As a former reviewer of music for an online magazine, I have hundreds of albums in my music collection. Most of those are from three or four years ago, as I don't buy music too frequently. Condensed music files have long had a place in my heart, because I love having any song at my fingertips. It's been a few good years of going through different types of mp3, but I've now decided to change formats.
I jumped on the MP3 thing as soon as I had Ethernet in undergrad. That would have been in late 1998. At that point the size of harddrives was not anywhere near as high as it is today, so I typically ripped at 128 or 160. I kept using the 160 until this fall when I switched to VBR with the target being 128. That captured the highs and the lows a little crisper. Now I've decided that AAC is the format I want to use. I like how songs in 128 AAC sound a little better and it uses less space.
The only problem with changing my format is that I have to rerip all the albums I own and I lose all the statistics on my iTunes. The first problem isn't all that bad, because programs make it extremely easy to load all the data of an album. However, I love the statistics I develop with me songs. Seeing when I last listened to a particular song, how many times I've heard it, and even what I rank it. It makes for fun dynamic playlists and a way to objectively state what my tastes in music happen to be.
Today my statistics will be starting anew as will my file format preference.
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Music file formats
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