How do I choose the right bitrate?
This all depends on how you want to use your music collection. Do you want to play the music on a small flash memory based player (perhaps one with no moving parts that you take with you to the gym); or on your shiny new iPod that you got for the Holidays; or perhaps you want to crank out your tunes by connection your hi-fi to your PC. Heck, perhaps you even want to do all three (or more)! The higher the bitrate the higher the quality – it’s as simple as that. However, nothing’s for free – so, the higher the bitrate the larger the files are. So, on the small flash memory player you might want to choose a lower bitrate (such as 64kbps or 96kbps) so that you can get more music onto the device. For your iPod (or other hard disk based portable player) you probably want to choose 128kbps to 160kbps – this is a good trade off between size and quality (many people refer to this as CD quality [we disagree – see the next paragraph]).
This all depends on how you want to use your music collection. Do you want to play the music on a small flash memory based player (perhaps one with no moving parts that you take with you to the gym); or on your shiny new iPod that you got for the Holidays; or perhaps you want to crank out your tunes by connection your hi-fi to your PC. Heck, perhaps you even want to do all three (or more)! The higher the bitrate the higher the quality – it’s as simple as that. However, nothing’s for free – so, the higher the bitrate the larger the files are. So, on the small flash memory player you might want to choose a lower bitrate (such as 64kbps or 96kbps) so that you can get more music onto the device. For your iPod (or other hard disk based portable player) you probably want to choose 128kbps to 160kbps – this is a good trade off between size and quality (many people refer to this as CD quality [we disagree – see the next paragraph]). If you want to pump your music through your hi-fi then we sug
