What is youre bitrate?

I actually use LAME with --alt-preset extereme or --alt-preset insane (both are VBR)

128k AAC for me.

I have a few mp3s also, but not many.

Originally posted by zachary80
I actually use LAME with --alt-preset extereme or --alt-preset insane (both are VBR)

--alt-preset insane is actually 320 CBR. I'd provide some factual evidence, but the one site that I know of which documents it is sorta down right now. www.hydrogenaudio.org if anyone is wondering.

I voted 225~256 since I do MP4 @ Extreme.

I'm now having to change my views on this. lol :)

In other posts I came to the conclusion that 192kbps AAC is better for the battery, and in the long run. Plus I didn't notice that much diffrerence from the quality anyway. :)

Uh... You shouldn't rip between lossy's. It'll turn out crappy. :\ Just rerip the CD's.

192k AAC is what I rip at now that I have iTunes. Before that I used 192k MP3.

I use 128k AAC... used to use 192k mp3...

Originally posted by kojak
I'm currently re-ripping from 128 kbps mp3 to 192 AAC
me too... long and tedious process, but worth it!

Originally posted by altcountryman
I'm totally new to this stuff and curious about bitrates. Sounds like a lot of experienced digital listeners really see the benefit of 192 versus 128. Do you think most listeners' ears can tell the difference?

We (my wife and I are sharing the iPod, for now...) have a variety of music types. Should we rip some stuff at both bitrates and compare? I did a quick one-song test, couldn't tell the difference, but maybe I need to listen to more.

I think our 20g will hold all of our music at either bitrate, so I guess I prolly ought to just go 192.
The right way to do it and not have a placebo effect, is to ABX multiple files. Most people will say they can hear a difference between bitrates, but when it comes right down to straight up facts, most cannot tell a difference in a controlled test. Now, in your example of 128 vs 192, that is a different story as the spread between bitrates is quite large. Also, no matter what you've heard, 128Kbps mp3's are NOT CD quality, it just ain't so.

If you're on Windows, get Lame.exe from here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showtopic=478&

Then check the reccomended settings here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showtopic=203&

Even though you can read both of those threads if you like, I'll save you some time and give you the setting that's transparent to ~99% of the population. "--alt-preset standard" Simple, eh?

LAME is an mp3 encoder, that's just something silly the original author did. What computing platform are you using; Windows or Mac? We can go from there.

While zachary80 started out good with EAC, the process can be made much simpler and streamlined.

Check this out.
http://www.chrismyden.com/nuke/article.php?sid=116

Originally posted by clintb
While zachary80 started out good with EAC, the process can be made much simpler and streamlined.

Check this out.
http://www.chrismyden.com/nuke/article.php?sid=116

Good find. I don't use EAC to do it because of my uncertainty in setting up the presets (--alt-preset extreme / standard).

Originally posted by clintb
"--alt-preset standard" is really all you should need. I've seen many posts by the golden ears on Hydrogen Audio stating that extreme really does nothing more than add bitrate bloat. For our purposes, standard should be more than adequate and even bordering overkill.

I personally rip with EAC to Monkey's Audio and tag at the same time. I use the following filename format:
Artist - Album - Track # - Title.xxx As long as I am careful to not allow any more "-" dashes into the filename, outside of them as seperators, tagging at any future point is child's play. This becomes my archive format and what I'll play back on the pc. Never having to re-rip a CD is priceless. For those who don't know, Monkey's Audio is lossless compression, much like zip and rar.

From there, I just use the diskwriter output of Foobar 2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org) to convert the Monkey's Audio file into mp3/mpc/aac/mp4, etc... The really cool part of doing the conversion with Foobar is; it transfers the tags while doing the compression/conversion. If you tagged your files good initially, you won't have to do it again. I just add the entire directory of Monkey's Audio into a Foobar playlist, configure the compression/conversion mode and let it rip. Around two days later, all 2000 or so of my files are converted and perfectly tagged! Nothing like having the computer do the work for you.

sorry, I was unclear

I am not sure how to configure EAC with my --alt-preset extreme / standard settings. I know the differences, and the advantages of each.

What do you use for Monkey's Audio? Right now I just keep all my WAVs, but I may end up keeping the WAVS and MA for each file just for the tag advantage.

192 AAC for Rips, 192 MP3 for steals

Can u get Ephpod to rip cds in AAC and MP3 format?

128 kbps, same as my MP3 files, were so same quality but smaller size.

mine is 192... good sound w/ ok size

CD quality definitely isn't 320kbps...think about it:

A 74 minute 650 meg cd:

650MegaBytes = 5200MegaBits = 5324800KiloBits

Now divide 5324800 by (74 minutes * 60 to get seconds)

= 1199.28 Kilobits per second - CD QUALITY

Correct me please if i am wrong or have made a mistake :-)

160kb Mp3 VBR. I think 160 VBR sounds pretty close to CD quality, and any higher takes up 2 much space on an iPod & Hard Drive

No, 320kbps is near CD quality. Perfect CD quality is 1411kbps I think. And that's with a AIFF.

:p no worries. And it is 1411kbps for perfect cd. :x

Just know I've listende carefully i couldn't tell the difference between 128 and 192 AAC's

I use MP3s as its basically the only trully widely accepted format. Changing all my WMAs to MP3s. My bitrate varies from 320 to 600k