Except by encoding your MP3s into AACs, you lose quality. Yes, this hint is complicated, but it really is the best way to change your podcasts into normal MP3s without loss of quality.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Well, I not so sure about the loss in quality. I just converted a (mono) MP3 Podcast by using the Convert Selection to ACC menu.

Original MP3: Bit Rate = 64kbps, Sample Rate = 44.100 kHz. Converted to ACC: Bit Rate = 128kbps, Sample Rate = 44.100 kHz.

From iTunes Help: The higher the Mono or Stereo kilobits per second (Kbps) or Bit Rate, the higher the audio quality and the larger the file size. The higher the sample rate, the higher the quality and the larger the file size.

Its likely that the loss in quality you experienced is due to your ACC import settings found in iTunes' Preference pane.

That said, I would just use the "Convert..." menu item.

stan

[ Reply to This | # ]

Regardless of bitrate and sample size, converting from one lossy compression format to another will always lose quality.

AAC and MP3 use different algorithms to determine which parts of the sound can easily be removed to make the filesize smaller. If you run both compression schemes over the same data, you will lose both sets of sound.

Even though the files may not end up any smaller, some of the sound data will be degraded.

(Technically, even if you recompress an MP3 as MP3, you will probably lose some sound data, even if you go from 128 to 192, same as recompressing a JPEG will always lose some more of the image data.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

And 99 times out of a hundred, the loss will be below the threshold of human detection and so is irrelevant.

[ Reply to This | # ]