nmorin Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 So, I am newish to ripping my CD collection to MP3s. What sampling rate do you guys generally use? My audio equipment is ok at best--I am nowhere near an audiophile--but I don't want my music to sound like there's a washcloth over the speakers, either. After some very quick playing around, I haven't noticed that much of an audio degradation at 128 Kbps; but in the not-too-distant future I hope to upgrade my audio equipment, so I don't want to be re-ripping everything in 2006 because the 128 Kbps sounds like crap on a good system. Any suggestions? Is 300+ Kbps the way to go? Norm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdogus Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 I find that 190 kbps sounds just great. I can't tell the difference between that and higher rates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcello Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Well, I can certainly hear a difference between bit rates! The higher the rate, the more information you hear. Don't you want it all? If you have a Mac, you can rip with the Apple Lossless program and burn at a very high rate. Right noe I'm listening to a selection from Mike Pope's "The Lay Of The Land" ( by the way, a fine recording with Tain, Joe Locke, both Breckers and others) from my computer at 970 kps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Dye Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 There are several factors to consider when ripping ones collection to digital audio. First is the size of the file. If you have limited hard drive space or you have a digital audio player with a small capacity, then choose a lower bit rate. 128Kbps MP3's are compressed by a factor of about 10. You can store 9-10 albums ripped at 128 on a single CD-R. Second is sound quality. Lossless compression is great if you have unlimited storage space. There are several options. Apple recently jumped on the lossless bandwagon with its own lossless codec. There are several others, including FLAC and Monkey's Audio. Lossless codecs shrink the file size about in half. Although you have no loss in sound quality, most players do not support lossless codecs. MP3 is the most widely supported codec so I would probably use it. Especially since you are ripping your collection for the first time. You should also be aware that there are many different MP3 encoders out there. Some sound great and some sound terrible. I suggest using the LAME MP3 encoder. I rip my files at 192 or at variable bit rate using the --alt-preset standard tag. (if you don't know what that means, follow the links below... If you have a mac, use the iTunes to LAME encoder whick can be found HERE. If you use windows, use Exact Audio Copy to rip your files and the LAME encoder plugin to convert to MP3. They can be found HERE, and HERE. There is a ton of good encoding information at Hydrogen Audio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcello Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Thanks Jim, for the information. I must say though, that I have played my files from Apple Lossless on all sorts of players, both older and newer machines, and have not had one that would not play the files. As far as storage space goes you could always buy some external storage, but my Mac, unlike a PC, is a efficent machine/OS and therefore has room to spare. Not to mention that I don't have to worry much about viruses and all of the other problems that come with a PC! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmilovan Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 Apart from high bit rates there is one more thing important in encoding process (we're talking about LAME, aren't we) and that is: optimisation for quality encoding. Needles to say, so adjust LAME (I'm using it with RazorLame GUI) can be dangerously slow - about 12 minutes at 0 class settings (here small values means more quality), comparing to around 15 seconds at bad quality settings. If you want quality, you'll have to wait Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 I would avoid anything below 196 or VBR (for stereo; you can get away with less for mono). Above that, it's a compromise between sound quality (or what you can hear) and storage space. Just remember that MP3 is *not* an archival medium - it's a way to store more audio data in a given storage space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Dye Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 (edited) Ars Technica has a new Guide to Ripping and Encoding Music. Lots of good information! Edited January 11, 2005 by Jim Dye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Dye Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 Hmm... the link works for me. Just go to www.arstechnica.com and you'll see the article on the home page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
couw Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 Hmm... the link works for me. Just go to www.arstechnica.com and you'll see the article on the home page. Great, Thanks Jim! The reason that it works for you is that it's still in your cache. well, it works for couw too. And he can assure you it was NOT in his cache. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.