Favorite mp3 rip level??

[orangat]

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I am fully aware of that. I do it for shits and giggles and have very little pure voice stuff saved to fuss over. Change the batteries man...

****** and giggles? You stated 320kbit for voice quality which is plain ridiculous.
Time to stop embarassing yourself.

I have a grand total of 3 CDs worth of mostly voice. OMG, I'm running low on my 3.2 terabytes! I'm sure even 128k is overkill since it doesn't have musical qualities. I never said anyone has to use 320k for voice, necessary, or anything like that. Now STFU nublette, and change the batteries in your sarcasm meter.

Yes you did in your previous post. Now STFU gimpy and give it up.

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: yosuke188

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
FLAC

For music.
320K LAME for spoken.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I am fully aware of that. I do it for shits and giggles and have very little pure voice stuff saved to fuss over. Change the batteries man...

****** and giggles? You stated 320kbit for voice quality which is plain ridiculous.
Time to stop embarassing yourself.

I have a grand total of 3 CDs worth of mostly voice. OMG, I'm running low on my 3.2 terabytes! I'm sure even 128k is overkill since it doesn't have musical qualities. I never said anyone has to use 320k for voice, necessary, or anything like that. Now STFU nublette, and change the batteries in your sarcasm meter.

Yes you did in your previous post. Now STFU gimpy and give it up.

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: yosuke188

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
FLAC

For music.
320K LAME for spoken.

SUBJECT OF THREAD:

What is you prefered rip level for music and spoken word?

He never said the OP had to use it

 

[KayKay]

320 CBR or FLAC ftw

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Lossless MPEG4 Files are around 7-9MB each. But the completely untouched sound quality makes it well worth it.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

FLAC++

- M4H

 

[Tostada]

Most of the replies you're getting are totally clueless. I'd check out Hydrogen Audio if you want informed answers about audio. On that note, I'll just say that I agree with smthmlk 100%.

Originally posted by: smthmlk
i highly suggest using the recommended LAME version and settings as listed at hydrogenaudio.org :

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=28124
... be sure to actually sit down and read this, especially the '# Quick Start' section.
... Lame 3.97beta2, with the settings: -V2 --vbr-new ....appears to be your best bet, but try the lower -Vx settings (-V5 --vbr-new, for example) and see if you can hear a difference.

If you look around the Wiki on hydrogenaudio.org, they have links to setting up EAC to work with Lame with the settings you desire for Lame, tagging, etc. I would read around that site a lot before looking at the mixed opinions here and running with one Happy reading!

You are asking about MP3 ripping, so I'll try to keep it on-topic. It's funny to see how many people get excited about using lossless compression or something else when they probably have total trash spearkers running on their motherboard's AC97 sound. Sure, you might as well keep a FLAC copy and an MP3 copy if you've got the space, but that doesn't change the fact that 99% of devices work with MP3 (and close to zero other useful formats), so if someone asks a question about MP3, it is just plain stupid to start going on about lossless compression.

I've seen a lot of people who seem to spend more on hard drive storage for lossless audio than they spent on their speakers. It's a total joke. Unless you're encoding with some terrible settings like 128kbps on some Xing encoder, then your hardware is by far the most important part. There are a lot of good forums like Head-Fi if you want to know more about good speakers. Personally, I have no doubt that I'd rather listen to some mediocre 160kbps MP3s on decent $200 headphones with a $50 amp than listen to FLAC audio on most of these guys' systems.

Anyway...

If you want to rip to MP3, it's very hard to justify using anything except LAME alt-preset standard. APS comes out to around 192kbps. If you're encoding spoken material, it will use less bitrate. If you're encoding heavy metal, it will use more. APS is pretty much the same thing as the V2 settings on newer LAME builds.

VBR encoding is always better (and APS is VBR).

A lot of people think that if "alt-preset standard" is good, then "alt-preset extreme" should be better since it uses up more bitrate. This is only true in a very limited capacity. The problem is, there are limitations to MP3 compression. It's very hard to find a sound clip that will sound bad using "alt-preset standard", but if you do find one, 99% of the time it will also sound bad using "alt-preset extreme" or any other settings. See, MP3 has a max bitrate of 320kbps. If you're using variable bitrate, then the most difficult sections will be at 320kbps and the simple sections will be at a lower bitrate. So, say you've got a particularly troublesome section of a song, it doesn't matter weather you use APS (about 192kbps), "alt-preset extreme" (about 256kbps) or "alt-preset insane" (fixed 320kbps), because the difficult sections will generally all get encoded at 320kbps. To the contrary, "higher quality" settings have a higher lowpass, so you're essentially wasting more bitrate on things you can't hear (or, at the very least, you're spending bitrate on things you can barely hear when it would be better used in the sensitive range). I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate here, because the higher quality settings are overall higher, but the point is that APS is already pushing the point of diminishing returns by keeping the average bitrate at 192kbps (actually slightly over that most of the time) and going to 320kbps whenever a section is complex.

People who tell you to use other settings usually have no idea what they're talking about. Take this guy for example:

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
EAC + iTunesEncoder47.exe for some nice Apple Lossless files. When I need/use MP3 I use LAME preset extreme modified so that its real stereo (-m s -v 0 -q 2)

Compressed audio usually uses joint stereo. That means that when there is redundant data on both channels, it is only stored once. Seems like an obvious way to store it efficiently without losing quality.

Forcing true stereo encoding instead of joint stereo is a bad thing. You are telling the encoder that even if there is redundant data, it still must encode both channels separately. In some situations (like if a section of a song isn't actually stereo), this is the same as cutting your bitrate in half, which obviously gives you lower quality. MP3 has a limitation of 320kbps. Sometimes it needs all 320kbps, and if you're forcing stereo, that actually gives you a bitrate ceiling of 160kbps per channel. APS maintains an average bitrate higher than that in most cases, so simple logic dictates that forcing true stereo will almost always result in worse quality than APS, even at a much higher total bitrate.

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
SUBJECT OF THREAD:

What is you prefered rip level for music and spoken word?

He never said the OP had to use it

Really? Because I'd swear that the subject was "Favorite mp3 rip level??".

I don't think anybody asked for all the retarded opinions on how much everybody needs lossless compression.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
SUBJECT OF THREAD:

What is you prefered rip level for music and spoken word?

He never said the OP had to use it

Really? Because I'd swear that the subject was "Favorite mp3 rip level??".

I don't think anybody asked for all the retarded opinions on how much everybody needs lossless compression.

I'll remember next time to not try and direct someone to what I believe is a good option they might not even know about.

And no, not all of us have "trash" speakers hooked up the our motherboard AC97 sound

 

[SnoMunke]

Wow....now I am both snobbish AND retarded...

Now if I can just get someone to say I am psycho so I can cut some people's fingers off...

Tostada, the only point of note I gleaned from your novel-post was that you're a jerk...it is one thing to add your comments...it is another to say those of us that prefer a lossless format are retards. I'll be sure to skip your posts in the future...

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I'll remember next time to not try and direct someone to what I believe is a good option they might not even know about.

It'd be nice if you would. Most of the time people are asking about MP3, it's not even an option to use lossless compression, so it's stupid to go on a totally off-topic rant about lossless compression.

If you're just sitting around listening to music on your computer, there are obviously many superior alternatives to MP3. The point in MP3 is compatability.

Originally posted by: SnoMunke
Wow....now I am both snobbish AND retarded...

Now if I can just get someone to say I am psycho so I can cut some people's fingers off...

Tostada, the only point of note I gleaned from your novel-post was that you're a jerk...it is one thing to add your comments...it is another to say those of us that prefer a lossless format are retards. I'll be sure to skip your posts in the future...

I'd say that snobbish and retarded is a pretty accurate assessment of your posts in this thread. A guy asks a simple question about what MP3 settings to use, and all you can do is say that MP3 sucks and he should use lossless.

Yes, you can easily backup the statement that lossless is better than MP3 if quality is your only priority, but that doesn't change the fact that it's off-topic.

These useless responses are no different than a thread where someone says, "I've got $300 to spend on a system upgrade," and 50 people tell him that he needs to get a $400 video card. It's pretty much a waste of space.

 

[Tostada]

I mean, so we're clear...

The OP simply asked a question about MP3 settings, and never once did he mention that useing a different format was even an option.

I guess all my jackass comments can be reduced to that ... so sorry for the general lack of etiquette.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Oh, gosh. Where to start?

First of all, lossless is really the way to go. These days with high-speed net and 100+ GB hard disks, it's tough to argue for anything else. There are some exceptions, of course. It's not a good idea to rip lossless audio if you can't store it all on your drive or DVD backups.

However, if you do have a big hard disk or a DVD burner, backing up your music collection to a lossless medium is definitely the way to go. CD scratched or unplayable? No problem; burn another from your lossless backup. Stolen discs or disc folder? No problem; burn them back to life from your lossless backup. Need some extra cash? Sell your CD(s) and burn them back from... well, you get the idea.

Of course the quality can't be beat. Even if you don't have the speakers to benefit from perfect audio rips, at least you have the data preserved for such time when you do.

It's becoming increasingly convenient to use lossless audio, too. Windows Media Audio Lossless and Apple Lossless are almost as universally compatible as regular WMAs or M4Ps. The open-source FLAC is still a popular little gem. DMC, Media Player, iTunes and EAC can all rip audio directly from disc to lossless, with no extra steps required. Media Player, iTunes and VLC can all play back lossless files without any plugins or tweaking.

But there is a place for lossy audio. I suggest 128 kbps joint stereo LAME vbr. Maybe 160 kbps, if you don't feel comfortable with 128. Personally, I can't tell the difference between the two, not even side-by-side.

 

[orangat]

Since when did only skimming the subject title instead of reading the OP became a requirement for replying? The OP wanted MP3 suggestions for his car stereo and portable for the gym. So unless this is an era of widespread lossless and 100Gb portables, lossless is not what he is looking for.

This thread reminds me of the retards who pop in a post to buy Creative's x-fi or audigy in any thread asking for soundcard suggestions regardless of the OP's specific wants.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Tostada
...............
I'd say that snobbish and retarded is a pretty accurate assessment of your posts in this thread. A guy asks a simple question about what MP3 settings to use, and all you can do is say that MP3 sucks and he should use lossless.

Yes, you can easily backup the statement that lossless is better than MP3 if quality is your only priority, but that doesn't change the fact that it's off-topic.

These useless responses are no different than a thread where someone says, "I've got $300 to spend on a system upgrade," and 50 people tell him that he needs to get a $400 video card. It's pretty much a waste of space.

Bingo. The OP asked for mp3 lossy solution and got some silly 2 liners like the one below from people who never even bothered to read the OP.
"For music.
320K LAME for spoken"

 

[bigboxes]

Yeah, it's funny how the attacks turn personal when someone steps on their "lossless" toes. Ribbon, what's up with the drug references??? My internet has be crap for the last month since I moved. Virtually no upload cripples my internet so I had no idea I posted three times. My apologies.

I just find it funny that there are certain people that insist that everyone should have a receiver hooked up to their pc and/or should rip their entire music collection in lossless. Yeah, I have a monster cable out to my Denon, but for 95% of the time I just listen to my Klipsch Pro-Media speakers which, contrary to the boards' audiophile snobs, sound fantastic. In fact, most pop music sounds fine at 128kbps. If I rip it myself I always use VBR QL2.

 

[NaOH]

I still say

"-V 0" VBR FTW

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: bigboxes
Yeah, it's funny how the attacks turn personal when someone steps on their "lossless" toes. Ribbon, what's up with the drug references??? My internet has be crap for the last month since I moved. Virtually no upload cripples my internet so I had no idea I posted three times. My apologies.

I just find it funny that there are certain people that insist that everyone should have a receiver hooked up to their pc and/or should rip their entire music collection in lossless. Yeah, I have a monster cable out to my Denon, but for 95% of the time I just listen to my Klipsch Pro-Media speakers which, contrary to the boards' audiophile snobs, sound fantastic. In fact, most pop music sounds fine at 128kbps. If I rip it myself I always use VBR QL2.

So you bought into monster cables "benefits" but you say that lossless is just for "snobs"....

ok....

The whole point of suggesting the OP rip to lossless is because he has multiple applications. If he rips to lossless and wants many tracks on his MP3 player, he can easily convert the lossless tracks to 128 kbps. If he wants to listen on his computer where he has better speakers he can listen to the lossless tracks. If he wants to put some on a CD for a car mix, he can use the lossless tracks and it would be like he just ripped straight from the CDs.

The suggestion that the OP rip to lossless does not mean the person suggesting it is an "audiophile snob" sometimes its just the best option.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Well, maybe whoever brought it up should get a digital spanking, but once it's out there the topic is fair game, OP or not.

 

[GregGreen]

lame 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard~!

 

[orangat]

The lame presets are supposedly superior because they contain some hardcoded tweaks and may not be duplicated by command line options. This may or may not be true with v3.97 but it was true of a recent build.

So I would suggest using the alt presets since it idiot-proof, sounds superb and many more people have tested presets and make it unlikely that some big bug exists which could occur with all the weird and odd combinations in parameters.

 

[BW86]

FLAC

192kbpsmp3/ogg vbr

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: bigboxes
Yeah, it's funny how the attacks turn personal when someone steps on their "lossless" toes. Ribbon, what's up with the drug references??? My internet has be crap for the last month since I moved. Virtually no upload cripples my internet so I had no idea I posted three times. My apologies.

I just find it funny that there are certain people that insist that everyone should have a receiver hooked up to their pc and/or should rip their entire music collection in lossless. Yeah, I have a monster cable out to my Denon, but for 95% of the time I just listen to my Klipsch Pro-Media speakers which, contrary to the boards' audiophile snobs, sound fantastic. In fact, most pop music sounds fine at 128kbps. If I rip it myself I always use VBR QL2.

So you bought into monster cables "benefits" but you say that lossless is just for "snobs"....

ok....

The whole point of suggesting the OP rip to lossless is because he has multiple applications. If he rips to lossless and wants many tracks on his MP3 player, he can easily convert the lossless tracks to 128 kbps. If he wants to listen on his computer where he has better speakers he can listen to the lossless tracks. If he wants to put some on a CD for a car mix, he can use the lossless tracks and it would be like he just ripped straight from the CDs.

The suggestion that the OP rip to lossless does not mean the person suggesting it is an "audiophile snob" sometimes its just the best option.

That sound reasonable. But you are just trying to extricate yourself at this point. Your first post on this thread was one word post - FLAC.

What the OP wanted to know was what mp3 bitrates to use. How do you even know if his portable or car stereo plays FLAC or the drive capacity is large enough to make it practicable??

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: bigboxes
Yeah, it's funny how the attacks turn personal when someone steps on their "lossless" toes. Ribbon, what's up with the drug references??? My internet has be crap for the last month since I moved. Virtually no upload cripples my internet so I had no idea I posted three times. My apologies.

I just find it funny that there are certain people that insist that everyone should have a receiver hooked up to their pc and/or should rip their entire music collection in lossless. Yeah, I have a monster cable out to my Denon, but for 95% of the time I just listen to my Klipsch Pro-Media speakers which, contrary to the boards' audiophile snobs, sound fantastic. In fact, most pop music sounds fine at 128kbps. If I rip it myself I always use VBR QL2.

So you bought into monster cables "benefits" but you say that lossless is just for "snobs"....

ok....

The whole point of suggesting the OP rip to lossless is because he has multiple applications. If he rips to lossless and wants many tracks on his MP3 player, he can easily convert the lossless tracks to 128 kbps. If he wants to listen on his computer where he has better speakers he can listen to the lossless tracks. If he wants to put some on a CD for a car mix, he can use the lossless tracks and it would be like he just ripped straight from the CDs.

The suggestion that the OP rip to lossless does not mean the person suggesting it is an "audiophile snob" sometimes its just the best option.

That sound reasonable. But you are just trying to extricate yourself at this point. Your first post on this thread was one word post - FLAC.

What the OP wanted to know was what mp3 bitrates to use. How do you even know if his portable or car stereo plays FLAC or the drive capacity is large enough to make it practicable??

When you burn an audio CD normally the burning program will convert the file directly to a standard wav format so it will be playable anywhere. I don't know if the OP's drive capacity is big enough but you don't know its too small. Normally the OP would post some more information to better help us make the most informed decision. He hasn't done that so I assume he has made his decision and moved on.

I am not attacking your stand for MP3 whatever bitrate you want, I am stating why I think the OP should take my advice. I don't think that means I should be called an "audiophile snob". But no big deal, I just hope the OP got what he needed.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: tjpark1111
AAC ain't an apple thing? why won't anyone else use it?

Many of Nokia newer cell phones support not only AAC, but also the non-standard M4A file format that iTunes creates when it rips music. Anything from the N90 and 6682 onwards should support M4A.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: bigboxes
Yeah, it's funny how the attacks turn personal when someone steps on their "lossless" toes. Ribbon, what's up with the drug references??? My internet has be crap for the last month since I moved. Virtually no upload cripples my internet so I had no idea I posted three times. My apologies.

I just find it funny that there are certain people that insist that everyone should have a receiver hooked up to their pc and/or should rip their entire music collection in lossless. Yeah, I have a monster cable out to my Denon, but for 95% of the time I just listen to my Klipsch Pro-Media speakers which, contrary to the boards' audiophile snobs, sound fantastic. In fact, most pop music sounds fine at 128kbps. If I rip it myself I always use VBR QL2.

So you bought into monster cables "benefits" but you say that lossless is just for "snobs"....

ok....

The whole point of suggesting the OP rip to lossless is because he has multiple applications. If he rips to lossless and wants many tracks on his MP3 player, he can easily convert the lossless tracks to 128 kbps. If he wants to listen on his computer where he has better speakers he can listen to the lossless tracks. If he wants to put some on a CD for a car mix, he can use the lossless tracks and it would be like he just ripped straight from the CDs.

The suggestion that the OP rip to lossless does not mean the person suggesting it is an "audiophile snob" sometimes its just the best option.

That sound reasonable. But you are just trying to extricate yourself at this point. Your first post on this thread was one word post - FLAC.

What the OP wanted to know was what mp3 bitrates to use. How do you even know if his portable or car stereo plays FLAC or the drive capacity is large enough to make it practicable??

When you burn an audio CD normally the burning program will convert the file directly to a standard wav format so it will be playable anywhere. I don't know if the OP's drive capacity is big enough but you don't know its too small. Normally the OP would post some more information to better help us make the most informed decision. He hasn't done that so I assume he has made his decision and moved on.

I am not attacking your stand for MP3 whatever bitrate you want, I am stating why I think the OP should take my advice. I don't think that means I should be called an "audiophile snob". But no big deal, I just hope the OP got what he needed.

This is getting bizzare, your first simply says FLAC which is a compression algorithm not wav. And the OP wanted to know mp3 bitrates not how to rip.

And unless 100Gb portables and car stereos are widespread, its only common sense to assume that the OP wants to know what bitrates are good especially since he is asking about CBR/VBR at 192kbit. So my comment stands.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

When you burn an audio CD normally the burning program will convert the file directly to a standard wav format so it will be playable anywhere. I don't know if the OP's drive capacity is big enough but you don't know its too small. Normally the OP would post some more information to better help us make the most informed decision. He hasn't done that so I assume he has made his decision and moved on.

I am not attacking your stand for MP3 whatever bitrate you want, I am stating why I think the OP should take my advice. I don't think that means I should be called an "audiophile snob". But no big deal, I just hope the OP got what he needed.

This is getting bizzare, your first simply says FLAC which is a compression algorithm not wav. And the OP wanted to know mp3 bitrates not how to rip.

And unless 100Gb portables and car stereos are widespread, its only common sense to assume that the OP wants to know what bitrates are good especially since he is asking about CBR/VBR at 192kbit. So my comment stands.

Ok...lets try to explain better for you then. When you burn an audio CD in NERO or similar program...if you drag and drop an mp3 into the CD it gets turned into a CD audio file(or basically a wav). So if you have a flac on your computer the same is true. That is what I was saying.

As I said before the point it that you can pick which type of compression you want to apply once you have the FLAC file. If I have a 1 GB flash player but I want 300 songs on there. I just load up dbpoweramp and convert the flac files the 128 kbps mp3! no problem.

Now if I have a 40 gig mp3 player I am loading songs on for a trip and I want better sound quality...no problem just convert the flacs to 320 kbps mp3 files.

If I am listening to them on my computer, I am getting full CD fidelity. Plus if I was the ever accidentally scratch my CD I have a perfect backup copy...sure can't hurt to have.

I don't understand whats so tough to understand about how nice this is. I also don't understand why you keep finding the need to try to poke holes and find flaws in my suggestion. You made yours, I made mine, please move on.