AAC, AIFF, Lossless, MP3

true enough you cant specify the bitrate in vbr (because, by definition, it is variable) bit if you set itunes at vbr highest quality you can approach 320 avg bit rate. i actually prefer using EAC with LAME or WAVPAC to get best results.

Portugal11: Just a little OT, but you don't have to have the Nike sneakers to use the Nike shoe chip. Just buy a shoe pocket or ShoeWallet that velcros to your sneakers, and it'll work just as well.

Yes - you definitely always want to have "error correction" checked!! This is critical especially when you are doing lossless for archival and hifidelity use.

While the EAC fans will argue that they still get a better rip, in my experience "error correction" gets you 98%+ of the way.

BTW do some searching here in the PC Audio Forum and in Audio Asylums PC Forum - you will find that a lot of people are maintaining dual file formats - not the easiest thing in the world but hardly impossible.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?icomp&1146119362&read&3&4&

I found myself in similar situation. 800 + cd's ripped to apple loseless on my mac and a handfull of ipods, nano, mini, shuffle, video, etc. for different family members. I found an apple script that takes selected apple loseless tracks, rips them to AAC transfers the AAC to your Ipod, then deletes the AAC from your itunes library. Now there isn't a mixup of which files to toss and trouble keeping track of multiple trascks ripped to different compression ratios. here is the link.

http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts07.php

pete

I continue to be stuck on some recurring thoughts every time this conversation pops up in a new thread:

* I still don't understand how someone else knows what I or anyone else can or cannot hear.

* I am sure my ears are not as golden as some on this forum, but for me, the difference between MP3 and WAV was clearly audible using an iPod played through my Nakamich car stereo in a Porsche Boxster S with the top down.

* Hard drives are cheap and getting cheaper so why all the emphasis on saving disc space?

* Given that you might be using your Nano for commuting or going to the gym, do you think that, say, 10,000 songs instead of 50,000 might be sufficient to get you throw your 30 minutes on the elliptical machine or whatever?

* This is AUDIOgon, not CONVENIENCEgon

* In summary, could anyone please contribute more information and keep us updated on how we can have bit for bit, uncompressed WAV files, easily tagged with track information and playable on the hard drive based device of your choice?