Best audio format

jozza800 · 28 Mar 2008 at 20:48

I currently have my 250 odd CD collection burned onto my HDD as MP3s at 128kbps. This is mainly so that i can fit my collection on my Zen Vision:M.

Im wanting to keep my current set up as it is for my MP3 player.

BUT

Im wanting a better quality of audio to play from pc when im listening to music in my room. So a couple of questions...

1. What's the best audio format to use to rip the CDs

2. How do i go about keeping 2 libraries runnig at the same time (Media Player 11). One as my MP3 syncing library and the other high quality for bedroom listening?

Hamster · 28 Mar 2008 at 20:53

Can answer 1) for you: flac

Vegetarian · 28 Mar 2008 at 20:59

My only answer for question 2 is an older Sony mp3 Player such as nw-a808 that uses sonicstage - Its not such a bad programme now days.

Anyway rip music using atrac lossless - it auto saves a lower bitrate verson for its portibe verson - Atrac3plus 64 easy sounds as good as mp3 @128 - and its less than 27mb per CD!

theforce · 29 Mar 2008 at 00:56

My cd's are usually ripped using Windows Media Player using the Mathematically Loseless option using the Windows Media Player file format which is .wma from what i remember. The size of the files is on average 3/4 of the wave files on the cd but the audio quality is identical from what i can hear

For people like you though with a No swearing. Big Kev of cds the above option would probably require too much disk space.

Big Kev · 29 Mar 2008 at 08:18

Any lossless format will be good enough for you to store on your HDD, providing you have the room (about 200g), but if I were you mate, I'd rip all your cd's to 128 wma's, they'd be about the same size as 128 mp3's, but double the quality, just try a few out and see for yourself.

Vegetarian · 29 Mar 2008 at 11:18

Big Kev said:
Any lossless format will be good enough for you to store on your HDD, providing you have the room (about 200g), but if I were you mate, I'd rip all your cd's to 128 wma's, they'd be about the same size as 128 mp3's, but double the quality, just try a few out and see for yourself.

I would not say double the quality - maybe 10% better at 128. However, I still feel LAME MP3 sounds better over the board than WMA. The only problem with WMA on Zen Vision M is that it reduces battery life a little. After thinking about it for a little while, windows media player is your best option. RIP lossess and set up tranfering music to convert to wma128... you will then have lossless files on your PC and smaller files on your mp3 Player.

Flibster · 30 Mar 2008 at 00:39

As you've only got 250 CD's - capacity shouldn't be an issue. Try 1700+

FLAC for your machine.
Mp3 wise I'd go for 32-320kbps joint stereo for the portable.

No idea how to keep 2 libraries working though.

Vegetarian · 30 Mar 2008 at 00:45

Flibster said:
As you've only got 250 CD's - capacity shouldn't be an issue. Try 1700+

FLAC for your machine.
Mp3 wise I'd go for 32-320kbps joint stereo for the portable.

No idea how to keep 2 libraries working though.

As in the post above you....

Rip WMA lossess (thats what the libary will be in)

Sync mp3 player to convert whatever music you transfere to your player to 128

In the end you will have only one library on you PC - the lossless one. The library on your mp3 player will be the converted lossless one.

RobH · 30 Mar 2008 at 02:08

I heard that dbPowerAmp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com) is a good program for batch ripping. It can rip to FLAC and then convert to many formats.

Big Kev · 30 Mar 2008 at 02:24

Vegetarian said:
I would not say double the quality - maybe 10% better at 128. However, I still feel LAME MP3 sounds better over the board than WMA.

128 mp3 sounds awful, but a 128 wma sounds as good as a 256 mp3 to my ears and set up, although I do use 320 LAME myself when ripping now.

dbpoweramp is what I use.

Flibster · 30 Mar 2008 at 12:22

Vegetarian said:
As in the post above you....

Rip WMA lossess (thats what the libary will be in)

Sync mp3 player to convert whatever music you transfere to your player to 128

In the end you will have only one library on you PC - the lossless one. The library on your mp3 player will be the converted lossless one.

My players handle FLAC so I just stick that straight on it.

No need for syncing - drag and drop wins!

Vegetarian · 30 Mar 2008 at 15:03

Flibster said:
My players handle FLAC so I just stick that straight on it. No need for syncing - drag and drop wins!

So does my player Drag n drop! The OP player drag n drop's as well - but thats not the question the OP was asking... keep on topic

OspreyO · 31 Mar 2008 at 01:32

More important than the quality of the files, with be the source device and the headphones you use. You can get away with high quality medium bitrate lossy files, 192~256 most of the time. Also consider that larger files may not fit in the cache on you player and reduce battery life.

OspreyO · 31 Mar 2008 at 01:36

Vegetarian said:
My only answer for question 2 is an older Sony mp3 Player such as nw-a808 that uses sonicstage - Its not such a bad programme now days.

Anyway rip music using atrac lossless - it auto saves a lower bitrate verson for its portibe verson - Atrac3plus 64 easy sounds as good as mp3 @128 - and its less than 27mb per CD!

Atrac Lossless has a bug it in it that renders it useless, and nothing portable supports the Lossless format anyway. Really no point in using it. You can use WMA lossless to ATRAC in SonicStage, thats a better solution. If you want to use SonicStage and ATRAC. I think you'd be mad unless your determined to stick with it.

Some other media managers, like iTunes or MediaMonkey can encode on the fly from lossless to a lossy format for a portable. Slow though.

badbob · 31 Mar 2008 at 01:48

Using WMA means locking into MS and WMP. Which isn't a good thing. For lossless I'd use flac. For lossy ideally OGG if your DAP supports it, otherwise MP3.

OspreyO · 31 Mar 2008 at 02:03

badbob said:
Using WMA means locking into MS and WMP. Which isn't a good thing. For lossless I'd use flac. For lossy ideally OGG if your DAP supports it, otherwise MP3.

Agree. But Flac isn't supported in SonicStage.

Its supported in MediaMonkey though. As are a bunch of other lossless formats.

jozza800 · 31 Mar 2008 at 13:40

Thanks for the replys.

I just pulled my cds out of my wardrobe and have gone off the idea all of a sudden! I remember how painful it was last time.

bledd · 31 Mar 2008 at 16:53

give this a go

my pre-configured EAC install 32-320vbr mp3

http://bleddyn.co.uk/creations/EAC.exe

just download it and double click, it'll install itself in about 2 seconds

check top of start menu for a link to it

Eac

put the cd in, choose cd drive, (go into options to choose where you want the files to go, i've set default as C:\mp3)

select the files, if you're connected to the net it'll get the names itself, then click MP3, extracts them in the program, then uses a dos window (program called lame) to do the conversion