For MP3 I go for CD quality at 192 bit rate and that's for my headphones / travel use, other than that I'm an MD man . I don't know compressions and bit rates for IPods v MP3 but at 192 bit rate and compression all methods are getting equivalent as I understand it. You'd only bemoan poor quality if you record at lower sample rates. R3 on DAB is at 192, the rest of DAB is crap by comparison. Freeview, Sky etc are 192. Apples lossless will mean that it's compression like a zip file but can be reconstructed, like zip / unzip, whilst normal compression isn't . The processor unzips in real time.