Best format and bitrate

I want to put my audio CD's on my hard disk and have as little loss (as close to the origional cd as possible).

Use WIN XP,

Should I use WAV, WMA, WMA pro or another WMA variant or go with MP3.

I have heard that over 128 bit rate you need dog ears to hear the differnece.

Thanks for the responses.

Joe

 

You didn't mention whether the space used is an issue or not.
If not, rip then to WAV, then the data is exactly the same
as the CD.

128kbps, IMO, is pretty poor for music. If you're going to go
with MP3, set the bitrate a little higher.

 

Thanks for the response.

I looked at the options under Windows media player and a WMA @ 192bits is about 86mb for a typical music CD and the wav is 600mb.

I'm wondering sound wise the difference between the WAV and WMA 192 bit.

Thanks again for your comments.

Joe

 

Use your ears.
Some people can't tell the difference. Many can.
To some, they can hear the difference, but it's OK - they want the
space saving.

To others, they hear a difference, but probably on an emotional level
(for the love of the music) they up the bitrate a little.

Or, you could always try VBR.
I use razorlame front-end to lame encoder, VBR,
vbr range 128-320, Q=4 - which keeps most of the audio
close to 192-224, depending on the material.

Decide where you are, and give it a try.

 

I recommend mp3 over wma. the quality of the compressed file also has a lot to do with the ripper and compressor you use. EAC (exact audio copy) is the only 100% accurate ripper out there, and when combined with the LAME mp3 encoder, you can create very good quality mp3s without eating up tons of disk space.

yes as mentioned about, definately don't use 128. VBR (variable bitrate) 192kpbs gives very good results.

follow the guide in my signature below. it shows you how to install and configure EAC and LAME to rip and encode your audio CDs to very good quality mp3s.

 

Just for the record, I really need a hearing aid and I can easily hear the difference between 128 and 160. I can tell even if a low bit rate file was burned to a CD then re-ripped at a high bit rate and other obvious screw ups. You have a 320 br mp3 with a 128 br quality. My son with near perfect hearing cannot hear the difference. An educated ear is more demanding than a younger, less educated ear.

MP3s can be played on all devices. You ought to have a good reason not to rip to MP3s.

I rip using dbPowerAmp and a LAME encoder to VBR mp3 at the extreme quality setting -0. The quality is way over kill and the files are still small. You might actually be able to get away with -5 setting and not hear the difference. I don't care about saving a few bits by going from -0 to -5. I am taking a 50+ meg wave file down to 3.5 megs with no down side. I don't care to go to save an additional half meg to produce an iffy file. That is up to your personal preference.

EAC the other high-end ripper which can still be had for free. The ripping process is more demanding than you would expect. If you rip with junk, you will get junk. You may or may not be able to tell the difference. It is common to re-rip after a year or two because you start to hear problems after a while. Detecting junk is a learned process. Once you start to hear one artifact you start hearing all of them and they become a distraction. You can't enjoy your music anymore because it is trash.

The VBR mp3 is the most compact HiFi format. This is different from the garden variety mp3. It, WMA, M4A, ogg and the other advanced compression formats use the same compressing techniques (Psychoacoustic Modeling PM) but not the same compression. Peter Chen the LAME VBR programmer produced a very superior encoder, years ahead of his closest competition. Note that LAME settings are posted at the top of this forum. PM removes data from music your ear will 'hear' but your brain will not process. Why would you want to store information you can't hear unless you are a Luddite?

Luddites do not trust technology as a basic principle. A fictitious person named Luddite and his followers burned down factories because they were installing steam engines. They believed steam engines marked the beginning of the end of the world. Now we use the term for person that not not trust technology for no good reason. Many persons contend that it is impossible for a file 1/50th the size of a wave file to sound the same. They have no proof, just a burning belief.

What I dislike the most about the WMA, M4A, ogg formats is they vary the music quality within the tune. Why would you EVER want to listen to a tune that changes quality from moment to moment? The advanced compression, PM, varies from moment to moment. The variable quality allows more high frequency sounds in the music if the compression was more effective. I prefer to hear the high frequency tones all the time not when it is convenient. VBR varies the bit rate from moment to moment. This does have one drawback. The time index for the tune will not be accurate when it is played. The time index uses bits played vs total bits. Lastly, PM is most effective in silence and when loud tones (like a cannon boom) masks the lesser tones. Adding extra high pitch in these cases doesn't really add to the music quality. The whole concept is flawed.

LAME set up compliant threads in the different extreme audio forums. They will correct any 'artifacts' that are correctly reported. To report you need sound bites from a wave and the defective mp3 and the time increment plus description. They haven't had a complaint in over 2 years. People that say they can hear a difference between a wave file and the mp3 ought to complain to LAME. I think they are just empty barrels.

WMA and M4A formats do not care to fix their artifacts that I know of. I do know the list of known artifacts grows for each one. These formats are for people that do not care about quality.

Lastly, you might consider ripping to ape, a tight lossless format, if you will not keep your CD. You really can't convert any lossy into another lossy format without losing some quality. Although extreme lossy sounds the same as lossless it is not the same. I believe the new ape has a better compression then flac. Wave is out of the question unless you want to waste disk space.