[SpaceMonkey]

PowerMac "Digital Audio" G4 466MHz, running OS X 10.3.6 and iTunes 4.7.

After buying a new pair of higher-quality headphones I've decided that ripping my CDs using the iTunes MP3 encoder at 160kbps just isn't cutting it anymore in terms of sound quality. I still want to stick with lossy encoding, because the sound quality isn't worth it to me that much to use all that disk space, and because certain lossy encoding formats sound transparent to my ears anyway.

The way I see it, I have two choices for quality lossy encoding, both of which are less than ideal for me: LAME MP3, and AAC. LAME at --alt-preset standard and 192kbps AAC files sound identical to me. Ultimately, I'm most worried about the future proofing of AAC, whether suddenly it will have even less widespread support than it does now. I want to have to re-rip my CDs as little as possible. I know AAC has heavy-hitters in the audio industry behind it (Dolby, etc.), and that Apple has staked a lot on its success, but a lot of similar formats eventually die. Does anyone think there's a good indication that AAC will remain relevant several years down the line? I plan on buying a hard-drive based portable music player in the somewhat near future (probably late next Spring), and it will probably be an iPod that supports AAC, but I don't want to limit myself too much down the road if AAC never takes off. Are more portable music players in general going to be supporting AAC?

The alternative, LAME-encoded MP3s, sound equally good and are currently compatible with a wider variety of music players. However, for some reason iTunes doesn't seem to play them quite right, and I get delays of several seconds at the end of longer tracks (I'm assuming because iTunes has historically had problems with some kinds of VBR tracks. I haven't tried LAME using CBR settings yet). For example, iTunes will play a track of length 9:17 until 9:25 or so. I used the iTunes-LAME app, version 2.0.8, to encode the files. I tried using the iTunesVBRfix app, but that didn't help.

Any suggestions on how to get iTunes to play LAME MP3s properly? Or am I being overly worried about AAC and just use that instead?

Sorry this ended up so long-winded. Thanks in advance!

[hab]

I would humbly offer that you should consider that nothing is forever these days, enjoy what you have and can do now, and do not let the upcoming inevitable changes to the standards paralyze (paralysis of analysis?) adoption of current technology.

Vinyl - dead. VHS - soon to be dead. CDs? - with current portable music devices, they will become impracticable though that may be considered heresy by some. DVDs? Have you read in the papers the recent debate on the competing standards for HD DVDs that will be offered in the next couple of years?

AAC too will die someday. But it is great right now. Get an iPod, rip your discs at a quality that makes sense for you (I use AAC at 192kbps) and enjoy what you have now.

Expect that things will change and not worry too much about it.

[bmedina]

AAC is the successor to MP3, according to the groups who defined both standards. AAC is also a mandatory part of both competing High Definition DVD standards, so it will see a lot of hardware support over the coming years.

MP3 is the safest bet, just because of its ubiquity. After that, AAC is probably the most "future-proof." Keep in mind that the MP3 spec was finished in the early 90s, but it took almost 10 years for widespread hardware support. It takes time for people and companies to move to new standards.