Now that I have my iPod connected to the car, I wanted to rip my CD collection to my PC hard drive, and wanted to get recommendations from the audiophiles here regarding the format (MP3, AAC, etc,) and bitrate you're using. Before I invest the time ripping all my CDs I wanted to get feedback from the experts here. TIA.

 

I have a 40 Gb iPod and decided to use the Apple Lossless file format (which on average is about 50% of an AIFF file). This gives me incredible sound quality from the iPod at the expense of fewer tracks - but it is still several days continuous play without repetition.

 

Apple Lossless if you have the space, if not 320 KB AAC. AAC is a much more efficient codec that MP3 and, at the same bitrate, is in my view audibly better than an equivalent MP3. Many of my tracks are ripped at 192KB AAC for iPod use but if you plan to use the iPod as a source for the car or through a home audio system I'd recommend Apple Lossless or 320 KB AAC. Truth be told, I can't really hear that massive a difference between lossless and 320KB AAC but some people can - try and both and see what you think.

 

After a little web research, I found a great solution for ripping high quality MP3s. I'm using Exact Audio Copy with the LAME encoder at 256 kbps VBR (variable bit rate). I ripped ~ 2,000 songs (~ 150 albums) and it used 15 GB of my 20 GB iPod, and you'd be hard pressed to distinguish the quality from a CD in the car.

I went with MP3 vs. AAC (the iTunes default) in case I ever want to play songs on another player (and the majority of them use MP3). I used Exact Audio Copy since the MP3 encoder in iTunes is not very high quality.

Good info here:
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/tutorials.htm

 

LAME 256k VBR should sound pretty decent to most people. I can't stand the sound of 128k mp3's or AAC's. I have a lot of files at 192k VBR, and I'm ok with those, although they do not sound as good as the original cd to me, certainly. But given the amount of music I want on my iPod, 192k vbr was ok with me.

One difference about car vs home audiophile listening is the fact that the car presents a noisier environment. Thus, a little less dynamic range on classical music is just fine with me. For rock and pop and jazz, the dynamic range usually isn't all that wide anyway.

 

I got the iPod primarily for car use, and don't plan to use it with my home sound system, and in the car (with the non-perfect environment) at 256k VBR the sound quality is excellent. Also sound great with the earbuds.

 

The exact same setup I use. I've yet to find something better. Good choice.

 

I was about to recommend exact audio copy as well, but lately I've been copying/importing CDs via iTunes as it's much more user friendly.