Where does iTunes store the files when it rips one of my CDs?

[STW]

Thanks. Good news.

So should I change my preferences back to MP4? Is MP4 better than MP3?
I don't have any players other than the iphone, a new ipod Nano 5th Gen., and whatever players are on my laptop (WMP, QT, iTunes).

So far, the transition of my music lib to the ext. drive is going very smoothly with iTunes:

It asks whether you want to replace files and I said "replace" and you can watch the files disappear one by one from the folder in the old lib location as they populate in their new format in the new lob folder.
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Very grateful for the help on BH. As you can tell from my device history, I've long been interested in mobile computing, but I never paid enough attention to laptop/desktop software. Whereas the iphone was very intuitive to learn--like the Mac tradition--I did not find iTunes very intuitive to learn, but I see I missed obvious things that are easy. So thanks for the help. Now if Apple would only let someone make a bluetooth compact keyboard for the iphone, my wish list would be complete.

[Hook]

Yes, mp4 is a better quality codec, bitrate for bitrate, than mp3, so if you only have an ipop, you may wish to leave them as is.

[STW]

...So should I change my preferences back to MP4? Is MP4 better than MP3?
I don't have any players other than the iphone, a new ipod Nano 5th Gen., and whatever players are on my laptop (WMP, QT, iTunes)...

Guess I'm asking what's the difference between the various iTunes importing standards:
AAC Encoder
AIFF Encoder
Apple Lossless Encoder
MP3 Encoder
WAV Endocer

Will have to start googling here and do a BH search, but if there are any guidelines I should be aware of I'd be grateful.

[Varjak]

Hook, not to put too fine a point on it; but doesn't Apple sell BOTH (protected and unprotected) and charge a premium for unprotected music files? Maybe that was just transitional.

STW, check Wikipedia on Audio file formats. But in general, from 'best' audio quality (and generally larger files) to lowest:

WAV (this is basically equivalent to CD Red Book Audio in quality)
AIFF (it's equal in quality to WAV, but there are some other minor differences, and I believe it's a bit less commonly accommodated by devices.)
Apple Lossless
AAC (Also had user-definable parameters; but less commonly usable my non-Apple devices)
MP3 (there are lots of user-adjustable parameters for MP3's so you can adjust the bitrate, etc. to improve the audio quality or shrink the file size)

[Hook]

Hook, not to put too fine a point on it; but doesn't Apple sell BOTH (protected and unprotected) and charge a premium for unprotected music files? Maybe that was just transitional.

I think that was transitional, but I have been out of the iTunes loop so long that I could easily be wrong. An iTunes person needs to confirm this.

[STW]

Hook, not to put too fine a point on it; but doesn't Apple sell BOTH (protected and unprotected) and charge a premium for unprotected music files? Maybe that was just transitional.

STW, check Wikipedia on Audio file formats. But in general, from 'best' audio quality (and generally larger files) to lowest:

WAV (this is basically equivalent to CD Red Book Audio in quality)
AIFF (it's equal in quality to WAV, but there are some other minor differences, and I believe it's a bit less commonly accommodated by devices.)
Apple Lossless
AAC (Also had user-definable parameters; but less commonly usable my non-Apple devices)
MP3 (there are lots of user-adjustable parameters for MP3's so you can adjust the bitrate, etc. to improve the audio quality or shrink the file size)

Thanks. Still researching this, but now wondering why it's not standard practice to use WAV files? Just storage space because they're quite large?

[Hook]

Thanks. Still researching this, but now wondering why it's not standard practice to use WAV files? Just storage space because they're quite large?

Precisely. The files would be huge.

[Varjak]

STW WAV files ARE HUGE. That said, that's what I usually use (on a Palm); because pTunes doesn't handle WMA Lossless or FLAC (compressed but lossless formats that are typically half the file size of the equivalent WAV file).

On the plus side, SD card storage is becoming ever more capacious and cheaper; but recently at too slow a rate. When SDXC cards are prevalent, they should be cheap, and having a terabyte on a card won't seem outlandish.

As a side note, you might want to try EAC (Exact Audio Copy). I got the recommendation here on BH (Thanks yet again BH!), and it's phenomenal. You can even set it to rip a CD and automatically create both an MP3/AAC/FLAC/WMA etc. file and a 'source' WAV file. Fantastic.

Exact Audio Copy

[Guest]

You can indeed tell iTunes to change where it stores its files. You do not have to manually move them. Just change your library location under Preferences->Advanced. The fastest way to find where a track is located on disk is to control-click/right-click the track and choose "Show in Finder/Windows Explorer."

iTunes can rip CDs as MP3 or AACs (among other formats), and files you rip from CD yourself never have DRM. The AAC format generally produces higher quality files than MP3 at the same bit rates. Audio files purchased from the iTunes Store also never have DRM. (There was a transitional period after DRM was removed where you could get DRM-free versions for an additional charge.) TV shows, movies, apps, books, and some music videos purchased from iTunes do still have DRM, because the content providers require it.