Ripping CD's bit rate advice.

[Hookem]

I am getting some new speakers that are supposed to have "audiophile" sound quality.

I use Windows Media Player 11 and have ripped all my CD's as 192kb's WMA's.

I was thinking since I am upgrading my audio system that it might be worth re-ripping my CD's in the "variable rate" mode to get better sound quality.

I can tell the difference between 320 versus 192 with my current audio set-up but really do not have the HD space to rip them at 320.

I really like how Media Player 11's interface works, showing the artwork and all that business.

Anybody use the variable rate WMA for ripping into Media Player 11 ?

Any feed back or opinion's would be greatly appreciated !!!!

:burn:

[Enablingwolf]

I believe you might be best served not using WMP to rip your collection. Normally I do not go the route of my favorite application.. This time I think I might be doing you a service suggesting something other than your request. I use Linux, so I have no other advice besides what I suggest below.

If you would not mind check this out:
Media Jukebox (http://www.mediajukebox.com/)
The flac plugin (http://mcplugins.sourceforge.net/enc_flac.html)

Going to FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html) will be much much nicer to your ears. MP3 is ok for portables and the like. When you got a good sounding system. Take the plunge and eat up some disk space on lossless formats. You will be enjoy it much more.

Sorry if I did not answer your question on doing things in WMP. Usually I try and get that to you. This time I do believe it is more benefit then not suggesting it. You will still be able to get all the features you like about WMP in other players. Plus WMP will play FLAC with a simple and free plugin. So you get the best of all worlds. Great sound and your player of choice.

[Sir Barton]

I vote for FLAC as well. I use Foobar2000 with the Kernel Streaming plugin and the SSRC Resampler set to 176.4KHz along with my Prodigy HD2 driver set to 176.4KHz. If you notice...176.4KHz is a multiple of the 44.1KHz music is natively recorded at. Picture it in terms of resolution...a monitor that runs 1024x768 natively would have a much finer picture run at 4096x3072. I use EAC and rip to wav, then use Foobar to convert the wav to FLAC. From there I use mp3tag to tag all my files. Pretty quick and easy.

[Mekks]

he does not have the HD space for 320bit and your telling him to use FLAC? lol

yes flac would be the best true quality other than from the orignal cd, but it is HUGH!

if your lookin at VBR ripping i would get lame program/plugin and rip everything in V0 VBR.

do a google and find a walk threw. its the best vbr quality you can get!

[Hookem]

Well I do have a 500gig Western Digital hard drive that is used for music...I down loaded MediaJukeBox and ripped Robert Plant's Now and Zen using thier lossless mode...Sounds sweet.

But at that bit-rate I could get maybe 1/2 of my CD collection ripped before it would be slammed...Need a chunck for Photoshop scratch disk space.

Took forever to get what I have ripped...Made the mistake of ripping it with WMP defalut WMA setting...128kbs :bang head

So I started over at 320kbs...Quickly realized that was not going to work and settled on 192 because some friends have a radio show at KPFT and they told me 192kbs is close to CD quality...I dont think so...Not to my ears anyway.

I will give the FLAC routine a run for the money and if need be buy more hard drives.

Shucks...I was a hard head and just played the CD's till a friend showed me WMP 11 on his box...Gotta love having 1k plus, CD's a couple of mouse clicks away...Way easier than looking at all those CD's sitting on shelves to choose what you want to listen to.

After doing the WMP 11 thing I ended up listening to stuff I seemed to pass over when looking at the CD's that I had not listened to in 20 years.

All the art work right there and instead of passing on a CD that I only really like one song...Now I just fire her up.

Thanks for the suggestions. :burn:

[Enablingwolf]

Another option you might want to check out is the ogg codec. It is a pretty good lossy format and does well for itself.
http://www.vorbis.com/faq/

That package will let you have some nifty option for ripping your tunes. Plus be easy. Just find the size versus sound that you like. Doing one song at a time to save time and energy. Once you hit that sweet spot.. Start the process of doing all the tunes.

When ripping one song. I pick the longest track. Then do the math on that for the whole CD on the disk size. It gives me extra buffer.

[Mr.Guvernment]

buy more HD space @ 120$ for a 500G drive.. save up and get more space if the quality is that important :)

[Mpegger]

I'll also give a nod to OOG for ripping at lower then 320kbps bit rates. But since everything I rip I use at maximum bitrates for mp3, I dont bother with OOG.

With that said, if your ears are good enough to tell the difference between 192 and 320 and its bad enough that you want the best, I dont think you'd be happy with any codec at any bitrate less then 320.

You'd be better off just using either OOG or MP3 @ 320kbps, and adding on another hard drive or two.

The only other alternative if you dont want to buy more space, is to play around with the settings for the codec of your choice and see which gives you the best sound quality. Variable bitrates is obviously a viable option, but also quality settings, cutting off frequencies above a certain range (especially if you know your hearing/equipment cant reproduce/hear above that range), and other settings can make subtle, or unnoticeable differences to the sound.

Pick a complicated track (lots of different frequencies involved, soft parts, harsh parts, etc), and start compressing it using all kinds of settings. Listen to each end result throughly and decide on your own, what works best for your ears.

You might still end up finding you'll need to add on another hard drive though. ;)

[ian2000gsxr]

i would say 320 if you don't want to go flac

[Special7]

256 vbr AAC ftw.

[sp00nix]

I actually use win amp PRO, i rip mine at 320kbps. But then again i have allot of jiggerbits to hold my pm3s