Hi,
My PJ CDs are all ripped @ 320kbps but they still sound shitty. Granted, I have small speakers but some other CDs sound so much louder @ 192kbps. Dry and Rid Of Me are especially "low"; I've ripped them using iTunes and then my trusted Easy-Cd-da Extractor but even with the volume up to 100% they don't sound satisfying enough. I was thinking of downloading some "lossless" copies I've found 'cause I don't know how to rip my copies into that format.
Why is it that only PJ's CDs sounds bad @ 320? What would be better than that format? What are lossless copies like, would I be able to add them to my iTunes and stuff?
Any input would be appreciated

edit: Well, I stopped being lazy and looked up .flac and got some answers. I ripped TBYML in one .flac file and holy fucking God it is glorious–it's like a whole new experience.

edit #2: OK, I think I got to the bottom of this. It wasn't the 320 rip, it was iTunes itself. I went to the PJ file location on my hard drive, and played TBYML with vlc player and then compared it with iTunes and it was a huge difference. Why would the same song sound different in different players? My volume adjustment is at none, which I presume is the correct choice.

edit #3: I messed with the equalizer (View, Show Equalizer) and put in these settings and it made it a bit better, still lower than through other players though. What do you guys have yours at?

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I'll rub it, until it...

I'm not an expert at this by any means, but I have noticed that there are significant differences in the loudness between differently sourced mp3s. This should be a simple scaling problem taken care of by increasing or decreasing the volume.

I suspect there may be loudness differences between players also. I use vlc from most everything now. I got tired of having to update itunes (at 60-70 MB each time) and pitched it.

Itunes also installs a very chatty multicast network protocol called Bonjour. This is how ipods find each other. Without an iPod there is no reason to have this stuff busying up your network.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JelqPcoaAB8"

Thanks for your input. I was pissed off that night but changing the equalizer settings helped. I like how everything is in one place in iTunes, and how it keeps track of your play counts and such.
The updates and the space/memory requirements are really annoying though. To think I've been listening to all my CD rips all this time in a much lower volume

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I'll rub it, until it...