Solution for iTunes Cutting off Songs Near End

For a few years now, I've wondered why some of the songs I imported to my iTunes library were cut off near the end of the song (often around the 3:10 mark). I tried everything and spent hours reading forums on the web, but nothing helped. Today, I finally found the problem and solution, and I wanted to share it with others.

My iTunes library is over 11 GB, and my iPhone is only 16 GB so my entire library cannot fit on my phone. To fit as many songs as I can on my phone, I convert the audio quality to 256 kbps on my phone (audiophiles may disagree with me on this, but there really isn't a discernible difference, especially when using earbuds). I realized that the songs that kept cutting off were the ones that had a sample bit rate of 48 kHz. The problem with this is that the highest sample bit rate iTunes offers for AAC encoding is 44.1 kHz. I'm not entirely sure if this is right (I'm not an audio expert), but my guess is when iTunes downconverts to 256 kbps, it converts to AAC. However, if the original audio file is 48 kHz, it gets cut off since the sample bit rate is higher than iTunes can handle. This is why most of the song is played, but the end is cut off. I found that the solution to this is to convert your audio files so that their sample bit rate is 44.1 khZ. Once I did this, the entire song played. It's not a perfect solution since you have to convert audio files, which takes up time, but it's the only solution I found that works. Luckily, converting from 48 to 44.1 kHz doesn't compromise audio quality; 44.1 kHz is the sampling rate of CDs, and gives a maximum frequency of 20 kHz, which is the highest frequency audible by humans.

Hopefully this helps other people who have the same problem. If not, good luck and I hope you find the solution you're looking for. Sorry Apple for not following the rules >.<