I have somewhat of a dilemma. Being an ex-Windows Media Player CD Ripper, I am forced to re-rip most of my CD collection due in part to a lot of low-quality MP3s that were created from the process (and the purchase of a new 6gb iPod mini would be plausible cause as well). Anyway - I'm following the method advised in this thread ( http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/173507 ) & decided to download both Exact Audio Copy, LAME, and the 2 other mechanisms needed to properly run the program on my computer to create great MP3s that will surely enrich my music listening experience. So here's the real question: is there that big of a difference between 160kbps & 192kbps? I know that LAME converts songs at variable rates so there isn't a "true" kb reading (although it appears as such on iTunes for me) - but I want to know from other mp3 rippers and music lovers alike what they think on this issue. Currently in EAC under Compression Options > External Compression I have the bit rate set at 192kbps. It does sound great - but I keep thinking in the back of my mind that I only have 6gigs available (actually less if you subtract what apps Apple added onto the device) and I keep wondering if I should really re-rip all my CDs at 192 or what. Comments/suggestions/inquiries/rants/raves welcome. Thanks.
well there is definately a monster difference between 160 and 192. In fact I've been ripping my new albums at 256 VBR, but thats cause I have plenty of HD space on my computer. But I can understand where you're coming from, as space is an issue. If it were me I'd leave them at 192. Going down to 160 really isn't going to save that much space. It would only be worth it if you went down to 128 or 96, then you'd see signifacant filesize reductions, allowing more space. But thats the whole size/quality ratio for you. So it depends on how many albums you want to put on your player, but like I said, 160 and 192 aren't going to make a big difference size-wise, but will make a big difference quality-wise.
Where can u choose 256 VBR. I don't have this option and I have the latest version of EAC. Please help. Mine only goes up to 192kbs VBR or 320kbs CBR. Help appreciated.
This is what my EAC compression box looks like. Please tell me if this is what yours looks like. There is no option to select 256kBit/s VBR. Please help.
I don't use EAC but if I where to guess I would change the alt preset from standard to extreme. I'm just a guessing, Ced
What would changing to extreme do. No offence but I fink i need djscoop or jeanc1 to help me on this one.
Infact could someone give me exact details on how to get the best sounding VBR mp3's. help is once again appreciated.
Is "--alt-preset standard (~190 kbit/s, typical 180 ... 220)" the best sounding VBR mp3's u can get or is "--alt-preset extreme (~250 kbit/s, typical 220 ... 270)" the one to choose. Is this 265 kBit/s VBR or CBR. There is no option to select 256 kBit/s VBR so is alt prese extreme the option to choose. Help is needed
if hard drive space isn't an issue, go with 256VBR, but 192VBR will still produce nice results. its more about the ripper/encoder quality at that point.
Cool, I was waiting for your response. I finally got around to configuring my EAC so I could attempt to answer weazel200's question (I've been planning to configure my EAC since November...lol). It took about five min. The main reason I did it was because I recently found out that it supportes MPC. MPC for EAC (guide): http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/
very cool. let me know how it works, I'm interested in testing muse audio quality. yeah, like I usually tell people that don't want to use EAC, the installation looks complicated, expecially with having to do the config files and all that, but once its setup, which like you said only takes a few minutes, its easy.
The settings provided worked great but the guide is a little out of date. More recent versions of EAC have a musepack pre-config. The only thing the guide is usefull for are the command line settings. MPC has always amazed me with its small size and exellent sound quality. I encoded the same song from a CD with Mp3 and MPC using EAC and found that MPC at its standard setting could best Mp3 VBR at its extreme setting. The MPC file was 2 whole MB smaller and sounded better to my ears. But thats just my opinion. I haven't done any test that show any numbers that prove my clain except that the file was smaller and sounded as good or better than its Mp3 counterpart. Also I don't know if the MPC settings where tweaked more than the simple Mp3 one I used ( -h -v -b 256 --alt-preset extreme ). I used the command line arguments found in the guide for MPC (the MPC arguments mean nothing to me right now...lol, but I'm reading up on 'em). Ced
so at this point do you think its worth re-ripping your entire collect to muse? Does winamp support muse? It would be cool to analyze the sound files under a oscilloscope to analyze the value of each frequency. I'll have to see if I can borrow one from one of my electronics buddies.
winamp needs a plugin for musepack. get it here. http://www.rarewares.org/mpc.html take look at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php
<Off-Topic> Wow saturnine never quite got around to posting again...lol. Did we even answer the original question? </off-Topic> Anyway, since this does tie in with the original post a little. That 2MB diff I abserved while playing around with MPC and Mp3 could save a 20 GB ipod owner like me a crap load if bits later on. I mean just thing about it, if you have a thousand soungs on your ipod taking up 10 GB of space gaining 33% of a song over the span of a thousand songs is pretty good. All of this is condsidering that MPC sounds as good or better than the larger Mp3s that they would be taking the place of. But Apple would never support a format thats better than there own (AAC). Thats my audio rant for the day, Ced
