[woodytone]

i just recently got an i pod and the itunes compression program does a really bad job of converting cds to mp3s. does anyone know of a good program to make mp3s. i don' t know much about compressing, encoding, decoding or whatever you call it. also i was wondering what the difference is between the quality of Mp3 and ACC. and which is better.

 

[cmascatello]

Do not be afraid to use the search function in these forums b/c the same or similar question(s) get asked a few times a week...

That being said, use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for your ripping from CD and then LAME if you are looking to use mp3 and Nero if you are looking for AAC (or the m4a of the iPod). AAC is purported to sound better than mp3 at equivalent bitrates, but the -alt presets in LAME are pretty damn good too.

EAC: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de
LAME: http://lame.sourceforge.net/
Nero: http://www.nero.com/us/index.html
Hydrogen Audio Forums: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ (good site for CODEC settings and compression talk)

 

[blessingx]

There's an AAC test going on over at Hydrogen Audio at the moment, but right now it's difficult to recommend Nero over iTunes for AAC. Even after the test it may be as the test is only at 128 kb/s, but Nero does have the advantage of VBR presets. Those presets are a bit bloated as the come out about the same size as LAME, thus missing AAC's advantages, but this will likely change very soon. Reported size is the big focus for the next update.

Keep an eye out for the HA results, but otherwise give 192 or 224 AAC a shot in iTunes.

 

[woodytone]

awsome thanks for the info. you have good taste in music too. the bach cello suites happen to be my favoite peices. you should check out edgar meyers recording of suites 1,2, and 5 on the double bass. its pretty amazing. i havent heard Mstislav Rostropovich recording but i hope to very soon. i have yo-yo ma's and i can't imagine that it gets any better than that. i want to get casals and starkers recordings also. laters!

 

[stark23x]

Just as another opinion, I think iTunes does a terrible job with converting WAVs and CDs to MP3. It works well if you rip the wav first with error correction, THEN as a seperate function encode the WAV to 320 MP3. Anythng else just doesn;t sound good to me.

EAC and LAME is the way to go.

 

[PooJou]

For ripping CD's - use a program called 'CDEX' - its very powerful and contains a lot of options for mp3 encoding (using LAME inside it)

 

[woodytone]

does anyone know if the quality of your cd player has anything to do with the quality of the mp3 or acc or is it just stricktly the program that you use? cause i think my cd player on my computer sucks and my computer sucks for that matter. will buying a better computer make the sound quality of the mp3 better?

 

[blessingx]

It's more an accurate rip IMO, then a sound quality thing. If you have a decent drive coupled with a decent extraction prog (and of course a decent encoder) you should be fine. Interesting, likely because of a better drive, I lately have been getting better rips with an external Firewire drive off iTunes w/ec (on OS X), than built in drive and EAC (on W2K). If you run EAC you can see how accurate the rip is (the reporting is just as important as the actual rip), so if you're getting 99-100% accuracy and using EAC to kick off LAME or then import into iTunes to encode AAC, it should should do a good job and you're unlikely to get much better quality elsewhere. Only other thing is if you're getting problems in the encoding if your CPU is over taxed, etc.