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Poll

Audio formats for iPod Classic

ALAC
[ 3 ] (10%)
AAC-LC
[ 19 ] (63.3%)
MP3
[ 8 ] (26.7%)

Total Members Voted: 38

Topic: Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3? (Read 7630 times) previous topic - next topic
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Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Hello,

I apologize but I am unsure if I am posting this in the wrong section, and if I am than please kindly move my thread to a place that best fits. I am very sorry if I am asking in the wrong place.

Which audio format would be highly recommended for the iPod Classic between ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #1
I would recommend AAC.

I personally have everything in iTunes in ALAC and convert them to 128 AAC for the iPod.

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #2
Sorry double post.

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #3
This is kind of a ridiculous question since theres not enough information to give a useful answer, but AAC is probably a reasonable choice in the absence of any reason not to use it.

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #4
AAC LC is my choice for standard firmware. Would be interesting to know if ALAC enhances battery life like FLAC does on Rockbox.

On Rockbox i use FLAC and Vorbis because those two have a longer battery life. Still have over 60 Gigabytes left.
IPod Classic codec performance


Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #6
Intially I used MP3, but switched over to ALAC after reviving my iPod Video (80 GB) with a new battery because I had a bigger hard drive on my computer to do the conversations than at the time I stopped using for a few years.  The old computer was limited to 80 GB and the current one has a 1 TB.  Both always had Monkey's Audio Lossless libraries.  Becoming a defacto standard format for me to use after getting my second computer (2 years before getting my first and only iPod).  The first computer certainly had some experimentation of formats going on for quite some time.

It was until one Christmas season I fried the whole iPod plugging it in by mistake in a broken USB port on a computer that caused it to be plugged in upside down.  The awful smell of a fried iPod motherboard.  Very sad day.  Considering the money put in to replacing the parts, it sucked big time.

I guess my main problem with the iPod was Apple's way or the highway.  Rockbox certainly improved it bit, but it sucked using sensitive headphones in a quiet place with the volume up ("click-click-click" in the right headphone/ear bud - a type of bug that to my knowledge that was never fixed with Rock Box itself with that specific iPod generation).

I have a Fiio X1 now, it's a lot less a pain in the ass to manage.  Open Windows Explorer and add files.  Choice of a big SD card if you want or need it.  Can make it look like the layout structure I had on my many different computers for years.  Works for me.  Rather than do it Apple's way or the highway.

ACC-LC is probably easier to do on an iPod than other formats.  I never did use it.  First because I didn't want to trust Apple with my music in their format and later because of very complex reasons after their music became DRM free, which was ironically an Apple format.  It ended up becoming really complex for me to manage.  Flat out signaling I was never the intended type of user they were selling their products to.

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #7
LC-AAC is not an Apple format, they adopted it for their music store and developed the encoder (which the above graph of the listening test shows that it's not a bad encoder) but it wasn't their format.  Apple lossless is very much their format but not LC-AAC.  Their DRM was also proprietary but then again, what else did you expect at the time?  That was back when music stores all used their own DRM with most relying on Microsoft's PlayForSure DRM which was used in conjunction with Microsoft's WMA format and encoder.

Which audio format for iPod Classic ALAC vs AAC-LC vs MP3?

Reply #8
LC-AAC is not an Apple format, they adopted it for their music store and developed the encoder (which the above graph of the listening test shows that it's not a bad encoder) but it wasn't their format.  Apple lossless is very much their format but not LC-AAC.  Their DRM was also proprietary but then again, what else did you expect at the time?  That was back when music stores all used their own DRM with most relying on Microsoft's PlayForSure DRM which was used in conjunction with Microsoft's WMA format and encoder.


I've ran tests on ACC-LC before and found that it was better than a given MP3 at the same bitrate.  Although I've also found vise versa to be true as well.