Sorry to through out what is most likely a noob question, but my searches left me with nothing.
I recently purchased an iPod 30g for use in my car with a Dice Electronics iPod integration unit for my new Audi A4. I really only use the iPod in the garage on my boombox or in the car.
Since purchasing the iPod I now use iTunes to manage my MP3's. I really like iTunes as it does what I need it to do. I have my entire music collection ripped using EAC/LAME with different versions over the past 4 years. My MP3's are encoded at 256k VBR.
I recently purchased a Roku M2000 SoundBridge as an upgrade from my Audiotron. Since the Roku can handle lossless formats, I've recently decided to switch to Apple lossless (ALAC) and re-rip my entire collection. I'm happy with the ALAC, but since I want a compressed format for the iPod and my Auditron will really only play .wav, MP3, or WMA, I want to have ALAC for my home and LAME MP3 for the rest.
My question is this: how can I best transcode from ALAC to LAME MP3? I would prefer to have the best quality possible from the MP3's. I'm thinking of staying in the 256K VBR.
Thanks.
My question is this: how can I best transcode from ALAC to LAME MP3? [...] I'm thinking of staying in the 256K VBR.
foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) + ALAC input plugin (http://www.foobar2000.org/components/foo_input_alac.zip) + LAME 3.97 @ -V0 --vbr-new (http://rarewares.org/)
Thanks for the links. I'll give it try.
foobar2000 contains a useful preset in the converter plugin for mp3s if you don't feel like using command line.