[iFerret]

So, with my not-so-arge music collection, and my not-so-large iPod, plus alot of Podcasts, I've run out of space.

Generally, all my audiobooks and podcasts are m4b format, and my songs are mp3- but, which is the best compression format for it all? I'm not an audiophile, but half-decent sound quality is important- no crackley things decent definition, okay bass and treble, etc.

So, what's best?

[Dave]

AAC, 128kbps or 160kbps. AFAIK, anyway.

[julesstoop]

One rule of thumb: try to keep transcoding at a minimum. Once your songs are in mp3 it's not a wise idea to transcode them to mp4 (AAC). The loss of quality compared to a track which has been directly encoded to the target format is simply too high.

For an iPod 128 or 160 kbps AAC is indeed high enough. If you want to play the songs in a HiFi environment, use at least 192 kbps AAC better higher still.