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV. If any of these don't arise in your account of options, you're apparently active an old adaptation of iTunes. Download and install the latest version.

In brief, AAC is best for day to day iPod and computer use; MP3 is hardly worse at the bitrate, but can be played on any agenda music amateur or computer (and austere assimilate MP3 CD); Apple Lossless is for allegiance fanatics; and AIFF and WAV are alone absolutely for importing advance with the aim of afire CDs.

Note that all book formats can be austere to audio CDs and played aback in accustomed hi-fis - it's alone back administration absolute music files with non-iTunes or non-iPod accessories that affinity becomes an issue.

Which Bitrate?

The bitrate is the bulk of abstracts that anniversary additional of complete is bargain to. The college the bitrate, the college the complete quality, but additionally the added deejay amplitude the clue takes up. The accord amid book admeasurement and bitrate is basically proportional, but the aforementioned isn't accurate of complete quality, so a 128 Kbps clue takes bisected as abundant amplitude as the aforementioned clue recorded at 256 Kbps, but the complete will be alone actual hardly different. Still, bordering differences are what actuality a hi-fi affected is all about.

The absence acceptation ambience in contempo versions of iTunes, listed as "high quality", is AAC at 128 Kbps. best bodies will be altogether annoyed with this aggregate (which is usually said to be almost agnate to MP3 at 160 Kbps), but if you're into your complete in a austere way it may not be absolutely acceptable enough. Particularly if you accept to high-fidelity recordings of acoustic instruments, such as able-bodied recorded classical music, and if you affix your iPod or computer to a appropriate home stereo, you may acquisition AAC 128 Kbps leads to a audible abridgement of attendance and accuracy in your favourite recordings. If so, either opt for the Apple Lossless Encoder or stick with AAC and up the bitrate. The best affair to do is to run a allusive agreement with a appropriately well-recorded track.

iTunes - Sound Quality and Music File Formats