Posted by Broadway Blue on 10/21/06 19:52

Joel wrote:
> "Broadway Blue" <blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
>
>> Still, I wouldn't advise anyone to convert one compressed file
>> format to another. As the resulting file wouldn't sound as good. But
>> your suggestion would be better than the recording it via Audacity
>> one!
>>
>> Why would the OP buy an AAC file format track from iTunes if he
>> wanted an MP3 file format track? If it's on iTunes, the track must be
>> available online somewhere else in MP3 format surely?
>
> I've done many iTunes to MP3 conversions, and they sound nearly
> identical with --preset standard (hell, even 160 JS, half the time).
> It's a perfectly acceptable method, especially since I don't play
> files with iTunes, ever, nor do I want to play discs.

Yeah, but why buy an AAC file from iTunes just to convert it to MP3? The
DRM protection can be stripped from the iTunes AAC file with QTFairUse 6
and played as an AAC file without using iTunes. So why re-convert an
already compressed file, in to another format compressed file? Different
forms of compression strip away different bits of information. So
reconverting, whilst it may sound ok, is never best practice. My point
was rather that any track available from iTunes (as AAC) is probably
available in MP3 form somewhere. Buying an AAC file just convert it to
MP3, doesn't make sense to me.

[Back to original message]