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Anyone use VBR in iTunes for MP3?

Kazaam

Kazaam

Well-Known Member
Just curious, mostly.

I suspect there are probably quite a few non-iTunes users who do the whole EAC/LAME thing, perhaps? But since all my music is ripped in Apple Lossless, I'm kind of tied to iTunes. (Though I do take my MP3s I create and import them into Media Monkey for use on my Android phone.)

Previously, I've done CBR 192MP3 in iTunes for my portables and been happy enough. But going forward I'm going to tinker around with the VBR settings.
 
I have all my mp3's recorded at 320kbps using VBR. It sounds good (not perfect but for a lossy format good enough). I actually prefer using VBR than without.
 
I mostly use LAME in Foobar set at 245~ VBR, the highest quality but I do have a few in iTunes that I ripped inside iTunes using the highest quality (custom) VBR. I use iTunes as my main player.
 
Ever any consideration of using AAC w/VBR setting?

I just ripped a bunch of tracks in both MP3 and AAC and was giving it a listen. A totally unscientific and flawed comparison, no doubt. But I think I'm liking the MP3 at 192vbr more than the AAC rips at 192vbr. Not sure if it's because of my player possibly handling MP3 better, or if maybe I just like some strange distortion caused by MP3 more than I do the anomalies created by AAC, or maybe I had unmatched volume levels between formats. Or it could all just all in my head.

Granted, if I really cared about my portable sound quality I wouldn't be dinkin' around with such low bitrates of lossy compression.

So with that said my original hope was that maybe I could find a way to shrink the file size down even further than I had been doing and still be happy with the sound. But I don't think that's happening, unfortunately.
 
My sole reason for using the mp3 format is my car stereo which can't decode AAC internally. I use a simple 8GB Apple Nano or my 32GB iTouch and have that hooked to my JVC head unit. Now if I use the Apple to switch songs then I can use the AAC feature but if I use the JVC head unit to decode the songs it won't recognize the AAC format. While driving its far easier to just plug in my Nano and have the JVC randomly play songs and easier to skip songs. Currently my 8GB Nano can hold roughly 450 songs at 320 Kbps VBR which is more than enough.

My entire music collection of about 6,000 (encoded at 320 kbps VBR) songs is stored on the cloud and I have my iPad set up to play using the cloud. My iPad is only 16GB so it can't hold that many songs but by connecting to my cloud I get my entire music collection at the touch of my hands. I use my iPad in my bedroom hooked up with my headphones and the cloud plays back all my songs at 256kbps no matter what they were encoded at. Not sure if the cloud uses VBR technology but I wouldn't think it does.
 
Matt Google match is free and gives you free storage unlike that charges $25 a year for iTunes match. Just saying :D
 
Deer hunter I have so many Apple products that I could be called a fanboy. That and I like that my iPad can get all my songs on the cloud without using any memory.
 
^^^
But a real fanboy would put his iTouch in a protective case that makes it look like a Newton PDA.

th
 
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