Transferring CDs at 320 bit rate

I'm transferring several CDs to iTunes (7.5). For a few of the classical ones, I've set iTunes for AAC and custom (320 kbps and 48 kHz) and Variable Bit Rate unchecked. I presumed this would produce the highest quality (?). After transferring, most of the songs are listed at less than 320 (i.e. 311, 309, 298, etc).
1. Why is this?
2. Should I be using different settings?
Thanks for any suggestions. HNick

I think you will find that at certain bit rates with the AAC encoder, the variable setting is a default setting and cannot be changed.
To see what I mean, go to your import preferences and select the 320kbps setting.
Now put a check mark in the variable box and the kbps setting will immediately change to 128.
Now try to select 320kbps from that list and you will see it's 'greyed out' and cannot be selected.
It's one of the reasons I am still using the mp3 encoder.

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Won't import at 320 bit rate?

HI
I'm running the latest ITunes software on windows xp home and want to import audio cd's at 320 bit rate. I select this option in the custom settings and it appears to stick, but when I check the song's after importing has finished they have imported at 128 bit rate.
I've tried deleting the 2 itunes.pref files as stated else where but no luck..
Can somme one pleeease help me?

Hi Guys
Thanks for the info, I gave it a go and changed the screen resolution and the weird thing is that I could already see the apply buttton on the original screen resolution BUT when I changed the resolution it worked!!
I don't see the logic in how window's screen resolution effects the importing bit rate of Itunes?
I suppose that's what you get when yoou throw apples at windows, Broken glass!
Thanks for the help

Will itunes move up to 320 bit-rate downloads?

i am a bit of an audiofile and was wondering will itunes move up to 320 bit-rate downloads?

We are just fellow users on here - until if/when Apple announce something nobody on here will know.

320 & 128 bit rate in iPhone.

I haven't found an option that lets you choose the bit rate you want to convert your music to in my iPhone. All my music is 320 bit rate or lossless... So it's going to take a chunk of space. I'm converting the music I want on my iPhone to a 128 bit rate and throwing that in a playlist to sync to my phone... which I really don't want to do because now I have the same albums twice and it's makes my library messy. Any quick fix or solutions?

I can't speak for iPods cause I never bought one. I've always been the kind of person who rather have one device (Moto Razr V3i w/ iTunes) then two devices (reg. phone and an iPod). My phone would covert the music to 128 bit rate to optimize space. It would make sense that apple would give us an option to convert the size of our music files to optimize space as well. This making duplicate albums in two different bit rates is a hassle! Unless you've gone into Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Importing... the music you rip on your computer is going to be a defult ACC 128 bit rate format. Which there is nothing wrong with. If you share music with friends and they don't have iTunes there's going to be an issue. So I changed my encoder to MP3 and also adjusted the audio quality. You tend to lose lower frequencies when music is ripped at a low bit rate.

Issue with playing 320 k bit rate files on iOS 5

I was able to successfully update my iPhone 4 with the iOS 5 however to my (unpleasant) surprise I realized that all the music files of 320 K Bit rate that I had could not be played with this new OS. All other music files (of 128 K bits rate) was able to play normally.
When I attempt to play the higher bit rate ones, it doesn't give any warning or crashes. The Play symbol at the bottom changes to "Pause" indicating it's playing and when clicked again it changes to "Play" indicating it's paused. But the time slider stays at 0:00
It may be noted that the high bit rate files plays normally on the latest iTunes software on my PC running windows 7.
I haven't yet tried to remove all the paylists first and then add them back when syncing it next time. That might solve this problem but I am not sure. Even if it does, this is a major defect with iOS 5 that has gone un-tested. with the previous version, I had no problems playing the same high bit rate music files.

After I faced the above problem, I did the following:
1. Sync the iphone after unchecking the playlist having the 320 K Bit rate music files. As expected the playlist was removed from the iPhone.
2. Checked the playlist and then re-sync the iphone. This time when the music files were copied to the phone, all the files having a bit rate higher than 128 K were automatically converted to 128 K Bits.
The above process made these high bit rate files convert down to 128 K bits and playable on the iOS 5.
The question is why is iOS 5 not able to play the bit rate higher than 128 K Bits while the older version could? Does playing the high bit rate files offer any better sound quality on iPhone?
I have played the high bit rate on my car's audio system (Harmon Kardon premium speakers) and it definitely sounds better than it's 128 K bit equivalent.

Best Bit Rate for Better sound

I’m new to the iTunes/iPod thing. A friend told me that he re-sets the bit rate from the default of 128 kpbs to the top of 320 kbps for better quality. [He plays everything off of his computer which is wired to speakers throughout his house and does not travel or drive much so hardly uses his iPod.] I played around a tad with the various rates on the same album and found that a fairly short one used 34.9 MB at 128 kbps, 52.1 MB at 192 kbps, 60.8 MB at 224 kbps and 86.6 MB at 340 kbps. Another friend told me that he noticed a big difference when he played a song off his iPod through his several thousand dollar system if it was imported at 128 kbps. While hard disc space is cheap and I would simply opt for the higher quality setting, the iPods are not so big when one almost triples the file size.
I tried to figure out what the max bit rates in the CDs are so that could guide the max import rate, but I could not and that question may make no sense at all anyway.
What is the max that a human can notice the difference at and what have folks found to be the best balance between sound quality and storage space?
Thanks for your help.
PC Windows XP

Monty, this is really going to be up to your ears to decide. All I can tell you is my experience during the 2+ years of owning an iPod. I initially thought AAC @ 128 was satisfactory. I then started experimenting with various bitrates, but kept the AAC format. I decided that 192 was a discernible improvement over the 128. Not to go into a lot of detail, but I, quite by accident, had one album download at 256 & thought, "Wow, this is unbelievably better sound, even over inexpensive computer speakers." At that point, I started importing everything in AAC @ 256 VBR which I feel is pretty darn close to CD quality sound. I have a 60GB iPod that I'm willing to sacrifice some capacity in order to ensure the best audio quality I can. This is also why I do not buy frequently from the iTunes store as I do not feel the 128 downloads are the best quality. I buy & my own CD's, now, to insure good quality. I will by the occasional song from the store when I do not care to buy the whole CD. Hope this helps!

What does convert higher bit rates songs to 128 kbps mean

what does convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps mean?

pattyfromsyracuse wrote:
what does convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps mean?
Some people, myself included, import their music from original audio CDs. When doing so I choose to import using Apple Lossless format so as to keep the full original quality of the audio CDs (this is after all why it is called Apple Lossless format in that you are not losing any quality).
The drawback of doing this is that the music files take a lot more disk space than a lossy format like MP3 or AAC. This is these days not a problem on a computer as hard disk space is now cheap an plentiful but it can be a problem on a flash memory based music player like the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone as these have far less capacity.
Therefore Apple now let you turn on this option to automatically convert from Apple Lossless to AAC when syncing to one of these music players. As a result on your computer the music is still kept in the full lossless high quality format, but is converted and transferred as a much smaller but slightly lower quality for use on these music players. As with an iPod you are not listening in a quiet room with high quality speakers you will not really notice the difference in quality.

Bit rate

Which sample rate does iTunes support? Can I import with 32bit? I'm in the process of reimporting a rather large collection of CDs and I'd rather spend that time only once...
Also, I've seen discussions re level of import resolution
and although the purists would never depart from WAV, the majority appears to support a view that AAC 320kbs (stereo)/44.100kHz is sufficient and that no one would be able to spot any difference in quality for higher resolutions.
Any thoughts?
A novice question at last: How does the sample rate (16/24/32) relate to the resolution e.g. 320kbs, is it implicit? Any down to earth explanations most appreciated.
Many thanks

pas,
Go into Edit > Preferences > Adavnced > Importing. Change "Setting" to Custom. Then you can poke around and you will see the "Stereo Bit Rate" and the "Sample Rate" ranges that are supported.
For Sample Rate, "everybody" uses 44.1 kHz for music. (That is the standard for CD encoding.)
For Bit Rate, 320 is probably overkill. I use 192, but your ears are your best guide. Import a representative song using a few different settings, play back under good listening conditions, and see what satisfies you. Then you can do the wholesale importing ONCE!
Ed

The selected combination of bit rate and sample rate is not allowed.

I've always burned my purchased CDs into iTunes using a AAC 320 kbps and 48.000kHz. Now when I select that option in iTunes 9 I'm getting a "The selected combination of bit rate and sample rate is not allowed." pop up screen. So is it impossible to burn my albums in a 320kbps/48.000 AAC format?. I had no problems in previous versions of iTunes using this setting. I guess I might have to switch over using a MP3 import setting instead.

Audio CDs are encoded with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. Ripping them at 48 kHz requires resampling and does not improve the quality. Unless you have a special need for 48, use 44.1.

Uncompressing 128 bit rate

Is it possible to uncompress 128 bit rate to something like 160 or higher? I see the option of switching imported songs to higher quality under preferences. when I switch then convert the song in iTunes I see a change in the memory of the song, but is it really changing the quality of sound. If this works then what is the point of DRM free music having 256 quality if you can upconvert, if this is possible.

if you are throwing out the cd and want to keep your songs close to cd quality.
Don't throw out your CDs! They are the best quality version of the song, and they are not subject to loss in hard drive crashes. If you are really tight on storage space, toss the plastic jewel cases and save only the discs.
by the way what is cd rate?
Technically it is 1411 kb/s, although because of the different coding scheme, that number can't really be compared to the bit rate of a compressed format like AAC or mp3. It would be "reasonably accurate" to think of CD quality as equal to a compressed format at 320.
Windows XP & 30GB iPod

HT204406 how do I download higher bit rate songs from itunes match to replace the lower bit rate I have on my itunes library?

I have itunes match and I have about 500 songs that were ripped at 128kbps. I have been tolf that I can replace them via itunes match to improve them to 256 or 320?
I have put them into a playlist in my itunes library and I want to know how I can upgrade their bit rate via itunes match. Can anyone help me?

Sid,
With the device connected, click the Summary tab and you will see the "Convert higher bit rate..." option. Set it to 128. See picture below:

Can no longer change bit rate in AAC custom import settings

I've been re-ripping all my CDs at the new higher bit rate. My import settings were AAC Encoder -- custom, originally set to 256 kbps, VBR, and auto for the other two settings. However, some CDs I wanted at a lower setting, so I would go change the bit rate to either 192 or 224 (just so I'd have more room on my ipod) and there wouldn't be a problem. But now it's stuck -- the pop-up box no longer opens when I choose import settings, AAC Encoder, Custom, so I can't change the bit rate or anything else, and it's stuck on 224 kbps. I can still change bit rate and other settings in the custom menus for MP3, WAV, etc., just not AAC. A repair install of iTunes did not fix the problem.

Hi, Ed. I am running iTunes 9.0.3.15. When I click custom, the settings description in the details box display what they were before this thing happened = 112 kbps (mono)/224 kbps (stereo), VBR, optimized for MMX/SSE2. The pop-up dialogue box that used to appear (where you could choose the specific bit rate from the drop down menu) does not appear at all.
However, when I choose anything other than AAC Encoder, and then pick custom, the pop-up box appears and I can choose the bit rate and adjust the other settings as usual. It's just not happening for AAC Encoder anymore. Since the total un-install (following Apple's specified order) and reinstall didn't work, I'm baffled how to fix this .... (If it makes a difference, I changed the bit rate in the custom box while a CD was being burned...Apparently that was stupid, but I had done it previously without incident.) Thanks.

IPod not playing re-ripped tunes with higher bit-rates

Since I got my iPod and have more storage I have been slowly re-ripping some of some tunes at a higher bit rate. iTunes doesn't appear to try to sync these songs and re-upload them to the iPod.
What happens is that the song stops playing part-way through the song. My guess is that it is due to the file size of the old (lower) bit-rate, as if it still thinks the EOF is at the same spot even though the file is now larger. It's almost as if the index doesn't get updated properly somehow.
I've tried deleting all the songs on the iPod and even doing a restore, but that doesn't always fix it. Some songs do it, some don't.
I know the rips are good because I can play them all the way through with either iTunes or Media Player.
Any help on getting it to sync them properly?

I assume that I have to re-rip the songs at the higher bit rate, unless there is Is there an easy way to do that without re-ripping them.
Assuming you want the higher audio quality (and not just a puffed up version of the same low quality track) you will have to re-rip from the CDs.
Also, what happens to the lower bit rate songs in my playlists, especially if I delete the lower bit rate versions from my library?
Under certain conditions, iTunes will recognize the CD and ask you if you want to replace the existing versions. Say yes, and the rip process will automatically do the replace.
In case it does not ask, just go ahead and rip, and then do the replacements manually.

Different bit rates in the same itunes library

I would like to rip some CDs in Lossless Format and some others let say in 192KBs because of quality reasons. Could I change just the import settings before I import the CDs according to my needs and will iTunes maintain the Lossless format for the already imported CDs after I've switched to a lower bit rate and vice versa? Thanks for the replies!

Yes. Changing import settings will not affect music already in your library.

How can I reduce the bit rate of songs in my Music Library to enable me to

At the moment i can only fit about 1300 songs on my iphone and also have used up half the space on my 120gb Classic with 7000 songs which is a lot less than what i was told would fit on. so............
How can I reduce the bit rate of songs in my Music Library to enable me to fit more songs onto my iPhone or iPod Classic.. and what is the minimum rate that i should stick to in order to retain good sound quality.

For existing tracks, see:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1550
For CDs you import in the future, change the Import settings in the iTunes -> General preferences.
As to what will be a good bit rate, that's going to be up to you and what quality you find acceptable, but many people find that 128 kbps AAC is the optimum balance between small file size and quality.

Transferring CDs at 320 bit rate

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