Help....MP3 questions, IPOD is not doing it

[chgo36]

I just upgraded my system and now realize that using my Ipod dock is not going to work. The sound quality compared to direct CD is not even close. I am a newbie when it comes to this stuff so looking for suggestions. I would like to store approx 250 CD's on something that would produce excellent sound quality. I looked at some threads and it seems that I could rip the CD's at a higher bit rate, like 320 or so and that might work but I dont know how to do that. I use I-tunes when I rip CD's to my PC and cannot figure out how to save them differently. Do I need to buy and external Hard Drive for my PC to save them at the higher rate? Would like some suggestions and really dont want to spend a small fortune to achieve what I am looking for.

You guys have more knowledge than most of the stores I have been to so looking for some advice
I am using a Yamaha RX-V663 AVR with PSB T55 mains. Using a Panasonic BD 35 BRP for DVD and CD use for now.

Tahnks

 

[Brian_the_King]

Under the menu I have shown, you can select a variety of file formats and bit rates.

If you are after lossless audio [~1411Kb/s] you can use the WAV or AIFF encoder, or simply set an MP3 or AAC format up to 320Kb/s. I could be wrong, but I believe the fifth option, 'Apple Lossless' is a 'fake' lossless format which encodes around 700Kb/s.

Be warned however that even preserving the files on your iPod in a lossless format will sound inferior to a well made CD player.

 

[Adam]

How much can your iPod hold?

You can figure out how much hard drive space you need. 320 kbps = 40 KB/s. You want to store about 250 CDs, and I'm going to estimate about 45 minutes of music per CD on average. That gives you about 190 hours of music that you want to store.

So, 190 hours * 3600 seconds/hour = 684000 seconds.

At 40 KB/s, that's 684000 seconds * 40 KB/s = 27360000 KB. That's about 26 GB of storage that you'll need.

For reference, I ripped 200+ CDs in a lossless format (AIFF) a few years ago, and they took about 120 GB of space.