I usually use AAC when recording songs on my iPod nano, but when playing them through the sound system on the xD, they don't sound so terrific. Should I be recording at higher quality and suffer the decreased capacity, like maybe AIFF or Apple Lossless? THanks for any insights.

 

maybe you should just up your bitrate on aac, I usually rip into 192kb/s aac which is equivalant to about 256k mp3, which is pretty decent. The default is 128bit aac. The Apple DRM free tracks come out at 256k AAC so you can go up to that is you are really concern which is like ripping into 320k mp3. That way you get better quality without bloating up to the size of lossless.

 

My ears might be pretty bad, but I'm usually ok with 192kbps MP3 - anything higher and I can't tell the difference. I only use AAC for converting my old MP3 audiobooks to get the "bookmarking" feature.

You guys with quality ears make me jealous

 

Maybe it's because the speakers in our cars suck???

 

I have noticed that when using both the Aux jack and the Ipod jack that the sound quality goes down over all...I can have both my stereo and mp3 full blast and its not to loud....then switch to radio and its normal again.

 

Yea actually the quality of the songs I have are great (sounded great in my old car) but when I use the iPod port in the car I hear static. It's really annoying because its the only mode that has static coming from the speaker.

 

these systems were made for the average joe.. my roomate loves his xa's ipod system, but i hear flaws and lowered sound quality. the systems arent bad or anything, just not the best. ive heard much worse factory "upgraded" systems, but ive also put together much better systems for fairly cheap.

 

Thanks for the insights, everyone. My problem was not with static or any other kind of artifact, but with lack of dynamic range through the car's sound system. But since CDs and FM sounded okay, I guessed I needed something better than MP3 or AAC.

Re-recording on Apple Lossless has made a significant improvement for me, and I would recommend it.

 

Did you notice any improvement with just a higher bitrate as I don't want to burn all the space with lossless if I could just use 192 or 256bit aac.

 

Yes, I don't blame you. There is an improvement at 256, and of course even more at 320bit.