I listen to most all of my music through iTunes via a Mac Mini in my entertainment system. Most of my songs are in MP3, either 160 or 192 kbps.

Now that I have some REAL speakers, I'm thinking of re-importing my CDs in a higher quality format. iTunes offers Apple Lossless (which sounds very proprietary) and VBR (variable bit-rate) at up to 320 kbps.

 I'm very interested to hear from other forum members about their thoughts and experiences. If you are using iTunes, how do you import your CDs??

thanks,

rob welles 

I import mine in the Apple lossless AAC.  I don't magically get rid of my CDs when I do, so unless my desire to find another source to play them from trumps my love for the convenience it offers, I don't worry about the proprietary nature of it. 

The majority of my iTunes files are in 192 AAC, although since I have a big HD here at work a lot of stuff I download in FLAC I just decode and keep in .wav, but they do take up a lot of space.  If you use FLAC there are a few players that support FLAC playback like winamp and foobar. 

If you are going to go compressed I highly recommend AAC over mp3, as it sounds worlds better in my opinion. 

Like PJ, I too import everything using Apple Lossless.  I also keep my CDs for backup (and for my old car stereo that I can't hook my iPod to).

I would recovert your CD's, at least your favorite CD's.

I use Apple Lossless. Sounds the same as WAV. You can really tell the difference when you have a good soundsystem (i have a Pio 1018 and a set of 5T 4B 5C). Perfect example, i bought Portishead "Third", Santogold, and Coldplay "Viva" off of Itunes and they just didn't sound right when i played it on my system. I got so fed up with the sound quality i ended up buying the CD's and imported them Apple Lossless and they sounded glorious. So i started reimporting my CD's with Apple Lossless. Yeah the files are bigger, but hardrives are so cheap now there is no reason not to.