128, 192 or something else??
Never really doen it before so any help would be apprceciated

 

Higher the better, imo 192 is min. If you have capacity go for 256 or 320.

 

That'll do nicely, thank Paul

 

what software you using? cos i need some again!

 

Windows Media Player

 

If you are ripping for a portable MP3 Player or to listen to on your PC then 128 will be fine.

If you are going to listen to it on any kind of decent amplification either incar or in the house then go for the highest setting Media Player will allow which is 356 or something like that.

Did a back to back test with a track playing from CD and the same track playing from my PC through my hi fi and there was a staggering difference.

Even at the highest quality there was still a lack of depth on the MP3 version but it was acceptable.

 

Bugger, just done 6 CD's at 256kbps!!

 

If I am ripping an audio CD to be made into an audio CD (ie playable on any CD player) then I rip using Windows Media Player, in WMA filetype, at the highest (variable) setting. This uses the most filespace and the total size can be massive (I have some normal 70min CD albums ripped taking up over 500mb each!!!)

But if I am making an MP3 disc I rip to MP3 (naturally) at a set bit rate. If it's for use on my PC going to my hifi via the optical cable (from my uprated soundcard) I generally use a minimum of 192k, or usually 256k. If it's compressed to fit on a CD-R, then I will most likely use 192, or if it's going on a personal MP3 player (like my phone for example, where you use headphones to listen to the music) then 128k is fine.

There is a lack of depth with MP3 vs standard CD quality - thats just part n parcel of the MP3 compression. WMA is slightly better, and better still is WAV (close as you will get to CD quality replicating), but the file sizes go up with the last two comparred to MP3, eben at the same bit rate. A WAV file at 128k can be 4 times the size of the same track ripped into MP3 @ 128k

For those that want legal ripper programmes, I either use Windows Media Player for the WMA stuff as it nicely adds all the track, artist, album details along with an album cover pic to my files, or if I am doing MP3, I use a programme called Express Rip, from this website;

http://www.nch.com.au/rip/index.html

It's very quick, very easy to use and navigate, lets you modify or choose specific locations, add info to rips and does virtually every type of digital audio compression and bit rates currently about

Whats better is it is legal and free

 

James, what are you going to listen to the CD on?

 

In car audio
Hi spec headunit, amps, speakers and sub

 

As said then higher the better but imo i doubt an in-car system would really show the difference between the higher bit-rates and lossless compression.

 

Paul - I agree. Lossless only really comes into effect of decent home audio situations really.... For the car, I wouldn't bother going higher than 256k in WMA or MP3, at a push I would go to 320k, but there wouldn't be a huge gain, and I'd sacrifice such a tiny improvement to have a couple more tracks on the disc...

You will never get the super low, "phat" bass from an MP3 anyway, due to how it is compressed. There are some formats that ensures quality even better than that of mp3, i.e. LQT AAC which is often called mp4. But its bitrate is limited by 192 kbps, and it's exactly that that makes it awful for fans of mp3 @ 256/320 kbps. Besides, it makes stronger requirements to hardware than mp3. The last problem is temporary, though. Nevertheless, nobody would doubt that mp3 is still a leader in compatibility.

Well-encoded MP3 files can sound pretty darn good, considering how small they are. Your typical MP3 file is around one-tenth the size of the corresponding uncompressed audio source. How is this accomplished? That's a somewhat complex topic, but here it is in short!

Uncompressed audio, such as that found on CDs, stores more data than your brain can actually process. For example, if two notes are very similar and very close together, your brain may perceive only one of them. If two sounds are very different but one is much louder than the other, your brain may never perceive the quieter signal. And of course your ears are more sensitive to some frequencies than others. The study of these auditory phenomena is called psychoacoustics, and quite a lot is known about the process; so much so that it can be quite accurately described in tables and charts, and in mathematical models representing human hearing patterns.

MP3 encoding tools analyze incoming source signal, break it down into mathematical patterns, and compare these patterns to psychoacoustic models stored in the encoder itself. The encoder can then discard most of the data that doesn't match the stored models, keeping that which does. The person doing the encoding can specify how many bits should be allotted to storing each second of music, which in effect sets a "tolerance" level - the lower the data storage allotment, the more data will be discarded, and the worse the resulting music will sound.

MP3 files are composed of a series of very short frames, one after another, much like a filmstrip. Each frame of data is preceded by a header that contains extra information about the data to come. In some encodings, these frames may interact with one another. For example, if one frame has leftover storage space and the next frame doesn't have enough, they may team up for optimal results.

At the beginning or end of an MP3 file, extra information about the file itself, such as the name of the artist, the track title, the name of the album from which the track came, the recording year, genre, and personal comments may be stored. This is called " ID3" data, and will become increasingly useful as your collection grows.

MP3 uses two compression techniques to achieve its size reduction ratios over uncompressed audio-one lossy and one lossless. First it throws away what humans can't hear anyway (or at least it makes acceptable compromises), and then it encodes the redundancies to achieve further compression. However, it's the first part of the process that does most of the grunt work, requires most of the complexity, and chiefly concerns us here.

Perceptual codecs are highly complex beasts, and all of them work a little differently. However, the general principles of perceptual coding remain the same from one codec to the next. In brief, the MP3 encoding process can be subdivided into a handful of discrete tasks

Along the way, many other factors enter into the equation, often as the result of options chosen prior to beginning the encoding (more on those in Chapter 5). In addition, algorithms for the encoding of an individual frame often rely on the results of an encoding for the frames that precede or follow it. The entire process usually includes some degree of simultaneity; the preceding steps are not necessarily run in order. We'll take a deeper look at much of this process in the sections that follow.