Quote Originally Posted by Slosh
edit: short answer = yes
Yeah, but that's not exactly what I do. I rip everything in lossless then make mp3 copies with MM just for the iPod. The transcode/sync thing that MM Gold does allows you to get mp3s on the iPod without having to keep those mp3 files on your PC. I don't do this because sometimes friends want to put some of my stuff on their mp3 players so I just keep all of my mp3s in a separate folder away from "My Music". Lame V0 @ 245kb/s sounds great but the encoding time is sloooow (but definitely worth it).

If I ripped in mp3 I would definitely use MM (over iTunes) and then add those songs to my iTunes library. MM itself can sync to the iPod but then you give up smart playlists and gapless playback (if you have a 5th generation or newer iPod, that is).
Do you know if this will work with a 4th gen iPod? I've been looking for a reason to justify an upgrade. This might be it.

I don't see Lame VO @245kb/s on MM. Do I need to upgrade to the Gold version? Is Extreme VBR @ 256kbps the same? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm not very savvy when it comes to this kind of stuff.

As for keeping stuff on my computer...I've got 150 GBs of free space, so I'm not too concerned.