[-dustin]

picked up some albums i had been searching for for a little while. now...

how should i rip it, what format? i have a 200gig external drive specifically for this stuff, so space isn't a problem. i have iTunes and WMP (i also have Nero, but i don't think that rips...)

 

[binary visions]

MP3, 192kbps - or 256kbps if you really want all the quality there.

 

[Ciaran]

I've been using EZ CD-DA Extractor from Poikosoft (http://www.poikosoft.com/). It works good for me, but Binary Visions, H8R and Narlus can give you better more in depth information. (Especially BV... He rules)

You can download it HERE

 

[bluebug32]

I've been using EZ CD-DA Extractor from Poikosoft (http://www.poikosoft.com/). It works good for me, but Binary Visions, H8R and Narlus can give you better more in depth information. (Especially BV... He rules)

You can download it HERE

I had the same question (because there are so many bad programs out there) and Narlus just hooked me up

 

[dfinn]

iTunes does a pretty good job of ripping, just make sure you tell it to rip in mp3 format. it will be much more portable than aac (or wmv).

 

[binary visions]

One thing to keep in mind is that while it might be tempting to rip at 256kbps or in some lossless format since you have 200gb, even if you don't fill that drive, you need to consider what you want to do with it - if you have a flash based portable music player, for instance, or even a high capacity music player (20, 30 or more gb), you're going to reduce the number of songs you can fit on the player.

I think 192kbps is a pretty good compromise of decent quality and reasonable storage requirements.

 

[Ciaran]

One thing to keep in mind is that while it might be tempting to rip at 256kbps or in some lossless format since you have 200gb, even if you don't fill that drive, you need to consider what you want to do with it - if you have a flash based portable music player, for instance, or even a high capacity music player (20, 30 or more gb), you're going to reduce the number of songs you can fit on the player.

I think 192kbps is a pretty good compromise of decent quality and reasonable storage requirements.

What would you do if your goal was to preserve as much of the sound quailty as possible? What would your preferred method and application(s) be? What format is the best for sound quality? (With size/space not being an issue)

Just curious. I currently rip to MP3 at 192kbps and it seems to sound OK.

 

[binary visions]

What would you do if your goal was to preserve as much of the sound quailty as possible? What would your preferred method and application(s) be? What format is the best for sound quality? (With size/space not being an issue)

With size/space not being an issue, you should rip with a lossless format like FLAC (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC).

Lossless formats give you the ultimate sound quality but the files get pretty bloated. In an ideal world I'd rip everything into FLAC for home listening and have an entire set of converted 192kbps MP3s to go along with it for portable listening.

But it's not an ideal world, and I can't afford a dozen hard drives

 

[narlus]

you have to come w/ grips on the following issues:

1 - what sound quality do i need? (will determine bitrate you use, and format to some extent)
2 - where will i mostly play my music files (will determine format)
3 - would i ever need to change formats (will also help determine format)

regardless of your answers to the above questions, i highly recommend ExactAudioCopy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) as the best, most accurate ripper there is. good news is it's free, too. if you want, like i did for bluebug, i can send you my config file for the settings i use (it's not as user-friendly to novices as some rippers).

anyway, if you want highest quality without going lossless (ie, Wav, FLAC, or whatever apple's lossless format is), the debate rages about what format sounds the best (contenders are mp3, mp4, aac, ogg vorbis, monkeyaudio, musepack, wma, and probably few more). personally i decided to stick w/ mp3 solely because nearly all players can handle it. actually, this is part #2, i got ahead of myself.

the 1st question is up to you; when would you hear obvious audio artifacts and deficiencies, based on compression? everyone is different, so i suggest doing a comparison w/ a well-known (to you) piece of music, at various compression settings (most common are 128, 160, 192, and 256). do a search on the hydrogenaudio forums for the ABX test, if you really want to get scientific about it (basically a blind study).

once you've settled on a bit rate, you need to choose between constant (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR). i personally can't see a benefit to CBR; VBR is nice as it bumps up the compression during musically complex passages, but during more simple ones, where a lower bit rate won't result in degraded sound, it uses that. so your end result is a smaller file than CBR for the same given bit rate.

if i had to do it all over again, and had my huge storage capacity when i started to catalog my discs, i'd have ripped to FLAC. that's a truly lossless format (no audio lost as compared to wav files), and it gives you about a 2x compression. not great, but certainly something. from FLAC, then you can compress to whatever lossy format you want. if you want to change from one lossy format another (say, mp3 to wma), this will result in a degraded file. it's kinda like saving a jpg to a jpg; you lose data.

going to FLAC gives the greatest flexibility but also comes at a storage price; however, given the price of hard drives these days, it's not really a concern.

 

[mobius]

I Rock itunes (mac whore) and use AAC at 128 due to saved space and the sound quality is just as good as 192kpbs mp3. If you must have mp3 id say 160 or 192.

 

[-dustin]

sorry, i was in a bit of a rush and overcome with joy.

this will strictly be for home use, nothing portable (i'm going to re-rip in 192 for my mp3 player). i'm thinking of it more as an "archive" in case the cds ever get messed up. and yes, i will be copying the cds to have another set, as well.

narlus, if you could send me your config, that'd be cool. my e-mail address is fritztownpunk@mail.utexas.edu

 

[narlus]

done.

fwiw, for true archiving i would choose FLAC; unfortunately i am too far down the road to do that.