Quote:
Originally Posted by MesGourmandises
Plus, iTunes has great quality, much better than downloading thru limewire or whatnot, itunes tries to optimize the quality of there songs, so its prob the same quality as the disc.
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Just wait till RMJ gets hold of that...
Until very recently, everything on iTunes was encoded at 128kbps AAC. This is equivalent to 160kbps MP3 (it takes up about the same amount of space, though). It sounds great if you're listening to it using the speakers or headphones that come with a computer or DAP, but that's because they're not good enough to reveal the detail that would have been there.
Once you buy a proper pair of headphones (if you know which ones to get, you can get great headphones for very little), you'll realize that there was far more to your music that you thought, and having proper quality will make a huge difference. I only have a 2 gig iPod nano at the moment, so I encode my music at 256kbps VBR (variable bit rate). Once I upgrade to something with more space, I will certainly increase the quality.
Anyway, back on topic, 128kbps AAC from iTunes really isn't much good compared to what you can get elsewhere. It has about a tenth of the detail that CDs have (though the human ear is unable to hear some of the detail that is ditched). iTunes Plus, which recently came out, is DRM-free AAC encoded at 256kbps, which is a huge improvement, and acceptable for something that you have to download. However, Sony BMG won't accept the fact that DRM is useless, so they wouldn't allow Alizée's new album to be released on iTunes Plus.