im sure you have heard this before,,i ve done some reading and seems all the sites have different opinions,,i would consider myself almost an audiophile,,,some things i dont notice though. i have a high end stereo/home theatre. i am currently archiving all my cds to mp3 format. I want to also use these cds in my dvd player to play and make some mix cdr;s. I use dbpoweramp and nero burning and like them both. i have alot of questions so bare with me please. i would like to know the basics on what settings i should use for the mp3 format. ive heard 192 bit is good 320 better? joint stereo , mid -side vs stereo? i also want to do multi session cds so i can make a certain artist band cd on cdr and when a new one comes out, burn it again on the same cd. my burning software lets me do this,,,does it ruin any quality? lastly, will changing an mp3 to wav change it back to the original, like a zip file being unzipped, or when the file is changed to mp3, the qulaity is already lost? will changing a mp3 from 128 joint side to stereo make any difference either or vice versa?> so much stuff to learn, ive tried to read info but each site seems to have its own opinions. thanks for replies,,,music is my life and i want to have the very best quality. thx
I'll start the ball rolling... I would not consider MP3 as a suitable format to "archive" audio material. By "archive" I think of being able to recover the exact quality/data of the original. Once you encode in this compressed format, you will not be able to recover the original source. Whether you can hear the difference is another matter. If you are going to use MP3 can I suggest you use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and the LAME MP3 Encoder? EAC is not the fastest, but will deliver error messages if it encounters errors it cannot recover. Using VBR (Variable Bit Rate) 192k encoding settings in EAC will give you good audio quality at good compression ratio. Does your player support multi session discs? If not use a CD-RW and rewrite it when you want to add tracks. For your question about data loss, MP3 is a Lossy compression method. Once you encode to MP3 you lose data and cannot recover to the original. You will still be able to make Audio CDs (16 PCM) from your MP3 files (Nero does this), but they will not be identical to your original CD you ripped from. I expect you will get some better advice/detailed answers from other members. My MP3 use is only in the car and the portable player.
If your looking to archive your music then the FLAC format is right up your alley. It is a lossless codec that is 100% royalty free. Im not sure how to describe it so heres the wikipedia link which explains it better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
