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Ripping CD To MP3 Format

E

eli

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 30, 2003
Messages
1,648
Hey guys - quick question here.

I don't know if anyone of you are familiar with EAC (Exact Audio Copy) ???

Anyhow, I'm using EAC w/ LAME Encoder to rip my cd collection. Everthing is working just fine except for one thing...I have it set to rip at a 320 bit rate, but instead of consistantly ripping every song at 320, it rips them anywhere between 160 - 320 bit rate.

Does anyone else have this same problem?

Thank you all very much,

Eli
 
Did you have it set to VBR instead of CBR?

Honestly I'd keep using VBR for MP3 players (saves space). Use FLAC or another lossless codec for archival purposes.
 
If you want mp3, you should use the -v0 preset. It's essentially the sme quality as 320k CBR but it will be smaller because it's VBR.
 
Yeah, I'm using 320 bit rate MP3's to put on my Sansa Clip 8GB....then I'm also converting them to flac to archive them.

As to whether I am converting them CBR or VBR....I couldn't seem to find anything regarding these in the compression options?

Thanks,

Eli
 
eli said:
Yeah, I'm using 320 bit rate MP3's to put on my Sansa Clip 8GB....then I'm also converting them to flac to archive them.

As to whether I am converting them CBR or VBR....I couldn't seem to find anything regarding these in the compression options?

Thanks,

Eli
Click to expand...

What? You are ripping to 320 mp3 THEN converting to flac? That's backwards and you are archiving a lossy copy. You need to rip to flac and then convert to mp3 (and yes, you should use v0 instead of 320).

Here is a guide to properly configure EAC: http://blowfish.be/eac/
 
I'm sorry...I didn't word that properly.

I'm creating two seperate collections (one for my portable player, and one to store on my HDD)

I'm ripping CD's (WAV) to flac to archive on my HDD, and then ripping those same CD's over again to 320 bit rate MP3. So two seperate conversions directly from WAVs

Thanks for that guide btw...It's all a little frustrating at first....but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I started off ripping my whole collection to flac to put on my HDD with some second rate software, and found that a few songs here and there glitched and so on...this was after ripping my whole collection (100+ CD's:)... So now I'm doing it over using EAC with very few track errors (think I might get one of those cd cleaning machines to use one a few of my discs, as well as a cd-rom optical lense cleaner...could help).


Thanks for the help guys,

Eli

EDIT: Just started reading the guide...I just copy and pasted the code for V0 rips into the "Additional Command Line Options". So the main advantage to VBR is more compression (less space) and same quality yeah?
 
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Yes, v0 will have pretty much the same quality as 320 in a smaller package.

And just rip your cds to flac once, you can convert to mp3 easily - no need to rip them twice :)
 
Good point:)

Right on man, I really appreciate your help:)

Eli
 
Now I'm trying to figure out how to take a whole folder structure (genre, artist, album) of 100+ CD's of flac and convert them to to an identical folder structure of VBR MP3's using EAC?...Rather than reinserting the CD's a second time for ripping the MP3's.

After reading that guide you linked me, I was even considering .ogg's instead, because my player can indeed play them....but MP3 is just seeming more universal to me as of now.

Forgive me...I'm new to all this....a week ago I would just put a CD in the computer and play it with Windows Media Player:)
 
Rip to any lossless audio codec. Assuming you have a computer made in the past 4-5 years, converting FLAC to MP3 shouldn't take much time. I see no reason to have a FLAC and MP3 library, since its so easy to encode for the player when you want it.
 
Thanks OP for creating this thread and gorb for providing excellent link ;)

I did set up EAC last night and I'll use V0 VBR as per your suggestions... This is to listen on my PC (xonar dg w/ad700s cans) and on my PMP (smartq T5ii)...

gorb said:
What? You are ripping to 320 mp3 THEN converting to flac? That's backwards and you are archiving a lossy copy. You need to rip to flac and then convert to mp3 (and yes, you should use v0 instead of 320).

Here is a guide to properly configure EAC: http://blowfish.be/eac/
Click to expand...
 
If you want audio quality for your Sansa clip. I would be using vorbis and not mp3. Vorbis is going to sound better at any bitrate. On other players that didn't support vorbis I would also choose aac over mp3.
 
eli said:
Now I'm trying to figure out how to take a whole folder structure (genre, artist, album) of 100+ CD's of flac and convert them to to an identical folder structure of VBR MP3's using EAC?...Rather than reinserting the CD's a second time for ripping the MP3's.

After reading that guide you linked me, I was even considering .ogg's instead, because my player can indeed play them....but MP3 is just seeming more universal to me as of now.

Forgive me...I'm new to all this....a week ago I would just put a CD in the computer and play it with Windows Media Player:)
Click to expand...
i'm a noob at this too. what's the best/easiest way to convert FLAC to v0 mp3's?
 
Here is how I maintain my folder structure when converting from FLAC to AAC.

I drag my entire library into Foobar2000.

I highlight all and select Convert..

For output destination I choose "Source track folder" (this is the key)

After it's all done, I'm left with 2 copies (FLAC and AAC) of music all in the correct folder structure.

I then completely copy my whole folder structure so another location.

Then I use the default Windows file search to search for all .FLAC files in one structure and delete them.

Finally, I use the default Windows file search to search for all .mp4 (AAC) files in the other copy of my folder structure and delete.

This leaves me with two separate folder structures. One with FLAC and one with AAC.

There is probably a much easier way to do this but it works for me :)
 
if your hearing sux, and your speakers suk, or your headphones suk, you're not likely to notice a difference in quality between the original song and an MP3 encoded to a low bit-rate with a crappy encoder

I use monkeys audio (.ape files) coz it comes with its own front end. And I prefer lame encoder with abr 256.
 
Why Flac instead of HQ MP3 when you can't hear a dif? Just a waste of precious HDD space IMO.
 
Gnasher said:
Why Flac instead of HQ MP3 when you can't hear a dif? Just a waste of precious HDD space IMO.
Click to expand...


If you ever need to re-encode form one lossy format to another, you lose even more. If you have a lossless file, you can convert that into as many formats as you like at the best quality those codecs will allow. Archival purposes, lossless > lossy.

That, and enough people argue that you can hear the difference between flac and v0 on extremely expensive equipment on at least some genres of music, that I feel a peace of mind knowing I am not losing anything if I ever have a rush of adrenaline that heightens my senses to the point that I can tell the difference with my own ears. Might as well go flac, just in case.
 
450 said:
HDD space isn't precious. 2TB is cheap these days.
Click to expand...

I have 5 TB in my main PC but I put all my MP3s on a laptop and backup to external HDD. I had to upgrade the laptop HDD from 250GB to 500GB so I could get all my music on it. THat is close to 500GB of HDD space on the two HDDs just for MP3s alone. Oh, and in my bedroom I have a media box that has most of my MP3s on it too so make that over 700GB being used for just MP3s.

I've done the A/B/X testing with lossless and 192kb/s MP3 and failed to tell a dif so I will say it again, FLAC is a waste of precious HDD space IMO.
 
timestretch said:
If you ever need to re-encode form one lossy format to another, you lose even more. If you have a lossless file, you can convert that into as many formats as you like at the best quality those codecs will allow. Archival purposes, lossless > lossy.

That, and enough people argue that you can hear the difference between flac and v0 on extremely expensive equipment on at least some genres of music, that I feel a peace of mind knowing I am not losing anything if I ever have a rush of adrenaline that heightens my senses to the point that I can tell the difference with my own ears. Might as well go flac, just in case.
Click to expand...

I can see your fist point but with the amount of music I have it is just not feasible. The second argument is highly dubious and I bet you most of those people who make that claim have not done ABX testing. They are pseudo audiophiles who "think" they have golden ears.

I'm at an age where I know I can't hear the really high frequencies so don't sweat it. Also, there is the hypothesis that older music that quite often has distortion due to clipping in the high end caused during the recording process actually sounds better on a 128kb/s MP3 than a HQ MP3 or Flac because it helps remove the frequencies with the clipping. I am in the process of testing that theory right now. I ripped a track from the 1960s with some distortion to 128kb/s, 320kb/s and lossless. Now I need to setup an ABX test in foobar to see what the result is.
 
Even if I can't hear the difference (I've never tested it), I'd rather not settle for imperfect copies when it's easy to make or get perfect ones. Your 700GB of mp3s would probably be ~2.8 TB in flac. Another pair of 2TB drives to add to your 5TB would cost you $160. Dirt cheap storage nowadays.
 
Gnasher said:
I've done the A/B/X testing with lossless and 192kb/s MP3 and failed to tell a dif so I will say it again, FLAC is a waste of precious HDD space IMO.
Click to expand...

192 mp3 vs FLAC and you CAN'T tell the difference? IMO your audio setup or ears/brain are lacking in quality.
I could understand if it was 320 mp3 vs FLAC as this is an ongoing debate, i can't tell the difference on many albums but there are tens of albums that i can tell the difference, a few being 96/24 vinyl rips. It depends what sort of "League" of audiophile you're in.
 
Rossi~ said:
192 mp3 vs FLAC and you CAN'T tell the difference? IMO your audio setup or ears/brain are lacking in quality.
I could understand if it was 320 mp3 vs FLAC as this is an ongoing debate, i can't tell the difference on many albums but there are tens of albums that i can tell the difference, a few being 96/24 vinyl rips. It depends what sort of "League" of audiophile you're in.
Click to expand...

depends what music you listen to. What encoder did you use was it cbr, abr or vbr. Bitrate don't tell you everything coz it couldve removed some parts of a song which will sound good with one type of music and bad with a other
 
Just to add to the conversation I'm using LAME with VBR (V0) and although the sound is very good, I find it is quieter than my other old mp3 rips... kind of annyoing when you jump from one song to another.... I wonder if I missed to set an option in EAC...
 
I'm guessing the newer MP3's have greater dynamic range.
 
Spooony said:
depends what music you listen to. What encoder did you use was it cbr, abr or vbr. Bitrate don't tell you everything coz it couldve removed some parts of a song which will sound good with one type of music and bad with a other
Click to expand...

I use Winamp/foobar and VBR as always, 320 usually ends up 25*~3**, agree depends on what type of music. But in my experience over all genres i listen to (rock, post rock, pop, electro, house, classical) this is what i use for portable only these days. I use FLAC because i can tell the difference, but then again i have spent £800+ (excluding headphones) on my audio setup.
 
Rossi~ said:
320 VBR as always, usually ends up 25*~3**, agree depends on what type of music. But in my experience over all genres i listen to (rock, post rock, pop, electro, house, classical) this is what i use for portable only these days as FLAc i can tell the difference, but then again i have spent £800+ (excluding headphones) on my audio setup.
Click to expand...

fair enough. I'm not arguing with you. Just pressing another point. Do you use a surround sound system?
Lol ill leave the spent a lot on my system its quality for the other threat
 
amd7674 said:
Just to add to the conversation I'm using LAME with VBR (V0) and although the sound is very good, I find it is quieter than my other old mp3 rips... kind of annyoing when you jump from one song to another.... I wonder if I missed to set an option in EAC...
Click to expand...

cbr256
 
gorb said:
v0 is preferable to cbr or abr shit
Click to expand...

lol
ABR at this average bit-rate usually sounds better than VBR, by definition. ABR is sort of an enhanced CBR, and has not much to do with VBR. The difference is that VBR depends on LAME's psychoacoustic model. If the psy-model says that something is easy to encode, VBR takes a low bitrate frame.
But flaws in that model could lead to the situation where something is hard to encode in reality, but the psy-model misinterprets the signal and says "easy to encode". Then VBR chooses a low bitrate where it really would need a 320 kbit frame.
With CBR and ABR, this can't happen. --abr 256 always takes a bitrate that's high enough and doesn't rely on the psy-model (which is far from perfect). Yes, you'll waste bits at those places in a song where you don't need many bits, but you also have better overall quality .. ABR yields better sound quality [tho many people won't hearthe difference].
 
Rossi~ said:
192 mp3 vs FLAC and you CAN'T tell the difference? IMO your audio setup or ears/brain are lacking in quality.
I could understand if it was 320 mp3 vs FLAC as this is an ongoing debate, i can't tell the difference on many albums but there are tens of albums that i can tell the difference, a few being 96/24 vinyl rips. It depends what sort of "League" of audiophile you're in.
Click to expand...

Not the pseudo league that you belong to.

I tested with both classical and rock music, I also used a friend as a test subject and not just me, he failed to tell the dif too. To play it safe I rip at 256kb/s but for the test I used 192kb/s deliberately. 128kb/s I can hear the dif in the cymbals so do know what to listen for.

Another thing, no real audiophile buys the vinyl is better than CD BS. You may prefer the sound signature but to claim is actually better or more true to the recording is a lie. Same can be said about Tube vs SS. But I do own a Tube headphone amp anyway.
 
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