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Topic: using xld on mac (Read 6180 times) previous topic - next topic
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using xld on mac

hi i have decided to finally rip all my cds correctly with xld on my mac and not with itunes

i am new to this so i have decided to do a bit research and seem to think that using xld with lame -v2 190kbps setting would be good for portable listening with really good quality headphones and also on a really good set of home speakers while keeping file sizes at a reasonable level since i would like to add them to my new ipod and have space for expanding music library

i wouldnt mind having highest possible quality at a high file size since i will be storing all my media on my new 10tb nas but i also would like to add my music library to my new 64gb ipod
but the problem is i dont want to have two itunes libraries one with highest quality rips and one for portable media like ipod, ipad, and maybe my android phone

please advice if you these settings are good and any suggestions

and i am not sure on other xld settings like embeding artwork
does that lower the quality of the song? or embeding the artwork not have any real effect on quality?

thanks in advance

using xld on mac

Reply #1 –
For me i use a one size fits all which is 256 AAC, They sound fantastic and play on all my devices.  @256 AAC i can not ABX anything everything sounds the same to me I was at that stage at 192 but increased the file size just to be safe.

If you don't want to have 2 libraries and you want to stick with MP3 do some ABX test, start at about v4 and work your way down to v0 when you no longer can hear a difference stick with that.

Adding artwork to your file will not alter the audio quality in anyway.

Another suggestion is rip all your CD's to Apple Lossless (Perfect Quality). When copying your songs onto your iPod you can select itunes to automatically copy them over at 128 aac which will sound excellent for portable use and you'll be able to fit far more songs.

using xld on mac

Reply #2 –
If you're going to go to the trouble of re-ripping your entire library, you should definitely take Billy's advice and archive the music in a lossless format like ALAC or FLAC. (I assume they're comparable, as I've only dealt with FLAC.) Should you ever wish to re-encode your lossy files for any reason in the future, you can do it from your lossless files instead of having to re-rip the entire collection a third time. If you have a TB of storage, you might as well utilize it.

using xld on mac

Reply #3 –
Flac is more popular though if your main hardware/software is iTunes iPods best stick with ALAC. In the future if you change your set up you can always convert your ALAC to FLAC with zero quality loss.
 

using xld on mac

Reply #4 –
thx for replies

i am still not sure what to do lol

is 128aac better then 128lame? because if i go with flac and then use itunes to copy over to ipod using 128aac i would like the quality to be good since i have much better headphones then stock apple ipod ones

and how can i embed the itunes artwork on my songs? since itunes has really good quality artwork and i am using xld and it doesnt have access to itunes artwork

using xld on mac

Reply #5 –
Quote from: extrafuzzyllama on
is 128aac better then 128lame?

While AAC does have technical improvements which allow it to achieve higher quality at lower bitrates than MP3 in a general sense, both can achieve transparency, and what quality settings are necessary to achieve transparency differ from person to person. It depends more on how good your ears are than how good your speakers are. The only authoritative way to answer the question is to conduct ABX tests yourself. Nobody can tell how good your ears are but you.

using xld on mac

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Billytheonion on
In the future if you change your set up you can always convert your ALAC to FLAC with zero quality loss.
Unless your ALAC files do not decode losslessly due to that pesky bug that was recently reported!

Regarding the notion that the perceptible quality of lossy encodings may change depending on your hardware, I wouldn't put much stock in it.  There are lots of claims being made but I've yet to see any ABX tests to support them.

using xld on mac

Reply #7 –
Quote from: extrafuzzyllama on
and how can i embed the itunes artwork on my songs? since itunes has really good quality artwork and i am using xld and it doesnt have access to itunes artwork


Once you encode your songs and add them to iTunes you can just select from the Advanced menu Get Album Artwork (You need a iTunes store account)

You could always get them manually from various sites on the net Album Art Exchange is a good start.

Also on the Mac there are many great utilities that will handle your Artwork, "Coverscout" is  is one