hi, wasnt sure where to put this, but i did not find any forum regarding ipod or itunes. i am in the very long process of putting my music in wavpack form. you can now buy ipods with a terrabyte of memory. someone on ebay is advertising them, such that they work normally. but he refers to them as mp3 players.
i think wavpack files can be played on an ipod. but i dont know if you can use itunes to sync the ipod. or even if itunes can be loaded with wavpack files.
so i was wondering just how this all worked. could not find a url on it, as of yet
[...] terrabyte [...]
terra (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Terra)
tera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera-)
terabytes ipod?
yes, there are now a lot of people on ebay, doing it. putting up to 2 terrabytes of memory in the classic ipod, so that it no longer has any moving parts. but most of them are limiting it to 1 terrabyte.
iPod + SD card adapter + 1 TB SD card.
You will need to run rockbox if you want to listen to wavpack.
thanks guys, in searching the site, i see i had a good discussion about this a couple years ago or so. i am re-reading all the stuff that was said. i had completely forgotten about it. but the most important thing i wanted to know looks like it hasnt changed. i will need to have rockbox installed, to listen to wavpack. thanks all
ok guys,
i am finding a whole new can of worms. the whole purpose of buying an ipod with a terrabyte of memory is to listen to a lossless file. mp3s are good, but there are problems with some songs. it does not sound as good as a wav.
so you hear that all you have to do is load rockbox on the ipod, instead of using the apple firmware. i dont think it is anywhere near that simplistic. as far as i can tell, rockbox ONLY runs on the ipod.
there is no syncing of music on a computer program, like itunes. it seems to me that all manipulations of tens of thousands of songs have to be done on a tiny ipod screen, with the clickwheel. this is not what an ipod was designed for. it is great for a few clicks, to get to a folder or a playlist.
i could conceivably end up with several terrabytes of wavpack files from rips. but i would only want a small percentage of them to be on my ipod. i am thinking that perhaps the best method of listening to lossless on an ipod is to simply create wav files from my wavpack files, but only after i have chosen to want to listen to them often enough that i would want them on my ipod, in the first place.
i just converted a wv to wav. it was about 3 1/2 times larger. but i am quite sure that a 2 terrabyte ipod would be more than enough room to hold all the wav files i would ever want to listen to, on an ongoing basis - such that i would want them on my ipod to begin with.
then there is nothing else to do. itunes would do it all, just as before.
i am just talking out loud, for anyone else who wants to comment. or anyone else who is thinking of doing the same thing. this is the first time that we have the opportunity to listen to lossless on a portable device, as they can now have a terrabyte of flash memory - light years ahead of when they first came out !!
Why don't you use Apple lossless instead of Wavpack, it's supported on the iPod and itunes.
this is the first time that we have the opportunity to listen to lossless on a portable device, as they can now have a terrabyte of flash memory - light years ahead of when they first came out !!
The 160GB iPod launched in 2007 with native lossless support, so large players are not exactly new.
If you want to keep using iTunes, use Apple lossless instead of wavpack. If you do decide to get a flash modded device, make sure you get one that is compatible with the original Apple firmware. Not all are as some versions have maximum storage sizes and cannot handle very large storage.
excellent point. i have a lot converted to wavpack. i just did some experimenting today. before converting to wav, i tried to convert to apple lossless with foobar. but it wanted to know where the codec was. and of course i havent downloaded it.
it is probably something that i could do, but it took me a long while to get wavpack working. and i wasnt quite willing to try and do that, at least today.
the convert is a simple, very fast process - so i dont mind having a separate storage for the files that i convert and put on my ipod. using apple lossless might allow me to keep metadata. i know a wav file can not store that. but to be honest, pictures are not important for me on my ipod. i typically click on a playlist, which could be over 100 songs, and put in my waist holder, and listen. i so seldom look at the ipod, that that really is not much of an issue for me.
i currently have about 9,000 songs on my ipod. i could see it get to about 20,000. so storage of 20,000 songs. the song i just converted to wav is 30mb. while the wv version is 8.5mb. if i did my math correctly, that comes out 170gb for wv or apple lossless, and 600gb for wav. in either case, that is one external 1TB drive, that would hold my itunes files.
i just imported a wav file into itunes. it loaded it and played it. just wanted to absolutely verify that that could be done. however it came across as unknown artist and unknown album. it did have the title of the song as the name of the file. i converted it from a wavpack file. i am guessing that it would have had the name of the artist and album if i had gotten it from the cd, itself. but the creation of a wav by just converting it from wavpack is almost immediate.
my wrong assumption - even if i rip a cd into wavs, and import that - i still just end up with a song title, and unknown artist and album. so i need to try and download the apple lossless codec on my pc, if that is even allowed and possible
No tags in .wav (at least not well supported ones), so no tags in itunes.
https://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack
Download the apple lossless encoder for foobar and use that.
Also there is an iPod plugin for Foobar2000 that will allow you to convert Wavpack to Apple lossless when your syncing your music to your iPod.
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop
i was expecting to import my alac files into itunes, just like i have done with mp3 files in the past. and then itunes synchs with the ipod. are you suggesting something different with this ipod manager ?
You can leave your music in Wavpack and use the foobar2000 plugin and there is an plugin option to convert unsupported files but you'll need to set up an apple lossless encoder preset. All the tag data in the wavpack files should be transferred over as well.
Give it a try with a couple of albums.
it placed it in my foobar folder, without me even telling it where to go
if i go to computer, and click on the main foobar folder, i have 20 or so items
one of them is a folder, labeled "free encoder pack"
it has 2 .exe files, labeled Free_Encoder_Pack_2014-11-29.exe and Free_Encoder_Pack-2021-01-26.exe
the 11-29 version is also in the main foobar folder
but when i go to convert, it is still asking me to locate qaac.exe
that is as far as i have been able to get, so far
Do you have this folder on your PC?
"C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\encoders"
qaac.exe should be in there.
sorry, my last post was regarding the downloading of the apple lossless encoder for foobar
are you double clicking and installing "Free_Encoder_Pack-2021-01-26.exe"?
Then you should have the "C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\encoders" folder which contains qaac.exe.
If foobar2000 still asks where qaac is then point it to the folder above and select qaac.exe
i have the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)
i do not have anything labeled foobar in that folder
no, i haven't double clicked on anything in foobar
So you haven't installed foobar2000 or did you install it as portable?
when i installed foobar initially, i set up a main folder labeled "Jimmy" (my real name). i clicked on the file that you asked. now there is a folder labeled "encoders" in the jimmy foobar folder.
there are 15 files in there. one of them is labeled qaac64.exe. will this work for the qaac.exe file ?
apparently not. i clicked on the encoders file in foobar, and it still says "no items match your search". but i think we are red hot, at this point
so i just checked my version of foobar. v1.3.6
peter pawlowski and contributors
Probably a good idea to get the latest version, 1.6.7.
https://www.foobar2000.org/download
would you expect the download to be instantaneous ? in any case, i have a 1.3.3, a 1.3.6, and now a 1.6.7. (exe file). but if i click my icon, it still goes to 1.3.6. normally, the download changes my icons to the version that i downloaded. i have one icon on my desk top. and then another at the bottom in the command line, or whatever it is called (near the shutdown button). how can i change those icons to refer to the latest version ?
Did you do a standard or portable install of 1.6.7?
i have no idea what a portable install is ? i did not do anything special, as far as i know
When you did the install of 1.6.7 what did this screen say?
(https://i.ibb.co/PtW9zrx/FB2K167.png) (https://imgbb.com/)
If your not sure, run the installer again.
i dont recall that screen at all
i went here, the link up above https://www.foobar2000.org/download
there is a place to click for 1.6.7, which i did
i think it only downloaded the .exe file. that screen that you just showed never came up. this is why it was instantaneous
did you double click the 1.6.7 file you downloaded?
no, let me do that !!
ok, now i am on 1.6.7 !!
oh my gosh, i now have 13 alac files. if i just click on it, it tells me that windows media player can not play this file. but i can load them into foobar, and play them. is this expected ?
Yes, i don't think WMP supports ALAC natively.
thank you so much. i just imported these 13 songs into itunes, to experiment. it added it as a separate folder, but under the same artist. which is great. my mp3 file only has 4 of the 13 songs. so i only downloaded the songs that i wanted on my ipod, even with the mp3s. the only thing i need to figure out now is if there is some way i can differentiate the mp3 folders from the m4a folders ? and more importantly the sync of my mp3s ? will that sync be smart enough to ignore an m4a folder ? or will it try to include everything by that artist ? but i do now have the ability to import m4a files into itunes
Sorry i can't help you their, I've never actually used iTunes apart from restoring iPod firmware.
I do all my iPod syncing with Foobar2000.
i have many ipods. some of them only have special playlists on them. so you can pick and choose, to some degree. i need to call up itunes, and recall just how i set up the various ipods, and whether i can pick and choose between folders within the same artist ? but i have done about as much as i feel like doing for today !!!
Just to jump back on topic.
Have you thought about just using an Android phone with a 1tb SD card and an external USB-C to 3.5mm DAC?
are you speaking greek - LOL. i am not too familiar with many of those terms. but i dont even own a cell phone, and dont want one. so that probably is not gonna be an option for me !!
but in thinking out loud, i think i have synced all my ipods by playlists. so i am more confident that i can separate the mp3s from m4as, by just creating playlists where i only put the new m4a files in, as i convert them.
thanks to all the help from everyone who contributed. the fact that i have apple lossless loaded into itunes is way further than i ever anticipated being, at this point.
i added a playlist, called NEW, where i will start listening to these new m4a songs. i will be creating new playlists, in which i only enter m4a files. so this will work perfectly, for me. after listening to them, i will either place them in new playlists, or delete them, if i dont want them on my ipod. i have purchased a lot of stuff that i have never listened to, as of yet. so this is a fun lifetime project, for me. now that you guys got me on the track that i need to be on !! i loaded these 13 new files on my current ipod. one thing i noticed already is that they are at a lower volume level. i do use mp3gain on all the mp3 files to the highest number, without it going past the point that it should. i know there is a wvgain that is supposed to operate on wavpack files. is there also that sort of program for m4a files ? the only gain program that i have actually used is just mp3gain. but that works quite well, for my needs, on mp3 files
You should be able to use soundcheck in itunes for volume leveling.
https://www.lifewire.com/sound-check-itunes-4103836
this article was written in march, 2020 - so things could have changed. but according to this, it only works for mp3, wav, aac (is this apple lossy format ?), and aiff. so it does not look like it can be used on wv or m4a files ?
It will work on all formats that iTunes supports.
All it does is scan the file and figure out it's "loudness" and then writes the change in volume in to the files tag\database so Itunes\iPod knows how much to change the volume at playback to make all the music a similar volume. it's a far better way than physically changing the volume on the audio file which maybe impossible to reverse.
okay, i will give that a try. when i did my last research a long time ago, i recall it saying that it does not damage the file, because it does not do any changes to the audio. it just changes some tag to tell it what volume to play. but it could clip, if played too high. that is my understanding of the mp3gain program
mp3gain can be quite dangerous since it does actually alter the file. If the mp3gain undo tag gets removed you have no idea what the original volume was so you can revert the volume change.
Soundcheck and replaygain just store the change in volume in the tag so as long as your using a supported device\player you can volume match. If the soundcheck\replaygain tag is nuked for some reason you just need to rescan the file again and the tag is recreated since the audio wasn't physically changed.
ok, i will be more careful when i use it. i have probably already caused some damage to files
i am trying to positively ascertain - but i dont think that soundcheck carries over to the ipod. i also do not see anything about soundcheck in the settings on my ipod. this may be why i originally decided to use mp3gain ? i dont recall, because that has been over 10 years ago.
It's on my iPod under settings.
(https://i.ibb.co/m9z2scB/iPodSC.jpg)
i did find a sound check button on my ipod nanos, and my ipod touches
what model is your ipod?
Settings > About > press track forward 2 times.
i think i am gonna stay away from sound check. it is confusing as to just what it does, and to what songs it does it to. but it seems to apply its own algorithm to songs that it has its info attached to. there is a good long discussion at ilounge, but i dont know if it is allowed for me to post a url from a site that might be considered a competitor ? according to mp3gain, the changes it makes are lossless. but they do have a program called mp3gainpro, that is not lossless. i can always go back to my original wv file, if there is a real problem. if i get permission from someone, i will post the discussion for you. you may pick up on some stuff that i did not.
but it talks about reducing loud sounds in a song, compared to other portions of the song. it is my understanding that mp3gain just increases or decreases the entire song by whatever number of decibels is desired. so that still leaves me with finding a program to apply gain to the m4a songs. i want to leave my wv files unchanged, since they are like my permanent copy.
my nano model (at least the one i am holding in my hand) is MD477LL version 1.0.4 PC
my touch is MC547LL/A version 6.1.6
are you familiar with the program mp4gain ?
i think i am gonna stay away from sound check. it is confusing as to just what it does, and to what songs it does it to. but it seems to apply its own algorithm to songs that it has its info attached to. there is a good long discussion at ilounge, but i dont know if it is allowed for me to post a url from a site that might be considered a competitor ? according to mp3gain, the changes it makes are lossless. but they do have a program called mp3gainpro, that is not lossless. i can always go back to my original wv file, if there is a real problem. if i get permission from someone, i will post the discussion for you. you may pick up on some stuff that i did not.
but it talks about reducing loud sounds in a song, compared to other portions of the song. it is my understanding that mp3gain just increases or decreases the entire song by whatever number of decibels is desired. so that still leaves me with finding a program to apply gain to the m4a songs. i want to leave my wv files unchanged, since they are like my permanent copy.
You have several options:
1) Use soundcheck which does exactly what you want using iTunes.
2) Stop using iTunes, install rockbox and use replaygain, which will do the same thing as SoundCheck.
3) Stop using iTunes and instead use foobar2000's iPod plugin to copy over songs, which can use replaygain in place of soundcheck.
4) Use foobar2000 or similar software to apply lossy gain adjustment to your files.
#1 is by far the easiest option.
does replaygain not work with m4a files ?
does replaygain not work with m4a files ?
It works with any type of file, but iTunes does not support it.
i want to stick with itunes and apple firmware on the ipod. i do not want to use soundcheck. i have done a lot of research, and too many people have too many issues with it. am i correct in thinking that this leaves me 2 lossless options (m4a or wav) ?
i understand that wav does not have any metadata, except for the song title. m4a does. i am currently having problems finding a way to apply a standardized gain to m4a files that itunes will recognize.
can gain be applied to a wav file, that itunes would recognize ?
Have you actually tried soundcheck before just writing it off? Add a few albums in to iTunes, enable soundcheck and have a listen on the PC to see what it's like.
I've been using soundcheck in the car for shuffling and it works pretty well.
Soundcheck\Replaygain is never going to 100% perfect with volume leveling but what your planning to do with mp3\4gain sounds like a total nightmare to manage.
Have you though about just ditching lossless on your iPod and using a high bitrate m4a. With lossy m4a in the 300-400kbps range i very much doubt you would even be able to tell the difference between them and lossless. added bonus is that you'll be able to fit approx twice the amount of music on your device.
regarding soundcheck, i guess that is a very last resort
my portable listening right now is with mp3s. i dont know what the bit rate is on them - i cant say i was aware that there was any choice. i am pretty sure i use the lame encoder or decoder. whatever foobar does. but i very seldom add anything new to that library, which i would like to gradually replace with what was gonna be a lossless library - that was my end goal
as far as being hard to manage, mp3gain is a fairly quick and simple process, that you run once on the files. now you may still want to run it here and there on individual files. it has been my experience that some files end up too soft, because some short loud sound makes it seem louder than it is. but that may be 1 out of 100, if that many. but typically i just run mp3gain once on a file, and i am done with it. so i dont see that as any sort of big deal over the long run. especially since you can run it on your entire library, all at the same time, if you choose.
i dont know anything about 4ma. i thought that was an apple thing, and i had 2 choices of their lossless or lossy.
room was a big issue a long time ago. but it is no longer much of an issue. i just purchased a 1 tb ipod yesterday. i could have gone to 2, but from my calculations, i think i could fit everything i would ever want in wav form on 1 tb. i have lots of bear family boxsets, as well as tons of individual cds. and there are some artists that i copy over a high percentage of stuff. but for the most part, i am only gonna put a small percentage of my total ripped collection on ipod.
my ipod is for stuff that i like a lot, not for songs that i dont like much at all. or something i may want to listen to, once in a blue moon. so luckily that is not an issue for me any more.
i would definitely consider the wav option, if it meant i could easily gain it, and not gain the m4a files. every once in awhile i may get curious, if i cant recall which artist is playing the song. but that is a minor inconvenience. i DO NOT want songs playing at markedly different volume levels - that destroys my listening. i dont really like it, when an individual song does that. luckily for me, that is pretty rare - i listen to oldies in country, pop and rock. songs that typically focus on melody, and are at the same volume from beginning to end.
i just loaded the song sugar, sugar into foobar. it has a bit rate of 192. most songs sound pretty good. but that bit rate does have some issues with some songs that are noticeable to me. it isnt the end of the world if i just stay with mp3s - it is pretty dang enjoyable. but if i could better it, from hereon out, i thought i would give it a try
i just checked the bit rates of the mp4 files. the m4a file had a bit rate of 851. when mp4gain did its thing on that same file, it created an aac file with a bit rate of 129.
as you may have guessed, i dont give up easily. i found a program that will do what i want. i have tested it. itunes definitely recognizes the gain change. because the volume is noticeably lower. at this point, i see no way of changing the number. it seems to set everything at the 89 decibel range. but that has always been my experience. mpgain allows me to change the number, but it does default to 89. what i dont get is that how can there be clipping at higher rates, when just about every cd i have ever heard is higher than the 89. every once in a great while, mpgain would actually up the decibel range, but you wouldnt want to hold your breath !! http://www.kanssoftware.com/
Foobar will let you change the gain in any lossless file via transcoding.
There is really no reason to do this though since you can use the built in soundcheck feature to do exactly what you want about a 1000x faster.
for those who want to understand why I DO NOT WANT TO USE SOUNDCHECK, please read this 6-page discussion. nobody knows for sure how it works, and what it actually does.
and many people do not get the results they want. this is not true with mp3gain, or this m4a gain program. they simply go thru each file that you send it (individual or batch), and update the file with the gain info. it does not change the file, only the loudness of the playback. and of course if it plays too loud, you can get distortion. at any time you can decrease the gain, and lose whatever distortion that may have been created. it is very simple and straightforward. and EXTREMELY EASY TO DO. send it a batch of files, and then go about your business. i am new to this program with m4a's. but i have a lot of experience using mp3gain, and it is a very simple process. what i would like an answer to is why 89 decibels has been established as some magic number, when most every cd i have listened to has a higher decibel rating.
https://forums.ilounge.com/threads/listening-levels-on-ipod-a-guide-to-using-soundcheck.61187/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_1HHDnN68T6H6vEcH9aJa36jZwviLCB1MCqndVadPD7I-1634086910-0-gqNtZGzNAlCjcnBszQj9
mp3gain uses original replaygain standard to workout the target loudness of the song. this is where the 89dB comes from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain
thanks. according to the article - The target loudness of ReplayGain utilities is 89 dB sound pressure level. The SPL reference comes from a SMPTE recommendation used to calibrate playback levels in movie theaters.
my two cents tells me this is not a good standard for cds. if it really was, the manufacturers of cds would abide by it. the very fact that very few cds have that low of a level, tells me that the person setting this standard made a mistake. or what might be more accurate is that what might be optimum for playback levels in movie theaters is not what is optimum for producing cds.
i now have all the pieces of the puzzle that i need, in order to create my system, thanks to you guys, and especially to AMED. i wanted to make absolutely sure that i had a program to normalize the loudness. however, i plan to start out by just converting the wavpack files to m4a files, and load the m4a files into itunes. and just see how variable the loudness really is with the m4a files. i want to get at least 500 songs in there, so i can get a good feel for the variability in sound. and then if at any time, i want to even it out, i will have a program that i can call up, and go thru the whole library, adjusting the gains.
from my personal experience, this will always leave some files playing too softly. and they tend to be the softer songs that have a small loud portion to them. as i listen to the songs, i make mental notes to add some gain to it. with my music tastes, that may happen once every 100 songs. it can also be annoying to be listening to your playlist, and have a song you really like that you can barely hear !! i generally have my ipod in a little waist holder, while riding a bike. so it is not available to me, without a lot of inconvenience. i will once in awhile stop my bike to see which artist is playing if i dont know, but i gotta be awfully darn curious at the time - LOL. for those of you who might be wondering - once a song is loaded into itunes, you can run the gain program on the file, and itunes will pick it up. it wont transfer over to your ipod until you do a sync. but you do not need to do a re-load of the song to itunes
if you want to use this program to do multiple files, then you gotta use whatever defaults the program chooses for each song, as far as i can tell. but if you call up a song individually, you can increase it to what you want. however, it does not allow you to clip the file. mp3gain would allow that, if you so chose. but i understand the logic, here. if you want to normalize your library, then run the program on your entire library with the defaults set. which is probably gonna be best for most songs. then if there are some individual songs that you want to mess with, then call them up individually. right now, i am still tinkering with the program, trying to better understand all my options. what it does and doesnt do. you can normalize under both peak and average levels. i dont think you can cause distortion if you do the peak, no matter what you do. i also played around with normalizing on average levels, even though i wasnt quite sure just what that meant. doing that, you can definitely cause LOTS OF DISTORTION by applying too much gain.
for those who want to understand why I DO NOT WANT TO USE SOUNDCHECK, please read this 6-page discussion. nobody knows for sure how it works, and what it actually does.
I did read this thread. Sound check lets you write the volume you want a file to be played at to the iPod. It is the iPod's version of replaygain essentially, and in fact you can use it to implement replaygain.
and many people do not get the results they want. this is not true with mp3gain, or this m4a gain program. they simply go thru each file that you send it (individual or batch), and update the file with the gain info. it does not change the file, only the loudness of the playback.
Did you see option #3 I suggested above where you use foobar2000 to copy the replaygain values into the iPod's sound check feature? This will give you the exact same effect as mp3gain, except it will work on any file type, not just MP3s. Otherwise you're stuck actually transcoding the files, which is slow and obviously not lossless.
and many people do not get the results they want. this is not true with mp3gain, or this m4a gain program. they simply go thru each file that you send it (individual or batch), and update the file with the gain info. it does not change the file, only the loudness of the playback.
Did you see option #3 I suggested above where you use foobar2000 to copy the replaygain values into the iPod's sound check feature? This will give you the exact same effect as mp3gain, except it will work on any file type, not just MP3s. Otherwise you're stuck actually transcoding the files, which is slow and obviously not lossless.
This is what I do when syncing music from Foobar2000 to the ipod with the ipod plugin and it works extremely well.
hi guys, sorry for my late response. i didnt realize that anyone had posted. i may not totally understand option 3. i think i tuned it out, when it said "no longer use itunes".
i really like itunes. it allows me to make any sort of playlists that i want. and of course, i am familiar with it. i have a main folder on my computer for my m4a converts. i have many sub-folders. but the lowest level of sub-folder has the label of an artist. i dont try to break it down any further than that.
whenever i want to load up itunes, all i do is point to the main folder. itunes is smart enough to only add songs that are not already there.
i will also be deleting songs. the main reason i am starting this project now, is that i am starting to rip lots of unsealed stuff that i have never listened to, before. if it is an artist that i dont like all that much, i will listen to the wv files, and only convert the ones that i want.
however, if it is an artist that i like, and know i will be converting most of the songs, then i simply just convert the complete artist folder. will then end up listening to them on my ipod, and deleting the ones that i dont want on my ipod.
my terrabyte ipod has not yet arrived. once i get some songs loaded onto it, and listen to them, i will keep you updated, as to just how variable the loudness on the songs actually is.
so i am using eac to rip to wavpack. and then converting to m4a, using foobar. and then using itunes to load the m4a songs into my itunes library, and sync to my ipod.
i cant recall if i already said this, but i now have 2 itunes libraries on my computer. the old one has only mp3 files. and the new one will have just m4a files. i do not plan to add anything to the mp3 library, but i will use it for a long time. as i gradually build up my m4a library.
The only question I have is why the extra steps?
e.g. CD > Wavpack > m4a (apple lossless? or AAC?) using foobar > import in to iTunes.
Why don't you rip directly in to Apple Lossless using the guide below. iTunes can automatically transcode the apple lossless in to m4a (AAC) when you sync to your iPod.
https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=EAC_and_ALAC
e.g. CD > M4A (Apple Lossless) > import to itunes.
i see. the rip to wavpack has nothing to do with the project of listening on my ipod. i want a permanent copy of my music. and it is wonderful to be able to insert artwork and the rest of the metadata into it.
i would be doing that, irregardless of how i was gonna listen to it on my ipod. for my portable listening, the lifetime goal is to have everything that i want to listen to on an ipod, converted to lossless m4a, and listen to it. from my calculations, i think it is highly unlikely that i will ever have more songs than would fit on a terrabyte ipod. but if i did, it wont be for a very LONG time !!
i have about 1000 songs loaded on my terrabyte ipod. i calculated about 40,000 songs altogether (of my type of music). most older songs last about 2 1/2 minutes. so if yours lasted 5 minutes, you would have 20,000 songs. much of the music i am currently loading, i have never listened to, before. so i am listening to albums at a time, to see which songs i want to keep in the library, and which ones i want to add to a playlist. i have not noticed much of a problem with loudness. but if it becomes a problem it will be when i start listening to playlists, where it goes from one song to the next, and can be completely different artists and albums. at this point, i have not "normalized" any songs.