Audio Formats

There is no way that you can convert your AAC audio file collection to MP3s without quality loss. However, it is possible to do it. But remember, the quality will be worse when the files are converted to MP3 because AAC is already a lossy compression format. Lossy as in audio information is thrown away to reduce file size.

To convert your AAC files to M4A:

In iTunes go to Edit > Preferences.

Click Importing tab.

Change Import Using to MP3 Encoder and select a bitrate.

Now when you right-click your AAC files it will give you an option to convert to MP3.

Since you have an iPod why not just keep your AAC files? It's a better format than MP3 and you have portable support for it in your iPod as well as media players to play it on your computer (Winamp (www.winamp.com), iTunes (www.itunes.com), Foobar2000 (www.foobar2000.org) on Windows).

Saratoga has a point. Going to a lossless format does guarantee you the best possible quality and the ability to convert to a lossy format when needed with no quality loss. However, lossless compression formats use a lot of hard drive space. If you have say 300 albums ripped and lets say in MP3 they are around 20-30GB, FLAC will easily be around 100GB or so I believe as each album will be 300MB or more.

Winamp does have native support for AAC in versions 5.02+. Winamp is currently on version 5.03. Though the AAC plug-in available here (www.audiocoding.com) also has support for HE-AAC along with LC-AAC (all Winamp natively supports at the moment / what iTunes uses). HE-AAC is a form of AAC used by Nero's (www.nero.com) AAC encoder. It allows better quality at bitrates of 48kbps and 64kbps. LC-AAC is the standard form of AAC used. It's used with bitrates above 96kbps as HE-AAC really has no use at high bitrates.