iTunes File Formats – Which Is The Best?

It would have been great if there was only one music format to meet all the needs in terms of sound quality and size, but this is a matter of feature. Different file formats have their ups and downs. Generally, if you choose a format in favor of size you trade the sound quality of the music and vice-versa!

iTunes gives you the possibility to rip songs in the file format you want them to be saved in. In iTunes you can choose two of the most common file types: MP3 and AAC. Besides the two mentioned iTunes also offers Apple Lossless Encoding, AIFF, and WAV music formats. The last two are used for CD burning and feature high-quality, uncompressed files. This means they have greater size than other file types.

ACC

AAC is considered to be the format which preserves the highest sound quality of all the compressed formats. Plus its size is slightly smaller than that of MP3 files. The reasons lay in technical features it has got.

Information: AAC (Stands for Advanced Audio Coding) is an audio file format meant to be the successor of the MP3 format. It was developed by a group of companies as more efficient compression scheme than MP3. AAC is not so frequent file format as MP3 is. Some of the reasons are: it is a newcomer; it is shaded by the rise of Windows Media.

AAC is the native iTunes file format! This means it works with your iPod, besides it is supported by Microsoft's Zune, Sony Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable, as well as some cutting edge cell phones. It is often blamed for its lack of compatibility with low end devices.

MP3

MP3 is highly demanded for its compatibility! Almost every portable audio player and cell phone supports this audio file format. Small file size is another strong point of MP3!

In terms of sound quality, MP3 lags behind AAC and this can be a serious issue for 'quality hounds'.

Apple Lossless

This file type is appreciated for highest quality sound, but is often avoided because of compatibility. It works only with iTunes and iPod. Besides it creates larger files than AAC or MP3. The process of encoding occurs slower.

"Old man's" Advises

iTunes Music Store provide music only in AAC format. Any song or album you get from the iTunes Music Store comes as an AAC file type and works with all iPods.

If you are a die-hard fan of iPod and iTunes then ACC format is just what you need. If you are going to switch to another device go with AAC too, because you can always convert AAC to MP3 using iTunes! In the meantime, your music will sound good and will be safely stored.

Note: AAC files from iTunes are authorized to play on a maximum of 5 computers. Let call it a form of digital rights management! What you should know about it is that computers can be authorized and unauthorized depending on your needs.