[Del Griffith]

I use my er4p's with my Ipod and I encode at 196 with musicmatch. My question is ... Would there be another cd ripper out there that does a better job ..ie better mp3's for my ety's. I hear talk on different forums of ceartain rippers producing better quality mp3's and with something as good as the ety's.. I wonder if I could produce a much better mp3 or if musicmatch is ok. Anyone out there using ipod and ety's and might have some input I'd appreciate it. Thanks......

 

[blessingx]

Yeah. Since you're on a PC go EAC or RazorLAME to use the LAME encoder at --alt-preset standard (or --alt-preset fast standard) or --alt-preset extreme (--alt-preset fast extreme). The one setting is likely to give you slightly lower average bitrates, the other higher. You may want to check the Source and Portable forums where this is often discussed or head over to the MP3 forum at Hydrogen Audio.

 

[Mr.PD]

Be careful Del Griffith, everyone here hates Musicmatch.
Everyone except me. I have tried EAC and LAME. I didn't notice any difference in the music, and those programs were soooo slow on my system. But, I set Musicmatch to encode at 95% on variable bitrate and I upped the maximum bandwidth to 20khz.
Come to think of it, my comparison was done a long time ago when my settings were lower than they are now.
For me, the ease of use from Musicmatch is worth what ever slight difference there may be in quality of mp3.
BTW, I have the Ety ER-4s now and my mp3's still sound great even when compared to the CD's I make from wav files.

 

[fractus2]

I use my ER-4S with my 1st gen iPod and also use EAC V.09B4 and LAME 3.92, using alt-preset standard. Good luck.

 

[downingp]

I use Media Center 9. It is similar to Musicmatch, in that it is in an "all in one program". However, it is ten times better. It uses Lame as the encoder. I have compared the bitrates with EAC/Lame and have found them to be the same. It is a great program to use if you want something similar to Musicmatch.

 

[Del Griffith]

Where can I get media center 9? Is it freeware or how much$? Thanks for the reply.

 

[blessingx]

Magic Google reveals-
http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/

Remember iTunes for Windows is also coming out by end of year (though if like the Mac, it will feature the FhG MP3 encoder). You'll likely get AAC support though.