Best Strategy to Rip AAC and MP3?

[sathomasga]

Now that I've joined the iPod family, I have a dilemma. My current music collection (all ripped from personal CDs) is strictly 128 kbps MP3. Alas, it won't all fit on my 40G iPod, as it's about 45 GB total. It will, however, fit if I re-rip to 96 kbps AAC. Since (I'm told) audio quality is comparable, and I don't really use the iPod in critical listening situations (gym, plane, car), I'm okay with 96 kbps AAC. Obviously, re-ripping 40 GB worth of CDs is a fairly massive effort, so I'd like to get this right. And I can't completely eliminate the MP3 format, since my home listening is with a Turtle Beach AudioTron, which doesn't support AAC. So, it seems like I have at least three ways to proceed. Comments and advice on any of the following are appreciated:

1) Rip everything at 256 kbps MP3 only, then use iTunes to convert to 96 kbps. (Some quality loss at 96 kbps, but is it worth worrying about? Also, is AAC tagging any better than MP3?)

2) Rip everything at 256 kbps AAC, then convert to 128 kbps MP3. (Higher quality "masters", but it locks me into AAC more.)

3) Rip everything at both 256 kbps MP3 and 96 kbps AAC. (Best quality in both formats, but gosh it's a lot of work.)

[Adam]

Go 1, its the quickest and your not going to notice when your sweating your butt off.

As for tagging, I believe AAC uses the same or very similar tagging system, and it isn't really superior in any meaningful way.

[clintb]

What's your desktop OS? If it's Windows based, here's what I'd do:

1. Rip to .wav with EAC.
2. Convert, but leave the source .wav intact, to .mp3 with Lame 3.90.3. Use "--alt-preset standard" as your commandline. This will average around 192~224.
3. Use foobar 2K to convert the .wav files to .mp4 at whatever bitrate you choose. I personally like to keep as high of a bitrate that I can, but not go overboard, since I listen on Etymotic ER-4P headphones. Those reveal any and all flaws present and/or introduced.

If you did your ripping with a concistent filenaming structure, then your tagging will be a piece of cake. I use "Artist - Album - Track # - Song Title.xxx" I use The Godfather for tagging. It's free, highly configurable and has a very simple interface.

I only have ~150 CD's, so space isn't much of a problem for me as an 80GB drive will hold all of those stored in lossless format (Monkey's Audio).