VBR is the best form of compression to use. It analyzes the individual audio frames and applies the proper amount of compression necessary to maintain good quality. the program you use to rip your CDs and the mp3 codec you use are extremely important to get good results. one of the best rippers is EAC (exact audio copy) and the best mp3 codec is LAME. follow the guide in my sig to install, configure, and use EAC. that will result in the best quality you can get from ripping your audio CDs to mp3 format.
A clarification... Only lossless provides no quality loss. There is a huge difference between the amount of data in a lossless vs a lossy file. The big question is can you hear the difference? Your audio equipment you were born with is not very good and gets much worse over the years. By the time you can afford good equipment it is unlikely you can physically hear the difference between 192 and lossless. We all have our personel comfort levels as to how much over kill we add to the minimum perfect 192 CRB. If you are ripping, lossless or VBR are the usual preferances for picky listeners. VBR gives you the most quality per bits. More importantly, it is the only format that delivers a uniform audio quality. The quality is set and the bit rate varies to accomidate the setting. LAME V-0 cuts off the highs at 19.5 kHz. The average 20 year old male can not hear 18 kHz. All the other formats including lossless cut out the highs to meet the bit quota. The cutoff for lossless is so high that it doesn't really matter 12,500 CBR when 192 is good enough. How you rip and what you do afterwards is more important than the bit rates and formats. You can hear artifacts. I would not convert the ripped music unless you ripped to lossless. If that is not possible, downgrade to the same format. If that is not possible use ABR. That is what ABR is used for. It has some 'slop' to weedle out a bit better quality from a different format. Lastly, it is actually unlikey you will be able to detect any difference using 160 VBR. It is reported V-5 is actually transparent to lossless by audiophyles that are on the other extreme to the ones that only listen to lossless. I believe they are probably correct. I do not care I use V-0, just because... just like some only listen to lossless just because... One last huge issue. Be very mindful of the ear buds. It is foolish to split hairs over bit rates and formats if you have standard ear buds. They will not even faithfully reproduce 128 BR. In the ear buds are startlingly better than anything else. Chances are they will deliver better quality than your HiFi that you paid several grand for.
