hi,

since my pc's down, i'm going to use itunes to encode my cds.

I used to rip with EAC or CDEX and lame 3.97 -V0 or 320 but I still want to get mp3 files for maximum compatibility.

Itunes is very simple so I won't use max or any other ripper (nor lame for itunes) except for scratched discs.

I've read that itunes mp3 improved a lot since my last readings.
256kb & best quality are my settings : I hope it's overkill even with itunes...

Can somebody confirm this?

thanx

Well, if you really must stick with iTunes, why not use the Lame plug-in? I know you said you didn't want to but that would avoid any confusion and you would know that -V 0 = -V 0, you would have to do any guessing about what the quality would be like using the iTunes mp3 encoder.