[Silver5656]

as a lot of other people i have a lot of 128 mp3's (as well as 192 and even some up to 320) and i was wondering what the best way to keep the "quality" up.....i noticed that winamp only rips to 320.....is this the max?.....and if so is winamp ok to use? or should i use something else.....

 

[tigre]

What do you want to use these mp3s for - Listening on PC only or do you play them back with a portable/car mp3CD/ DVD player?

For PC only (HDD space is cheap) and maximum possible quality you might want to use lossless formats instead of mp3 like Wavpack, Flac or Monkey's Audio.

 

[UberNewb]

Rip with EAC and encode with LAME.

There are some excellent instructions at http://www.chrismyden.com/nuke/article.php?sid=111

 

[cmascatello]

I use EAC to rip from CD to WAV and then use any one of a couple of external compressors for the final conversion in EAC -- FLAC for my Karma and archiving, AAC for my iPod, LAME mp3 for the older DAPs. You can not beat the error checking and secure ripping of EAC.

 

[pkasting]

Indeed, EAC is a great ripper. LAME is the best MP3 encoder; generally --alt-preset-standard, which is around 192 kbit VBR, is a good size vs. quality tradeoff. You can go up to 320 kbit CBR with MP3s.

If you are willing to use lossy compression and you don't need to stick with MP3 as your format (i.e. you don't have to play your collection on, say, a portable that can only handle MP3s), there are several "better" formats out there, where better is typically defined as "better sound quality at the same bitrates" but may also mean "better tagging scheme," "open source," "plays on my iPod," etc. The hydrogenaudio forums ( www.hydrogenaudio.org ) are a good source of info about this kind of thing; they do codec shootouts and such. After reading there, I'm using Musepack (.mpc) for all of my music, since it offers one of the best quality-per-size ratios (much better than .mp3) and it supports ReplayGain. Ogg Vorbis is another good format. Frankly, a LOT of things can beat .mp3-- .aac and its variants, .ogg, .mpc, .wma even. The only reason to use .mp3s is for compatibility purposes (but that's a big reason).

However, if you want the absolute best quality, you'll need to use a lossless scheme like APE or FLAC. This will be ~10x bigger than MP3s but still maybe half the size of WAVs with absolutely no quality loss. This is the definitive "archival" method, since you can always recompress your APEs or FLACs in a lossy way just as you can recompress CDs.

 

[Distroyed]

Stay away from vbr's if you have low volume music or even music that is at times low volume; you'll hear the difference.

I like ogg's with electronic music as well as mpc's, though lossless is always the way to go if you have the hd space.

 

[Silver5656]

wow so complex =P.....well i plan on using it for my pc only for now but i plan on getting a portable like ipod/iriver or even a pcdp (maybe mp3 compatible)....so i guess for now i'll be messin with eac....hope its not hard....i gotz me a LOT of cd's to rip.....good thing i got 2 computers

 

[Silver5656]

well ok i figure if imma use a lossless i might as well just make full copies of my cd's since i dont mind carrying them around (i can just use nero, copy cd, for this, rite?).......and i figure i'd use the highest quality mp3 i can find for my pc/portable......some of my cd's are quite priceless to me so i want to use the full copies for future rips and what not.....no loss in quality, rite?.....also i was messing with eac/lame (for like 10 minutes) and i can only choose 320 but no vbr cbr or whatever (what do those mean anyways?)......is that good enuf?.....320 using eac/lame?...or is there better mp3 (i ask mp3 since its the most common)

 

[Silver5656]

ok one more question....if i use loseless should i just stick with .wav using eac?.....i dont mind that its 2x as big as ape/flac as im too lazy to go do it......also there is no difference when i encode .wav into mp3 as using a cd ripping it to mp3, rite?

 

[cmascatello]

So many questions...

VBR = Variable Bit Rate
CBR = Constant Bit Rate

You can go from WAV to any compressed format in the same way that you would go from CD tracks to compressed -- there will be no loss in quality by using the WAVs as your pristine source.

One main reason to use EAC is for the error checking and secure ripping features which allow EAC to return 100% rips with no sound anomalies, even with quite scratched media. If you are going to be ripping a massive amount of CDs and storing them in pure WAV for archival purposes, it is worth the extra bit of time to make sure that the copies are clean through EAC. If you do a search you will find a number of tutorials and FAQs for using EACs functions and the plethora of external compressors that EAC can dump to. I would also recommend making a run over to the hyrdogenaudio.org forums -- that community is the "braintrust" for CODECs and extraction utilities. If you are serious about digitizing and storing audio, that place is a must.

 

[Silver5656]

ok headin there now.....so i assume cbr is better than vbr? (since i dont need to save any room) and cbr goes to 320 and vbr only goes to 192......

 

[Music Fanatic]

Quote:

Originally posted by Silver5656 ok headin there now.....so i assume cbr is better than vbr? (since i dont need to save any room) and cbr goes to 320 and vbr only goes to 192......

Well, it is not so clear. There is a lot of argument over which is better: CBS or VBR. Personally, I only use VBR 320 for those rare circumstances when I need to rip MP3s.

VBR can also go as high as you want (up to 320) -- it is not limited to 192.

 

[Silver5656]

hmmmm eac/lame doesnt seem to go up to 320 vbr.....only 192....but it does go to cbr 320

 

[blessingx]

Forget the drop down options in EAC and use the command line below it (will override). Generally most would probably take "--alt-preset insane" over 320 CBR. Both 320, just insane still does a little filtering (I think). But if you want 320, just type "--alt-preset cbr 320". I can't think of a reason to use VBR or ABR at 320, but if you want, type "--alt-preset 320". You're already at the max though so I'd only use ABR/VBR below 320.

If you use "--alt-preset standard" or "--alt-preset extreme", the bitrate can go to 320 if needed (within calculated range). This is where space savings, while still "maxing out", can occur. Personally I think the difference between -aps/-apx and -api is very small compared to -api and uncompressed or lossless. For that reason I use -apx or lossless (FLAC). 224 AAC has replaced -apx here though.

 

[Silver5656]

well im rippin the same cd into a buncha different specs and imma see which ones best....hehe...insane....sounds cool tho =P