Higher Bitrate than 320 for audiophile?

[brianjrealtor]

How can I download CD's to my Itunes library at higher bitrates than 320 to get better quality sound?? I don't mind the larger file size to get better sound quality!

My Itunes will only allow a maximum bit rate of 320...

What extra software or equipment or upgraded equipment would I need to achive higher bit rates in the 700's??

I noticed higher bit rates in the 700's one day when I was online at a coffee shop and another users library showed up on my Itunes. I clicked on that persons library and I found I could listen to that person's songs at their higher bit rates averaging in the 700 to 800's....

WOW! to hear that person's Beatles songs at those bit rates was amazing!!


Any Help would be great!,,,,

 

[antiacid]

besides the fact that cd's aren't encoded at more than that rate and besides the fact that I doubt you have the kind of gear to listen to the difference between a 320kbps and a 700ish kbps track, esp. portable (headsets don't quite do that yet), I think that it's a waste of space.

 

[cjl]

Actually, CDs are encoded as 1.44 Mbps Wav files, so there's definitely more quality available. Whether or not it's audible is debatable, but CDs are definitely recorded at higher than just 320kbps (which is why 700MB only holds around 60-90 minutes on a CD). As for software? If you're on Windows, Windows Media Player allows for lossless rips in WMA format, as well as a straight rip of the WAV file. It also peaks at around 320kbps for MP3s though.

 

[rexter]

Adobe audition or Soun Forge.

Cakewalk is more for pro.

I use the audition.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Try downloading from HDgiants.com They have higher quality downloads than iTunes. There are even higher quality downloads from other sources. Check out computeraudiophile.com for more info on high resolution downloads.

 

[antiacid]

well it is a given that if you are looking for high quality audio files, you'll want WMA or FLAC files. The issue with that though is that the source can sometimes not have a whole lot of quality. I'm referring to the trend in the studios to record "louder" and clipping some of the soundwave away to make room for that. There's already plenty of literature that explains it, google is your friend.

I stand by my initial point, listening to music from FLAC files on your Ipod with even good headsets (starx, senn, AD, etc) is still miles away from what you get in a decent setup with good quality equipment and source. If you go portable, you have to worry about not being focused on your music, about the ambient noise, about the quality of the equipment and even about the comfort of others around you (open headsets are loud for everyone, not just you).

 

[cjl]

well it is a given that if you are looking for high quality audio files, you'll want WMA or FLAC files. The issue with that though is that the source can sometimes not have a whole lot of quality. I'm referring to the trend in the studios to record "louder" and clipping some of the soundwave away to make room for that. There's already plenty of literature that explains it, google is your friend.

This is true, and it is an incredibly annoying trend. It especially shows when comparing any of my modern CDs to some older ones. I have some Pink Floyd disks with excellent quality, and they absolutely blow away almost any current album that I've heard.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Recording engineers usually hate this type of compressed sound but it makes some music more sellable for listening in noisy environments where the lower level information (that the mp3 may compromise anyway) is buried in the external noise.
The better the recording the more lossy compression screws it up but if it is not a good recording it is what it is.

 

[jaguarskx]

May not help you, but I prefer using FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) which has about a 2:1 compression ratio. It doesn't toss out audio data like all other codecs; thus it is lossless. It works out to a little over 5MB for every 1 minute of music.

Apple's version of FLAC is called ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)