[marcusgi]

Hello all, want to start off by saying how much I absolutely love this site. I have had Sony V6's for years and years. For Christmas, got some Grado SR80's. I am using a Creative Zen, have a Cowon D2 coming in the mail. I thought about getting an amp, but honestly, even the cheapy E5 seems like a waste from many opinions.

So now on to my question. When I recorded all my 500+ CD's, I knew nothing about true audio sound, recorded everything 192k MP3. Do you think I should rerecord all my music in 320k or a lossless format? Would I honestly be able to tell a giant difference ? The reason I ask, that is ALOT of work.

Thank you in advance for response.

Marcus

 

[wenhui]

Just rip it in whatever format that sounds nice to your ears man. Maybe rip 1 track first, to 320 and FLAC then see if you can tell the difference. If not then go for 320 is my opinion

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marcusgi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello all, want to start off by saying how much I absolutely love this site. I have had Sony V6's for years and years. For Christmas, got some Grado SR80's. I am using a Creative Zen, have a Cowon D2 coming in the mail. I thought about getting an amp, but honestly, even the cheapy E5 seems like a waste from many opinions. So now on to my question. When I recorded all my 500+ CD's, I knew nothing about true audio sound, recorded everything 192k MP3. Do you think I should rerecord all my music in 320k or a lossless format? Would I honestly be able to tell a giant difference ? The reason I ask, that is ALOT of work. Thank you in advance for response. Marcus

The big advantage of lossless is, of course, that it is...lossless. You get about a 50-60 percent savings in disk space, and you can be sure that you are not throwing any of your music away. You can then generate lossy copies of those FLACS (or ALACs, or whatever lossless format) if you choose to go that way for portable use.

It's really a matter of preference. There is no doubt that lossy compression is just that: lossy. You are irrevocably throwing away some of your content. Lossless is a great way to archive your material because it saves you some space and there is no cost in terms of sound quality.

Whether that is worth it to you is entirely up to you. Many people simply can't tell the difference between a 128k MP3 and a CD track, so for them the extra effort and the extra disk space are hard to justify. As for me, I'm not sure that I can tell the difference between say, 320k and lossless. But I can reliably tell the difference between 128k and 320k MP3, and that simple fact convinces me that I want my music archived in FLAC format. That way, if I want to go to a lower bitrate for portable use, I am still left with a reference quality file in the form of the original FLAC.

The hidden problem here is that, if you upgrade your playback equipment (better phones/speakers, better amp, better source, etc.) you run the risk of suddenly hearing a difference that your previous equipment couldn't show you. If you go with lossless, you're fine. But if you go with a low bitrate lossy format, you may find yourself unhappy.

 

[coolbluewater]

I was in almost the same boat as you (700+ CDs, D2 at the time) and you should think about picking up dbPoweramp Reference and converting them all to FLAC 8 for reference, then hitting up Newegg for a spare hard drive if need be.
It'll take you a few marathon days but it's worth it, and as the previous poster has said, from there you can convert to lossy formats for when you're going to be in an environment when SQ doesn't matter as much (or having a different player that won't play FLAC or lossless formats).

 

[sputnik13]

Why only 320 or lossless? You could experiment with VBR as well. I think if you can spare the cash for an extra hard drive like coolbluewater suggested, it'd be good for you to rip to FLAC and just save off for later so you'll never have to rerip your CDs ever again. Then you can convert those CDs to whatever format that sounds the best to you while giving you the most space. Fact is, lossless is great only if you can tell the difference. I would think that without really high end gear you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a really good MP3 encoding and lossless because you have to consider the whole thing as a system, and the quality you get is going to be only as good as the weakest part of the system.

 

[xaval]

Just experiment like everyone else has suggested. At home I can tell the difference between lossy, even @320, or lossless, but once I'm on the go it's all meaningless. Trust your ears first and share your findings!

I've opted out in the end to have a double music collection of lossless and lossy files (ogg) just because of that. Like you said, it's a lot of hork but you don't have to do it all in a day

 

[dharma]

arcusgi wrote: ...'Do you think I should rerecord all my music in 320k or a lossless format? '...

look for this thread too:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/stu...ml#post5530690

 

[krmathis]

Well, only you can tell if there are an audible difference between 192kbps MP3 and 320kbps MP3 or lossless.
I suggest you encode some test samples to different bitrates, and even codecs, then listen through them all. You also have to consider what you value most, sound quality or storage space.

 

[marcusgi]

Thanks for your help so far. I think I will test as suggested. I use CDEX to rip. simple. What quality do you recommend? default is preset fast standard. When I change it to High, I can change to mpeg I, II and II.5. I am not sure what the VBR is. variable bit rate? It defaults at quality 2.

Grado SR80, Audio Techna 700's, Sony V6

 

[member1982]

Depends also on how revealing your headphones are. Headphones such as lower end sony IEMs probably wont make much of a difference have a listen and when and if you got better gear... higher bitrates and / or lossless are a must.

 

[Barock]

I'd keep your 192k files maybe on an external hard drive, and recode your favourite albums/tracks to 320kbps or lossless (FLAC would be perfect for your D2). 500+ albums won't get you very far on your D2 at high bitrates - I can squeeze about 300 albums onto my 16GB + 32GB SDHC card at 256kbps.

I always think it best to have music files in a variety of bitrates - it takes (a little) more time initially to create them, but gives you much more flexibilty when trying to squeeze them on to limited capacity media. But definitely use a lossless format for encoding. If not now, then store them on a hdd for use at a later date. You'll be glad to you did it now rather than have to re-do them all again.

 

[marcusgi]

Has anyone used CDex to rip? When creating 256 or 320kps mp3s, do I want to use mpeg I, II and II.5? VBR method? New, Old, MTRH or ABR. VBR quality 0-9?

 

[chinesekiwi]

Since the D2 can take Vorbis, I'd rip to at least -q6 Vorbis.
Better codec than mp3 and you'll save space.

I rip to -q8 myself but -q6 is apparently transparent to most people.

Use this, nice and easy drop and drag GUI:

Download oggdropXPd 1.9.0 - A drag-and-drop Ogg Vorbis encoder/decoder/player for the eXPerienced user - Softpedia

Remember to change in to at least Vorbis -q6 in 'Encoding options' and in the 'tagging...' options remember to tick 'Copy comments from FLAC file' to avoid tagging pains!

 

[Nielo TM]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marcusgi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello all, want to start off by saying how much I absolutely love this site. I have had Sony V6's for years and years. For Christmas, got some Grado SR80's. I am using a Creative Zen, have a Cowon D2 coming in the mail. I thought about getting an amp, but honestly, even the cheapy E5 seems like a waste from many opinions. So now on to my question. When I recorded all my 500+ CD's, I knew nothing about true audio sound, recorded everything 192k MP3. Do you think I should rerecord all my music in 320k or a lossless format? Would I honestly be able to tell a giant difference ? The reason I ask, that is ALOT of work. Thank you in advance for response. Marcus

Hi,

Unless you're in a in a quite environment with a decent source and headphones, you won't be able to tell the difference between 128K WMA/ACC and Losless.

So on my PC, I've created two sets of folders. One for serious listening, and the other for portable use. For serious listening, I RIP CDs to WMA Lossless and convert MP3s to WMA Pro 10 128K. For portable usage, I RIP CDs and convert MP3s to WMA9.2 128K (for compatibility).

PS: I use WMA for the convenience, but you may want to try AAC, OGG etc...


PPS: Use Kill Bill Vol 1 OST: Track 10 - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda as a test sample. It's one of the best benchmark tracks as it easily can expose weaknesses of most codec and hardware (inc speakers and headphones). Make sure to concentrate during the intro and on time index 05:00 to 06:00

 

[theitchybeard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marcusgi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Has anyone used CDex to rip? When creating 256 or 320kps mp3s, do I want to use mpeg I, II and II.5? VBR method? New, Old, MTRH or ABR. VBR quality 0-9?

When using CDEX I suggest that in the settings you should select mpeg I, VBR is for variable bit rate, so it depends if you want a variable bit rate or constant bit rate. For 320's just use CBR, if you want bit rates at lowest 256 and highest 320 set VBR, it may save a small amount of disc space.

If you use VBR set the method to MTRH. Set quality to 0 Highest (takes longer). Thread priority at above normal and disable on the fly mp3 encoding.

Using the latest stable version of LAME will give you the best results with CDEX.