I just got an Ipod G3, which I'm using with Itunes and Windows XP. I'm pretty new to digital music, but I consider myself a bit of an audiophile, and have a nice Meridian music system I do most of my listening on at home. I'm put around twenty albums into Itunes, using AAC at 128kbps, and the sound quality is borderline-acceptable for portable use on the Ipod, but wouldn't cut it if I plugged into the Meridian system, which I'm sure I'll do quite often for convenience sake. I know I can bump the bitrate to 320 and make a considerable gain in sound quality, but the thought of re-ripping all those CD's makes me a little sick. Is it possible to alter the bitrate on CD's already ripped to Itunes, and then reload them to the Ipod? I'm guessing I can't do that, as 128 is the rate they were initially formatted to Itunes, but I'm hoping for some good news! Is there some sort of comparison chart that might show how changing from format to format and bitrate to bitrate affects file size? This might be in interesting project for someone in the 'lounge to undertake, but they'd have to be much more computer literate than I am!

Cheers!

Joe