Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

[siege72]

Hi,

I'm a bit puzzled by something and am wondering if anyone can clear it up for me. When ripping a CD to .aac format using iTunes and doing the same thing using dbpowerAMP, the latter's file is quite a bit larger than that converted by iTunes (19684KB vs. 3543KB in the sample file I did). Is there a setting in dbpoweramp that will allow the converted .aac file to be as small as one converted with iTunes? The reason I'm looking into this is because iTunes puts a very tiny gap at the end of tracks it rips (I'm using the newest version and this occurs regardless of whether gapless playback is chosen or not). Therefore I'm trying alternate methods. dbpowerAMP does not put the gap at the end, but the file size is much larger. Can anyone provide input?

Thanks,

siege

[LtData]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

What encoding settings are you using for dMC and iTunes?

[siege72]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

What encoding settings are you using for dMC and iTunes?

I'm using the default in iTunes: AAC Encoder, High Quality (128 kbps). Not really sure how to check what I'm using in dbpowerAMP. What is dMC?

[LtData]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

Sorry, dMC is the shortened version of "dBpoweramp Music Converter".
As for what you use when your encoding with dMC, you should see a bar with a slider in the CD ripper window under the "Encoder" tab at the bottom of the window, beside where you select the format you want to rip to.

[siege72]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

Sorry, dMC is the shortened version of "dBpoweramp Music Converter".
As for what you use when your encoding with dMC, you should see a bar with a slider in the CD ripper window under the "Encoder" tab at the bottom of the window, beside where you select the format you want to rip to.

I see. I was originally converting to .aac by right-clicking the tracks on the CD itself and selecting "ConvertTo", as opposed to the CD Ripper window. In the Ripper window, the Apple Lossless Encoder Settings are 16 bit, stereo, mono. I also tried 24- and 32-bit to see if the settings would change (being a novice at this as I am) and got the same results.

[bhoar]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

I see. I was originally converting to .aac by right-clicking the tracks on the CD itself and selecting "ConvertTo", as opposed to the CD Ripper window. In the Ripper window, the Apple Lossless Encoder Settings are 16 bit, stereo, mono. I also tried 24- and 32-bit to see if the settings would change (being a novice at this as I am) and got the same results.

Apple Lossless Encoder (ALAC) != Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

-brendan

[siege72]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

Apple Lossless Encoder (ALAC) != Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

-brendan

Ah, I got Apple Lossless and AAC mixed up. I'll try the Nero AAC thing and see how that works. Might have more questions later...

Thanks for your help so far.

[siege72]

Re: Ripping CDs to .aac: iTunes vs. dbpowerAMP

OK, got the conversion to work fine through dMC (using Average Bit Rate 128kbps), but it's also putting tiny gaps at the end of each track like iTunes did. Is there a way to avoid this? Thanks.