[johnnylexus]

I just bought the 20 gig PJB100. Wow.

I need advice on how to get the highest audio quality in the songs I put on it. The Jukebox Manager software that comes with it will copy songs over at 320000 bit rate.

What will give me the highest quality ..
(a) using Jukebox Manager at 320 bit rate, or
(b) using Roxio CD Creator to rip the tracks onto my hard drive using 320 bit rate and then copying them onto the PJB??

Thanks for your help!

p.s.
thanks to a headphone guru I found on Brighthand discussion board named "iansir" for getting me into this stuff.

 

[chadbang]

You lucky dog! That's a very cool unit. I read of review of it in the British Hi-Fi magazine and they loved it. They said that it uses the Fraunhofer codec to encode MP3s which they say is the best encoder you can get. You should use the software that came with the unit. How much did you pay for it and where did you buy it?

 

[chadbang]

I found it at mp3factorydirect for around 500 dollars for the 20 gig model. Which color did you get? I'm so intrigued with this unit I just downloaded the Mac software for the PJB100 to play with. Hopefully I can get some action out of it.

 

[aeberbach]

http://www.r3mix.net is an interesting site. Many people disagree with him (asserts that MP3 of sufficient quality is indistinguishable from CD) but I don't know why he would bother to fake his test results showing frequency response of LAME vs. Faunhofer vs. Xing vs. other codecs. VBR encoding is almost certainly the way to go.

Once you've done all your encoding there is a mass-uploader for the PJB. See the pjb100 group on yahoo groups (egroups.com).

I like EAC/LAME combo - harder to setup, but good results. I do not like or trust any all-in-one programs like MusicMatch (I can hear that one is bad, and I hate ad-ware)

 

[chadbang]

aeberbach is actually correct. If you go to this link http://members.tripod.co.uk/sjw007/ it contains a comprehensive faq concerning the PBJ-100 and the author also recommends the EAC/Lame combo, although, as aeberbach notes, he says it's a bit more difficult to use.

 

[kerykeion]

I second EAC for ripping CDs to .wav The choice of encoder is tougher to choose though...

 

[Peddler]

I also use EAC and Lame - no problems my end and listening through Ety's and 888's - no problems.

 

[johnnylexus]

chadbang:
I paid $479US to www.provantage.com. Excellent service, no tax, prompt shipping.

Thanks everyone for your awesome advice regarding ripping and encoding. I went to www.r3mix.net and got the dope on this stuff. It sounds like it's probably worth it to go this way rather than using Jukebox manager.

I'm gonna give it a try.

Thanks again.

 

[MacDEF]

I would use your OWN best judgement as to what sounds best to you, rather than listen to the guy at r3mix.net. He has some decent tips, but the guy is completely clueless about many things relating to audio, so take *everything* there with a grain of salt.

 

[johnnylexus]

is it possible to use the Lame encoder to cut down on the treble a bit while it's encoding the tracks? my pjb=100 is pretty bright, and I would like to filter out some of the highs while encoding. the only "tone" adjustment on the PJB is three choices of bass boost.

Johnny

 

[Neruda]

I use EAC and LAME for encoding MP3's, and it's a very good combination. I can hardly tell the difference between a 256k mp3 and CD with those encoders.

 

[gorgon_123]

Quote:

I can hardly tell the difference between a 256k mp3 and CD with those encoders.

Listening through your soundcard?

 

[coolvij]

Hmph...out of my soundcard (SB Live!), sometimes MP3s sound *better*....don't ask.

Then again, out of my soundcard, everything is pretty unlistenable.....my tape Walkman sounds better, IMO

Anyway......I fine MP3 to be "thin" and slightly bright compared to the real thing...ATRAC is just as detailed, but sounds more detailed....hmm....actually, a perfect analogy:

MP3:ATRAC:CD
MX500:888:Something flat (HD600, V6, etc.).

IMO, and in my experience, of course...

 

[kerykeion]

Sorry dumb question... but what exactly is ATRAC? ... Is it a compressed format developed by Sony purely for MD usage? Can it be used to replace .mp3 files?? (forgive me if this was a trivial question

)

 

[beowulf]

Also very important is the quality of the CDROM reader. Many just don't offer flawless extraction.

Plextors are usually the first choice, and the UltraPlex 40 is still the king.

For ripping, after several years of doing DAE, I'd agree that EAC is very impressive for a free product. I've seen it beat monsters like Padus' Diskjuggler and other classics like CDRWin and Plextools.

With several of my classical music CDs, EAC has been the only ripper that has *never* failed the determination of gaps/indexes which are sometimes tricky.

Quite a nice product. Considering price, the LAME encoder is also excellent, very good quality, for nada.