MP3 ripping question

[gballard]

I recently purchased a new stereo for my car that plays cds, mp3s, and wma files. I plan on ripping several cds this weekend and I was wondering what route I should take for this. I have been experimenting with some different techniques. I have downloaded and installed CDEx and ripped the files to .wav and then used DBPowerAmp Converter to convert the .wav files to 192kbps mp3 files. This seems to work well but it is a bit time consuming. The other method I used was using CDEx to rip the cd audio files directly to mp3. This method seemed to work well...but the resulting mp3s were only 128kbps. I have read were alot of you audiophiles swear by 192kbps. I currently have a cd full of 96kbps WMA files that sounds very good on the new stereo but I am thinking I want to go the mp3 route for this.
Any ideas or opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Petros]

MusicMatch Jukebox is the most popular, and fairly inexpensive. The latest versions of Winamp do this for free. Personally, I like and use Easy CD-DA. All these programs find the track names automatically using CDDB.com, and they rip/compress them in one step.

By the way, I am an audiophile to some degree, and a person would be committing crimes against sound when ripping at lower than 160. 128? Compress one at 64kbps, listening for the obvious sound errors on a good set of speakers, then listen to one at 192. Now, listen to the same file at 128 and you will here the compression loss that you heard at 64kbps, just not to as great a degree. 192 is preferred. Much higher than that and the human ear can't really tell. I know people will argue with me and tell me their Sennheiser headphones can showcase the difference, but that's just getting too picky. Who would pay $600 for headphones?

 

[gballard]

Well I did another test and ripped track #9 from Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Dulcinea". I first of all ripped it to .wav with CDEx which resulted in a 34 meg .wav file. I then ripped it with CDEx straight to mp3 which resulted in a 3.09 meg 128kbps mp3 file. I then used DBPowerAmp converter and converted the .wav file to a 192kbps mp3 file. I am guessing its just the crappy speakers I have here at work but I honestly do not hear a huge difference in the 128 and 192 files. I will copy these files to my thumb drive and take them home and listen to them on my 5.1 speaker system there. The difference in the file size is negligible so I think I will just rip em to .wav and then convert them to 192kbps. I should still be able to fit a fair amount of mp3s on a cd for my new stereo.

 

[Petros]

Cool! The reason you can't hear the difference might be that you're not sure yet what you're looking for. Try compressing one at 64 and you'll know what sampling errors you're trying to find.

FYI....

5,600,000 kb per 700MB cd
192kb/second = 486 min/cd (8.1 hours)
128kb/second = 729 min/cd (12.2 hours)

 

[gballard]

OK...you are exactly right...I converted the .wav file to a 64kbps mp3 and the difference is like night and day between it and the 192kbps mp3 file. Looks like 192 is the way to go...thanks for information...its been enlightening to say the least.

 

[rushm001]

128k should be alright for listening to in the car. Unless you have a really good stereo.

 

[Petros]

It all depends on the quality of your sound system... It would be better to have the 192kbps so when they're played on a high-quality system, they wouldn't have to be ripped and encoded again.

 

[rushm001]

I'm 192k all the way too.

 

[SPeedY_B]

I agree, Definately go for 192k

 

[NuclearSmegma]

ummm.....ditto

 

[Sparsely]

Use Exact Audio Copy to rip with Lame -alt presets to compress. You'll get Variable Bitrate
files that are the same size as a 192, but it will be a perfect reproduction.
It's not quite as straight forward and user-friendly as some of the other ripping software,
but once you learn it, it's the best there is.
There's an excellent article/tutorial here:
The Quintessential Guide To Creating The Highest Quality MP3s On Earth

btw: everything used to rip in this method is free.

 

[Petros]

Originally posted by Sparsely
There's an excellent article/tutorial here:
The Quintessential Guide To Creating The Highest Quality MP3s On Earth

btw: everything used to rip in this method is free.

I'm looking it up now! I love sound!!!! I want to marry it.

 

[gballard]

could anyone get those configs to download?

 

[Sparsely]

what configs? The Adapters? If you know which one you need, I'll attach it.

 

[Adrenalize]

Use audio grabber it uses the lame encoder and has worked well for me

 

[gballard]

I need the config for adapter 1

 

[Sparsely]

k.
had to rename the attachment to a .txt file, so just download it then
save change the extension to .cfg.

 

[gballard]

gracias

 

[gballard]

grrr...i renamed it .cfg but it will not load it

 

[Tuffgong4]

why not just use dbpoweramp to rip straight to 192 mp3...it's free and is the best I have used to far....has all types of codecs and uses them as well as possible...I haven't seen anything better