QT exports aac audio as .mp4 and allows for levels of quality and options for streaming. I know that iTunes is leveraging the QT libraries, but what settings is it using? Can I change them? Why does it name the files .m4a? What's an m4a? Is that an mp4 + picture and lyric data?
It's all very schizophrenic right now. But I do highly recommend aac audio compression. It's warmer and smaller than comparable mp3 files.
In todays testing, 160k mp3 sounded worse than a 128k m4a, which still wasn't up to the original CD quality AIFF from whence it came. So my lingering question is, can it ever be? Should I consider importing in 160k m4a?
Anyway, I'm playing, I'll add more as I find it. Yay aac.