snowsurfer
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First of all, m4a is not a normal format, it is a container format, much like AVI, which means that it may have been generated with some the supported compression formats. The audio may already be compressed with lossy codecs (among them, MP3), or it may be lossless compression (Apple Lossless, among ohters).
On the other hand, 192 is a decent bitrate for listening on medium quality desktop speakers or an iPod with cheap headphones, but that's when you're ripping directly from CDs or other lossless compression formats (that originate from other non-lossy compression type, of course). Bear in mind that if your files are already compressed using lossy compression - when you take those and compress them further to a 192 MP3, the quality will suffer a noticeable hit. Only you can judge whether you care about that hit or if your system is decent enough to benefit from better quality files.
And yes, as previously mentioned, dbpoweramp is by far the best tool for doing it.
On the other hand, 192 is a decent bitrate for listening on medium quality desktop speakers or an iPod with cheap headphones, but that's when you're ripping directly from CDs or other lossless compression formats (that originate from other non-lossy compression type, of course). Bear in mind that if your files are already compressed using lossy compression - when you take those and compress them further to a 192 MP3, the quality will suffer a noticeable hit. Only you can judge whether you care about that hit or if your system is decent enough to benefit from better quality files.
And yes, as previously mentioned, dbpoweramp is by far the best tool for doing it.
