iTunes idiot needs some help

First, you need to get realistic. You can't compress 400 CDs to fit on a 20GB iPod with acceptable sound quality. Period. So you either have to get a bigger iPod or leave some of your music off it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

How much music you have to leave off depends on what sound quality you're willing to live with. When you say you "hate the sound of MP3s," I suspect you mean 128kbps MP3s. My suggestion is that you try ripping MP3s at various bitrates, copying them to the iPod and deciding what you can live with. You might find that 160 or 192kbps gives you a pretty good compromise between compression and sound quality. At 192kbps, you can store almost 250 CDs on a 20GB iPod.

iTunes is not a full-service audio program, so you may have to try other software (like LAME, as Ed suggested) to convert your WAV files to MP3s. iTunes should give you the ability to maintain more than one music library (I know it does on Macs). I'd keep my WAVs and MP3s in separate libraries.

I think I was getting 10:1 compression using the LAME alt preset extreme setting, which, to my ear, sounded far better than similar sized constant bit rate (CBR) mp3s. The extreme setting has been argued by a number of folks to be total overkill, and for an iPod it may well be (I was listening in a home rig). Look at the alt preset standard setting and you may get the compression you need. All of the "alt presets" are variable bit rate schemes with various coding tweaks to maximize sound quality for a given file size.

Think you can also set up LAME to batch process...

I want to do the exact same thing as you. I want to be able to keep my collection on the computer as (Apple) lossless, and somehow sync a compressed version onto my iPod. This will allow me to Airport the (uncompressed) music to my receiver from my computer, yet still be able to fit my whole collection in my (40G) iPod.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to do it without maintaining two separate libraries. I don't want to do this because I've already changed titles, composers, artwork, etc. to perfection. Just can't consider keeping two versions up to date. Hopefully Apple will make an update, but maybe not, since it's sort of a niche capability for audiophiles.

FYI, my encoded files with 128k AAC sound great through my iPod and Ety ER4P earspeakers. I experimented with higher bitrates, and couldn't hear a difference (not one I could identify consistently). I think 128 AAC is similar to if not better than 192 mp3, but of course this depends on many variables, including which encoder is being used.

iTunes can maintain multiple formats of the same song in the same library. Start by importing the music uncompressed (wav of aiff format). Then go to Preferences and change the importing format to your desired compression scheme (mp3 or aac). Highlight the songs you want to format change and choose Advance/Convert Selection to. iTunes will keep the original uncompressed files unchanged and generate new files in the compressed format. You can then use the smart playlist feature to easily sort the two different formats.

BTW, Pableson is right. You won't be able to fit all your songs on the iPod regardless of the compression scheme you use.

"There must be a way to grab the WAV files off my hard drive and using iTunes compress the files, store the compressed music in a directory on the drive, and then load my iPod with the compressed files."

Jeff, Here’s one way. Open up iTunes so you’re in your Library of uncompressed tunes. Go to iTunes Preferences. Under Pref:Importing, select your compression format. Under Pref:Advanced, change your iTunes music folder location to a new folder.

Your compressed tunes will be saved to this new location. Your uncompressed originals will remain where they are, and they will remain in your Library. The Library can point to tunes in multiple locations.

Select an original tune, or all your original tunes, go to the iTunes Advanced menu, and choose Convert Selection To [whatever compression format you chose will show in the menu]. iTunes will start making compressed copies of your originals. Both the originals and the compressed versions will show in the Library. So, you’ll have two of each tune you’ve converted.

At this point you could load your iPod. Go to the iTunes Edit menu and choose View Options. Check the box next to Kind. Then, in the iTunes window you’ll get a column that shows WAV or MPEG or AAC or whatever. You can sort on this column to separate your WAVs from your compressed tunes. Then you can select the whole group of compressed tunes and drag them over to your iPod.

What to do with the compressed doubles in your Library? You could just delete them (from the Library list, not from the hard drive), because if you need to access them again, you can always restore them to your Library by dragging song files or folders straight from your hard drive into the Library icon in your iTunes window. If you delete them, unless you’ve already reset your iTunes music folder location to its original location, iTunes also will ask you if you want to erase the tunes you’re deleting from the iTunes music folder. Answer no, so that your folders of compressed tunes will not be deleted from the hard drive.

The key to all this is to be familiar with the Preferences menus. Each time you import or convert something, make sure you know what compression or lossless format Preferences is set to and which folder on your hard drive is currently designated the iTunes music folder.

Hope this helps. By the way, I like AAC 192 kbps for listening to the iPod through Sennheiser 580’s. That’s where diminishing returns really kicks in for me. I feel kind of stingy about iPod disk space, however, and I know others who are less focused on conserving space would see that point of diminishing returns differently.