Well so far I've backed up a few of my favorite albums I bought from iTunes and burned them as Audio CD's, and I would really like to convert them to MP3 so i can listen to them on my xbox media center, so i was wondering which preset in LAME would be the best for losing the least amount of quality? Thanks in advance!

Ira

From a quality perspective, it's best to turn them into MP3s directly. JHymn will do that for you for all iTunes versions up to 5. 6 is not yet supported.

I would have loved to go that route, but I am stuck in the iTunes 6 boat for now I'm sorry I forgot to mention my itunes version number in my last post

Assuming there were no errors in burning and re-extraction from the CD there will be no quality difference.

Ofcourse, going straight to MP3 from iTunes AAC as you suggest is far more practical.

I believe XBMC already supports AAC, so if you use iTunes 5 or wait for the updated version of JHymn you could play the files directly on the Xbox.

Yes sir it does support aac but only in the unprotected flavor right now and at the moment I'm using iTunes 6 so i have no way to unlock my purchased aac files until jhymn updates, and I'm not to hot on waiting possibly a few weeks to a month, especialy when i've already burned the albums to cd to rip them.

So what I was wondering is which LAME preset would be the best to rip the cd's at? Because I know the purchased aac's aren't lossless, and I also understand I'll be losing quality, But I just want to lose the least amount of quality I can at the moment, Thanks again

Ira

Obviously the CBR maximum bit rate (AKA preset insane or -b 320)

And recommended settings stickies aren't there to be ignored.

If the Xbox plays lossless, I'd go that route. Especially if it's just a couple of albums or some random tunes.

XBMC does play lossless (I think). Pretty sure it supports FLAC and Monkey's Audio.