2 questions.

About to embark on actively ripping my extensive CD album and single collection to the PC/network drive.

But which format and quality? Previous rips have been MP3 at 382kbps. Is that good enough, over kill? Thinking MP3 would be most compatible with all my devices (MP3 player, PDA, Mobile etc etc). Or is WMA lossless (but only 128kbps) enough?

Dont want to loose CD quailty, but concerned about how much space a track or CD will need. Untill I get a new drive I'm relying on the space I have now, which is about 30gb I can spare to use solely for music rips.

Next question is about protection. I own the legit CD of several artists that wont play on a PC or other non hifi/car CD player.

How can I sort this so I can rip these?

I rip MP3's at 192Kbps...

The ones that won't rip... try finding them for download? Technically you have the right to "have a back up copy", so it's theoretically legal

MP3 vs. CD Audio Quality Tests

An in-depth test by an individual

MP3 Producer Bitrate Comparisons - winamp bit rate mp3 mpeg3

Do Higher MP3 Bit Rates Pay Off? - willsmith - Maximum PC

"Some follow-up testing confirmed our suspicions: variable bit rate encoding makes a tremendous difference in the audio quality results, certainly enough to justify—many times over—the slight file size increase. Capping the bit rate at 160Kb/s in MP3 files can be pretty harsh on a track, but allowing the bit rate to wander upwards during more complex passages—as variable bit rate encoding does—and throttle down during quieter sections captures an astonishing amount of complexity while keeping file sizes down to an impressive minimum."

i used audiograbber to backup my cds and it bypassed the protection on most. It had issues with ripping the last track on cds with video data on as well as audio though.

I use 256kbps MP3 or AAC. I think you could probably drop to 192kbps without really noticing any loss in quality if storage space was a problem.

I started using MP3 for the reason you stated i.e. compatibility but I've now switched to AAC as it seems to give a slightly nicer sound.

(AAC is Advanced Audio Coding. It's a non-proprietary format from Dolby & Fraunhofer, developed as a MPEG2/4 replacement for the MPEG1/2 'MP3'. Used on iPod, PS3 & Wii but available for any manufacturer to use, royalty free, should they choose to do so. The 'iPod only' version is Fairplay AAC, which is AAC with DRM extensions. )

Just thought I'd throw in a totally different approach... Probably not practical for most due to various reasons.

I've got a Linux PC (Mepis, KDE) which I use to rip CDs using Konqueror. either Konq recognises the tracks straight away or a click on the options down the side soon lets me get to the tracks if it's a 'funny' CD that only shows various .exe files etc. on mounting. I use .ogg format, which is supposedly better than MP3. Bit rate at 112 by default which probably equates to 192 mp3 or maybe even a tad better. Obviously, players that handle .ogg files are a bit scarce. I've got a Samsung YP-U3 & use Amarok to 'sync' it.

So, as I said at the top, a different approach...

I use OGG too and you can get a plug in for Nero to burn to CD.

Not many portable devices play OGG though.

WMA is awful IMHO and I'd go with AAC then MP3 but never WMA myself.

I rip MP3's at 192Kbps...

Same, nice balance between size and quality and compatability. Some MP3 players have a max bit rate they can read and 382 may be to high

I don't understand you chaps who encode at constant bitrate? It's either a complete waste of space or you're losing too much quality.

Me, I use EAC to rip, then LAME 3.97 on "--preset standard" to encode. This is variable bitrate and gives average bitrates around 190-220kbps, but gives quality much higher.

EAC has no problems ripping protected CDs, you must use 'Burst' mode though. The 'Secure' modes in EAC are for ripping scratched CDs, and work very well, if rather more slowly.

Since I've started backing up my own collection, I've done it all in FLAC which is truly lossless. Don't believe for one second that 128kbps WMA can be lossless. It isn't and a blatent lie!

Just like Mil's 2.0 Fabia which is faster than a ferrari or mustang or whatever it was (Sorry Mil! :hug: )

If it's only temporary, then high quality variable bitrate mp3 around 192kbps is great as the great Kaiser said

It's down to how you balance the "quality". If you want a backup for archive purposes, then lossless is the only way to go IMHO. And the price of harddrives nowadays is so low that the cost per minute of FLAC audio today is no more expensive than the cost per minute of MP3 audio yesterday

Oh and like others have said, I would strongly recommend not using a proprietary format like WMA. Stick to open-source MP3, FLAC or other cross-platform codecs.

Just a technicality but MP3 isn't open source. :haha:

I'd agree entirely with the rest of what you said though

Just a technicality but MP3 isn't open source. :haha:

I'd agree entirely with the rest of what you said though

Smarty- :pants: or smart- :moon: Your choice

Your welcome

i know i'm gonna get flamed for this... but i use apple's ACC format for itunes/ipod as it seems to be a lot better quality than mp3/FLAC/OGG... iirc the 'standard' setttings for itunes is 128kbps but you can alter these settings to anything upto 320kbps, it's worth remembering also that certain brands of mp3 players wont play stuff higher than 192kbps

i know i'm gonna get flamed for this... but i use apple's ACC format for itunes/ipod as it seems to be a lot better quality than mp3/FLAC/OGG... iirc the 'standard' setttings for itunes is 128kbps but you can alter these settings to anything upto 320kbps, it's worth remembering also that certain brands of mp3 players wont play stuff higher than 192kbps

You cannot get "lot better quality" from ACC (sic :P) than you can with FLAC.

You also have to remember that mp3 is a format, and there are different versions of codec that adhere to the same format. So it could be that a particularly bad codec was used for some mp3 file and that was compared with an optimised AAC codec.

I remember the big debate whether LAME was better than BladeEnc, etc. They all have their merits, but it's up to the end user to know what works best where TBH, it's possible that LAME isn't that good at 128kbps because it's optimised for 192kbps and higher

edit: just found this Wiki link: MP3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regarding mp3 players and compatibility, again, it goes down to are you creating your MP3/AAC/FLAC file as a backup archive, i.e. won't necessarily want to play it in its archived format or do you want it in playable format which limits your options for certain portable players as you say

personally i tend to have everything on my computer at 320k and on my ipod at 128kbps to save space, besides will you notice the difference when you are listening through headphones anyway??

personally i tend to have everything on my computer at 320k and on my ipod at 128kbps to save space, besides will you notice the difference when you are listening through headphones anyway??

Depends which headphones

Depends which headphones

I can tell with a set of cheap Sennheiser in-ear ones. As others have said, if you have to compress, use FLAC. If you must use MP3, use variable bitrate with as high a limit as you can.

If you have linux, cdparanoia does a good job of protected CDs.