Question(s) about copying physical CD's to iTunes

Hi,

I recently got a new laptop, and I'm in the process of transferring music from my old computer, as well as adding new albums I've gotten since to iTunes.

I noticed, in the preferences regarding burning CD's to iTunes, the default setting adds the music files at something like 192kbps, or less, as opposed to the seemingly ideal, for music nerds, 320kbps.

In the past, I just transferred my physical albums while leaving the default setting intact, partially because I wanted to conserve space, and partially because I didn't think there would be much of a difference.

Do you change the settings, so the music files are of the highest quality when adding them to iTunes from a CD?

I've never tried the comparison - but do you think there's a noticeable difference?

Here comes a stupid question; does the quality have any bearing on the album/files' volume? I notice some of my albums are really, really low compared to others, and know that's in part to differences in mastering now, etc., but I don't know enough to understand whether or not heightened quality might improve this a bit as well.

Lastly, sort of separate from the others - for albums that I burned to iTunes on my old computer, is there any easy way to transfer them to the new one? I see that iTunes creates little artist folders for the physical albums I copy, and I'm just wondering if it's as easy as dragging/copying those files onto the new computer's iTunes, or if there's something else I need to do...

Thank you! And I love you guys.

I use ALAC

you are opening a Pandora's box with some of those questions.

I lot of people will disagree with me but I don't feel like there's much of a difference between 190 and 320 kbps. I think its more of a placebo when people say they can hear a difference. You might actually be able to hear the difference with a really nice sound system or high end headphones but if you're just using standard headphones you might want to consider leaving it at 190

Also, try it yourself. Can you hear the difference?

http://mp3ornot.com/

I can hear the difference if I'm playing it on my big speakers, for instance. But on my headphones there is substantially less perceptible difference. Nevertheless I still rip them into FLAC because I've got the space after all, it's no big loss.

I'd recommend using a variable bit-rate setting. Compression is not a one setting fits all thing, so using variable bit rate will give the 'compressor' some form of intelligence into deciding which bit rate is best for each passage. So if needed, it can even go beyond 320.

  On 6/2/2012 at 6:36 PM, carthief said:

Here comes a stupid question; does the quality have any bearing on the album/files' volume? I notice some of my albums are really, really low compared to others, and know that's in part to differences in mastering now, etc., but I don't know enough to understand whether or not heightened quality might improve this a bit as well.

Simple answer to this one - No ! Changing the bit rate will not affect the volume at all, just the sound quality.

  On 6/2/2012 at 7:59 PM, goDel said:

I'd recommend using a variable bit-rate setting. Compression is not a one setting fits all thing, so using variable bit rate will give the 'compressor' some form of intelligence into deciding which bit rate is best for each passage. So if needed, it can even go beyond 320.

Absolutely, been with v0 bit rates ever since I found out about that encoding quality. Not sure about the >320 claim though ?

yeh mp3 never goes above 320

  On 6/2/2012 at 8:17 PM, vincentvc said:

yeh mp3 never goes above 320

dbpoweramp has an option to make Mp3s go above 320, it was called "free format" or something like that.

  On 6/2/2012 at 8:17 PM, vincentvc said:

yeh mp3 never goes above 320

as far as i can tell (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=48349) mp3 can go higher than 320, but you may loose compatibility with some decoders.

Personally, I'd stick to aac, btw. But that's another story. And if you stick to iTunes, I'd recommend it as well.

thanks - I've been doing everything on this new computer with white gloves, because I'm greatful for it and I'm not used to having such a nice machine - I think I'll just leave stuff as is, after reading this, because otherwise I'm going to obsess over the others I already burned, and will either decide to do them all over again, or will always have that nagging thought that they're "inferior" or whatever...

So does anyone know if there's an easy way to transfer from one computer to the other iTunes files that you burned to the computer from CD's?

external hard drive

Make a shared folder everyone on your network can see and put the music in there?

  On 6/2/2012 at 8:19 PM, YO303 said:

  On 6/2/2012 at 8:17 PM, vincentvc said:

yeh mp3 never goes above 320

 

dbpoweramp has an option to make Mp3s go above 320, it was called "free format" or something like that.

I imported a CD once and the bitrate was 5000 or some shit, it was a huge file.

I recently ripped all my CDs to FLAC using EAC and the settings to make "perfect" rips. It was a chore but now I have all my physical copies in the best possible quality on a computer where I do the most of my listening. It's also because where I am currently living I don't have room for my record collection or a soundsystem.

  On 6/2/2012 at 7:04 PM, Danny O Flannagin said:

I lot of people will disagree with me but I don't feel like there's much of a difference between 190 and 320 kbps. I think its more of a placebo when people say they can hear a difference. You might actually be able to hear the difference with a really nice sound system or high end headphones but if you're just using standard headphones you might want to consider leaving it at 190

 

Also, try it yourself. Can you hear the difference?

http://mp3ornot.com/

I can deffo hear the difference between 192 and 320, since discovering it the same way as the op through transferring CD to PC, I have to have everything 320 now.

Not sure why some people say it's a placebo effect, maybe they're deaf.

EASY

argh now I regret copying those borrowed CD's under the default settings. =)

to be honest though, my hearing is not great at all (due to going up to my room during high school when I was supposed to be doing homework and playing air guitar with cordless headphones that I would turn up virtually to the max, that had a harsh, painful electrical-sounding glitch in one ear every time I turned the volume down, which I did repeatedly in fear that someone was calling me, or at my door =( ).

fuck CDs, get torrents

  On 6/3/2012 at 8:39 AM, azatoth said:

I recently ripped all my CDs to FLAC using EAC and the settings to make "perfect" rips. It was a chore but now I have all my physical copies in the best possible quality on a computer where I do the most of my listening. It's also because where I am currently living I don't have room for my record collection or a soundsystem.

I do this. It's worth it to me to have “archive” quality rips.

I customarily import CDs into iTunes at 192 AAC. Having the CD or vinyl as the primary format is more important, as long as it sounds listenable on the Pod during bus and train journeys then who gives a fuck?

  On 6/3/2012 at 11:45 AM, Balance said:

  On 6/2/2012 at 7:04 PM, Danny O Flannagin said:

I lot of people will disagree with me but I don't feel like there's much of a difference between 190 and 320 kbps. I think its more of a placebo when people say they can hear a difference. You might actually be able to hear the difference with a really nice sound system or high end headphones but if you're just using standard headphones you might want to consider leaving it at 190

 

Also, try it yourself. Can you hear the difference?

http://mp3ornot.com/

 

I can deffo hear the difference between 192 and 320, since discovering it the same way as the op through transferring CD to PC, I have to have everything 320 now.

Not sure why some people say it's a placebo effect, maybe they're deaf.

192 is good enough for me at the moment; I can't easily tell the difference between it and 320. But then again, I couldn't tell the difference between 128 and higher bitrates a few years ago. Maybe it's only a matter of time before I'm complaining about nulls.

Depends on the music and on the encoder, I remember testing it and going as low as LAME V4 or V5 quality on some samples before I could discriminate them from WAV. But old encoders like Blade or whatever will have ridiculous distortions even at 192 CBR.

I used to rip to LAME preset V2, then later I switched to FLAC, not because of the sound quality per se, but to keep options open to transcode in the future without generation loss. Nowadays I just use a CD player (crazy I know).

I normally stick to 320 kbps simply cause I'm obsessive about having the best quality as possible, whether I can hear it or not.

  On 6/5/2012 at 11:25 PM, peteisfat said:

I normally stick to 320 kbps simply cause I'm obsessive about having the best quality as possible, whether I can hear it or not.

Why not use FLAC then?