What settings do you use to import from CD to iTunes?

[deckeda]

[quote Dennis S]I used a friends iMac to load some CDs for another friends iPod. I think I switched from AAC to AIFF. Should I call her and tell her to switch back?
Depends on what the goals are. I store every original CD in iTunes as ALS (Apple Lossless) because I won't knowingly compromise sound quality. When moving songs to my iPod I just leave them as ALS --- it holds a kajillion songs still.

On the other hand, if your friend has a Shuttle or nano and is wanting all her songs on it, or doesn't want to often rotate songs on and off it, that's another matter.

[Dennis S]

She has around 90 GB left on her HD with little chance of filling it up. The songs are going to a 30 GB iPod and thye iPod user is not an audiophile.

[mikebw]

Personally, I have it set to 256kbps AAC. I also have over 10,000 songs, many are just 128kbps mp3, over 60GB for my whole library.

For your friend, unless she has very nice headphones (like $200 or more) and a trained ear, there is little chance she would be able to tell the difference between 256kpbs AAC and uncompressed AIFF.
In terms of file sizes, 256kpbs AAC is about 1/6th the size of AIFF, 128kbps would be about 1/12th. If capacity is not a concern then think about processing time, on an iPod that also translates into battery life. The more the iPod is accessing the disk the more power it's using, so having smaller files can translate into longer listening times.

[deckeda]

[quote Dennis S]She has around 90 GB left on her HD with little chance of filling it up. The songs are going to a 30 GB iPod and thye iPod user is not an audiophile.
If she can't hear the difference --- or more importantly, doesn't care about it --- between lossy and lossless formats than she might as well store everything as small files.

[DP]

If it's going into your iPod, why wouldn't you use MP3 Encoder at 192?