1) Tip No.1   ‘Getting CD quality into your iPod’

When importing your CD collection into iTunes, select ‘WAV’, ‘AIFF’ or ‘Apple Lossless’, if you want to enjoy CD quality sound. Using one of these import settings, will ensure that iTunes transfers the music from your CDs onto your hard drive, at the highest possible quality.

Obviously these high resolution files will take up more room on your iPod, so you may not be able to carry around 1.2 million songs. But who cares! Who really needs access to so much music at any one time? If all your music is sitting on your computer anyway, you can simply update your iPod with other albums when ever you like. That’s what ‘play-lists’ are for.

Remember, your iPod should not be used as a repository for all your digital music. If it dies, so does your music. It is simply a player, and should be treated as such. All your digital music should live on your computer and backed up on an external hard drive. In this way, you can load different albums onto your iPod when ever you like, with the comfort of knowing you’re listening to the best possible quality, not some degraded MP3 file. Below are some simple instructions, to change your import settings on iTunes to CD quality;

a) Open iTunes & under the iTunes Menu, select Preferences

b) Under the General Menu, select the Import Settings button

c) Choose WAV, AIFF or Apple Lossless from the menu and press OK

 

2) Tip No.2    ‘High quality MP3s’

If you simply must use a compressed format such as MP3, then at the very least, set your import settings to 320kbps. This is the highest quality setting for MP3s, and should be the lowest quality of audio you listen to. To select the highest quality MP3 setting in iTunes, do the following;

a) Open iTunes & under the iTunes Menu, select Preferences

b) Under the General Menu, select the Import Settings button

c) Choose MP3 Encoder from the top menu, as well as Custom in the second drop down menu

d) Select 320kbps in the Stereo Bit rate, Drop down Menu

 

3) Tip No.3  ‘Connecting your iPod to your hi-fi system’

If you’re playing music from your iPod, through your current stereo system, then you may find the following tip very handy.

To get the best quality, audio signal from your iPod, use an iPod ‘dock’, in conjunction with your stereo. i.e. Take the ‘line out’ of your docking station and connect that to your stereo. Avoid using the headphone output of your iPod to connect to your stereo, as this circuit provides an inferior quality of audio compared to the ‘line out’ of your dock.

If not already packaged with your iPod, finding one of these cables is easily obtained from your local electronics or hi-fi store. Essentially the cable will have a mini jack on one end, and a stereo pair of RCA connectors on the other.

The 3.5mm mini jack looks like the headphone connector on your ear buds.

The RCA connectors look like the familiar red and white connectors we’ve used for years to connect our audio and visual equipment at home.

The mini jack simply comes out of your dock, and the RCA connectors plug into your stereo, L & R inputs. Done!

Author:  J. Carra