music formats

[carlos]

I'm just starting to put my cds onto my pc for the second time(the first time I did it at 128kbps + the sound qualitys rubbish!). So I was gonna do it at 320 kbps mp3, but can anyone suggest alternatives. I want the best sound quality without saving the wave uncompressed. Has anyone tried the apple lossless codec?. cheers

[fo3nix]

if you want a lossless codec, try FLAC.

otherwise, your best bet is to use AAC with 128kbps bitrate.

[OBonio]

FLAC

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

[stevie21]

FLAC files (which are compressed wave files which do not lose ANY quality, unlike mp3) will be roughly 5 times bigger than mp3's encoded at 128kbps. Certain programs won't be able to play the FLAC files although Winamp and foobar will.

I'd try encoding them as mp3 at a higher bitrate, use "VBR" when encoding (e.g. use "RazorLame") if you get the option and test the quality of different files at different bitrates to see what you're happy with.

[wideboy]

I do most of mine at 160 or 192 and am quite happy, but one of the writers in Micro Mart this week swears by 250. Horses for courses now that memory/storage is so cheap?

[wideboy]

PS. He also said use Ogg Vorbis but not all players (stand alone) can play Ogg Vorbis.

[Gandy]

ogg is generally considered the best and most widely supported "lossless" codec. Flac is OK but prone to encoding problems. Monkeys Audio (a usenet favourite) is pretty stable and good quality. If you are looking to archive them then why not create a disc image and then use winrar to compress?

[stevie21]

Just to get a bit technical, if you do use a lossless codec (especially APE files at their most compressed setting) then you may have to use a lot of memory/CPU to listen to them.
You have to decompress them on the fly as you listen to them and APE files on the "Insane" setting are hard work.

If something battery powered is playing the file, the batteries won't last long. For that I'd definitely use mp3/ogg.

All the best

[fo3nix]

Gandy: ogg is not a lossless codec. it loses information just like mp3 and aac.