Switching from a Somewhat "Audiophile" to a "Normal Listener"

[Xomphos]

Hi,

Over the past few years, I have been upsessed about the audio quality I rip/convert my music at. I decided to go with Lame V2 at 192Kbps VBR. I had some songs already ripped at/around 192kbps with .wma encoding. Then, I ripped my albums at those LAME settings. Then I converted the .wma's at those LAME settings using dbpoweramp.
Recently, I have realised that I am not really taking advantage of the whole high-quality audio. I have continued to use the stock Apple ear-buds and I do most of my listening on my iPod/computer/car. I recently sold my 1st Gen 2GB Nano and my 5.5Gen 30GB Video and got the 16GB touch (love it by-the-way ). I also have been downloading songs from iTunes lately, something I couldn't see myself doing much on earlier.
So, my question is, can I convert the already converted wma's to 128kbps .aac's in iTunes without a noticable loss of quality? I can re-rip my CD's at 128kbps but what about the wma's that I have already once converted? I can see this considerably increasing space/easibility by going to the default quality/size.

So, what should I do?

Thanks!

[Galley]

lossy + lossy = extra lossy
lossy + lossy + lossy = super lossy

[misper666]

don't mean to offend, as you listen in your car & that... but apple earbuds? they have short limitations. even a bog standard 128 mp3 will sound better with different / better ear / headphones or stereo setup. that's more important. looks like you're going for file space, which is a choice everyone makes. of course headphones don't have anything to do with this, & should surely come before worrying about bitrates? you'd still have respectable filesize, like you been using lame, which has improved greatly.

so, speakers / phones first, encoding second (imo).... i reckon if you want quality AND space then import CD or download at whatever sounds ok to you for the filesize trade offs (you decide), AAC is better than mp3 with similar size etc etc... when you're happy & you think you're in the ballpark you'll know, as the urge to rerip / re-encode (...) will fade.

personally i think enjoyment of music can be diminished by all this so just go out & buy some more music & ENJOY (with better headphones)!

[kornchild2002]

I use the stock Apple earbuds almost on a daily basis. Pretty much anytime I take my iPod out in public. I have some Sure e3cs and some Bose Tri-Ports but I don't really feel comfortable taking those out in public as I don't want them to get physically damaged. I think the stock earbuds provide enough quality for general listening in public. After all, noisy environments diminish your listening quality anyways. Walking on the sidewalks, driving in your car, riding on the subway, etc. Those are all noisy environments that can diminish your listening experience thus limiting the audio bitrate and quality of headphones that you use.

As for the OP, it is all up to you but I wouldn't do it. Go back and re-rip your CDs then leave your mp3s (the ones converted from the WMA files) as they are. It would be better if you could find those source WMA files and convert them to 128kbps AAC using iTunes. If you can't then I suggest you just leave those mp3 files alone. You can try converting them to 128kbps AAC but you will probably notice a loss in audio quality. Try it out for yourself though. Convert a track or two and give them a listen. If they sound terrible (when compared to the mp3 themselves) then don't convert them. Your best bet would be to see if you can download those songs off of the iTunes Store or go out and purchase the CDs.