How do I get highest quality audio rips?

[aetherh4cker]

*I don't think this violates any rules, but if it does, please disregard*

I'm thinking of moving my CD collection onto my computer so it will be easier to listen to large mixes of music, but I want to make sure I get the highest quality rips possible.

Video encoding seems to be fairly complicated, with lots of variables to get the highest quality possible without blowing your file size too high... I was wondering if audio encoding is the same way.

Should I just use Windows Media Player to rip my music, and trust that it will do a great job, or should I look into other programs?

I've been considering the OGG Vorbis format, but I understand that many portable media players do not support this format, so I think I'll just go with MP3. I don't own a portable media player right now, but if I get one some day (I might, I really enjoy my music), I want to be able to put all my music on it.

So I guess to some up my question:
1. What is the best program to use to rip CD's?
2. What is the best bitrate to use? I've never tested my sensitivity to music at different bitrates, but I want something that would suit someone with above-average sensitivity.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[aetherh4cker]

I've found an answer to my own question... here's what I found if anyone is interested:

I did some reading of the forums over at Hydrogen Audio and they indicated that Exact Audio Copy is the best program to accurately rip audio from CD's (also supports tagging). It's also compatible with external encoders, for which I used the latest stable LAME MP3 Encoder (3.97) and it has worked great. The settings I have preferred is "-V2 --vbr-new" which produces amazing quality that I (and likely you too) can't distinguish from the actual CD. It does produce a larger file size than what I'm used to (averaging 6.5 MB per song), however the quality is worth it, and hard drive space is getting pretty cheap today.

I'm thinking of trying the beta version of LAME 3.98 and seeing if I like it more. I'll also do more research to see if other's recommend it. Though, from what I can tell, Hydrogen Audio recommends 3.97 still.

Though everything has been satisfactory so far, I'm still open to advice if anyone thinks they have helpful information to add.

Additional Reading and Helpful Links:
EAC and Lame - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase
LAME - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase
Exact Audio Copy - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase
RareWares

 

[BlueHeaven]

Maybe I'm just not a big audiophile person, but I've found just ripping with Windows Media Player and what ever Codec I have installed at 192 kps, I can't tell the difference between that and a CD.

Course you could always ripp them to wave files, though they would be about 30-40 meg per song.

 

[jonny_uk]

Yeah ive used Media player 11 to rip my music at 192kps and you cant tell the difference between that and a cd

 

[Preacher]

Well I use iTunes (i have iSoap) and I rip the music on 320kps , and I can actually tell the difference.

 

[thirdshiftdj]

I believe cd's are 48000 sample rate and 24 bit. Thats what I use @ 320 bitrate. Wav and Flac are the best formats

 

[aetherh4cker]

WAV and FLAC are indeed the best... but I don't have the harddrive space for lossless formats.

6.5MB per song was already higher than average for me. I would estimate FLAC averages at 25MB per song.

 

[cnico88]

Anything above 200 is good, I can tell the difference between 128 and 320. I sounds more rich, and you can really turn it up without having too much noise (fuzzing radio sounds)

 

[EricB]

here is the deal.

most people in the world don't have an ear for music
(they think that a 12db boost at 10 khz is detail and a 12db boost at 60 hz is deep bass), so a 128 kbps song will sound like the original cd to them.

audiophile do have a sound for music.

wave is the best. it is uncompress but it's large file size leave it undesirable for ripping your collection of cds. flac is second best as it's suppose to be a lossless compression, but anybody in the the know, knows that there is no such thing as lossless compression. but humans can't really tell the difference.

which bring me to AAC (or mp4). most humans including audiophiles can't really tell the difference with this either, but it has the file size on an mp3.
this is the format that most audiophile rip with as it is fairly compatible (it works on your ipod too). itunes, winamp and nero (it has a 448 kbps ripping option) has this ripping option

ogg is superior to mp3, but loses too much bass among other things in the encoding process that stop it from being the equal to aac (which is based off of the sony minidisc atrac encoding. it was actually out before mp3)

mp3 has the most compatibility and that's it. an audiophile can hear all of the data that an mp3 loses during the encoding process even if it ripped at 320 kbps.

wma isn't even worth commenting on