2009 ripping/encoding general poll Options

[KFal]

FLAC -5 for archiving, PC and streaming to my Squeezebox.
AAC transcoded using dbPowerAmp, Nero AAC 1.3.3.0 -q 0.6 for DAP (iPhone/iPod).
Single files because that make maintenance easier (re-tagging of mostly classical music).

I am not religious about any of the formats. A lossless archive is a must because I never ever want to rip again. After some diversion to WMA and ALAC I have chosen FLAC because its native playback on the Squeezebox and flexible tagging. AAC/Nero was chosen because some cursory testing suggested smaller file sizes for the same quality when compared to MP3/LAME.

[Obelisk]

I'm no audiophile so MP3 suits me fine and I don't use lossless at all.

The way I rip my classical music CDs isn't shown as a poll option though! Here I combine all the movements for the same work into a single file to prevent my MP3 player fragmenting them on random play. Most CDs produce between two and four MP3 files.

Not being adept at scripting I need to use three programs:
BonkEnc to rip and merge selected tracks - it was the first one I found that does a half decent job and reports the correct combined duration.
Media Monkey to tag and catalogue the ripped files - I like its cataloguing and mass tagging features
Foobar to produce second versions of the tracks using the VLevel DSP to compress the dynamic ranges for in-car replay - the only way I know of for doing this.

I store the two file versions on an external hard drive for portability.

This route is quite a lot of work, and most of the ID3V2 tags have to be edited to show the composer as the artist etc. I wonder if I it would be worth my while to learn how to write scripts to streamline it? I suspect not.

[vinnie97]

Vorbis & FLAC. Sad to see Vorby losing favor with the userbase here.

[Releevo]

Library: iTunes + QuickTime AAC 256kbps / LAME 3.9x MP3 VBR
Archieve: FLAC is the first choice

[stigc]

Vorbis

[ebat]

DAP: Lame -V5 --vbr-new or NeroAAC -q 0.4
Archive: FLAC -5

[The Seeker]

Archive: FLAC Level 8 (one file per track).
DAP/Laptop/PC: LAME 3.98.2 -V5

[WUXGA]

Nero AAC -q 0.5; no lossless for me, my files are backed up to a external HDD. One file per track.

[ChronoSphere]

flac -8 for archive, 1 file per CD with embedded cuesheets, scans etc
lame 3.98.2 -V0 for everyday use, combined wth aac -q0.5 for gapless albums (didn't manage to get mp3 to play gapless on my portable players)

[Frumious B]

I finished my epic 1,700 CD ripping project last week and used ALAC for my lossless files. I mainly chose ALAC because I wanted to use iTunes to clean up my tags and artwork before backing them up and transcoding to lossy. For my lossy files I used Nero AAC at quality setting of .45. I have the lossless files if I ever want to try something else and I'm just going to use them on the iPod anyway. Prior to that all I had were 128kbps mp3 files that I mostly ripped five years ago. Going from those files to the new AAC files is like someone removed a towel from my speakers. I'm very happy with my results so far.

[ProtoCat]

2002-2007: Musepack -Q6 / FLAC-Multiple Files
2007-2008: aoTuV Vorbis -Q6 / WavPack-Single File
2009: QuickTime TrueVBR Q127 AAC / FLAC-Multiple Files

For the really long boring answer:

I actually do want to say I'm heavily impressed with how far LAME has come and it was a tough choice between AAC and MP3 for me. I've really wanted to be able to send a random track to a friend without worries or have to deal with 'support' for a format being buggy or otherwise sparse. While MP3 easily wins that, I rather like the results I get with regards to file sizes when using AAC which is great for my portables. Support is just prolific enough that I'll take the tradeoff. If I wind up regretting this choice, next year I'll be voting LAME.

So far as cuesheet/single file rips for lossless -- it really appeals to me from an organizational standpoint and more resembles an ISO backup with compression benefits, which might mean nothing to the next person. However, support for FLAC in this flavor has been spotty at best -- and WavPack's audience fell off a cliff. For the sake of no headaches, I'll take the compression hit.

This post has been edited by ProtoCat: Apr 16 2009, 04:44

[Martin H]

For archival i use WavPack images with embedded cuesheets(-hm).
For playback on PC/Portable i use LAME track-files(-V5 --noreplaygain).

[Trippynet]

Vorbis & FLAC. Sad to see Vorby losing favor with the userbase here.

It is. I ripped most of my music a while back using Vorbis, but have recently been re-ripping everything to VBR MP3. The main reason simply being that too few MP3 players etc. support Vorbis unfortunately, plus with MP3 I can use MP3Gain to apply ReplayGain to all my music in a manner that even my iPhone will cope with (along with all other MP3 players obviously).

That's always Vorbis's problem. No matter how good or free it is, the likes of Apple, Microsoft etc. will continue to support the bare minimum of formats for their software and hardware players and this leaves Vorbis out in the cold somewhat.

[KeyLogic]

[Nero] AAC @ highest quality for portable player
FLAC (1.2.1b @ 6) for computer listening and archiving
[EAC] One file per disc with CUE sheet + Log file

This post has been edited by KeyLogic: Apr 27 2009, 22:29

[nycjv321]

Archive: FLAC Level 5 one file per cd + cue
DAP lame 3.9.2 q4 vbr [winmo] / aac q4/5 vbr encoding [ipoo]
Laptop/PC: vorbis aoTuV q6-8

[2E7AH]

It would be slightly better if we could have at least two selections per choice, not just one:
- for lossy I choose MP3, although I use regulary also Vorbis aoTuV
- for lossless I choose FLAC, although I use TAK also

[halb27]

It would be slightly better if we could have at least two selections per choice, not just one:
- for lossy I choose MP3, although I use regulary also Vorbis aoTuV
- for lossless I choose FLAC, although I use TAK also

I second that.
For lossy I use mp3 and lossyWAV + FLAC. lossyWAV is my preferred choice, but I had to vote for mp3 as currently I use it more often (due to DAP limitations).
For real lossless purposes I use TAK, but I also use FLAC together with lossyWAV.

[smz]

MP3 (LAME 3.98.2 -V2) one-file-per-track for listening. ID3v2.3 (UTF-16 encoding) tags.
WavPack (-m -i -q -hh) disc images with embedded cuesheets for archiving.

Plextor Premium and EAC for ripping, Foobar2000 for encoding/tagging, Winamp for everyday listening. Old Creative Zen Micro Photo as DAP.

Cheers!

Sergio

[Examiner]

- Ogg Vorbis
- Flac
- One file per track

[muse.]

Archival purposes: FLAC -8 /w cue, single tracks since it's a lot easier to convert on the fly. Cover art and logs of course
Lossy/iPod/general listening: LAME 3.98.2 -V0

This post has been edited by muse.: Sep 16 2009, 11:04

[mata]

AAC
APE
one file per disc.


hmm, so few vote for APE, it is still extremely popular in the east just like realmedia for video


This post has been edited by mata: Sep 22 2009, 08:46

[GeneV]

For losless I use Flac 8.
As Flac is the most widely supported losless format, to me there is no better choice. My players (foobar, MPC, VLC) support Flac, and even my DAW (Samplitude) does since v10.2, which I highly appreciate . Moreover, coding is fast and decoding even faster.

For lossy I use mp3, encoded with lame (3.98.2) --abr 192 -q 0 --lowpass 20. (Why ABR and not VBR, see here).
The only reason I use losssy at all, is getting small files for my portable players. And any player supports mp3.
I'd much rather use OGG, but unfortunately my portable players do not support it. A much too little number of players actually do . It's the same old story that manufacturers are too reluctant to implement free standards.

[String Theory]

I don't archive my cd's... if a cd breaks, i'll buy a new one. Simple as that. For the rest LAME -V0. In the past I've bought some AAC songs from the iTunes Store, but I prefer to buy cd's and vinyl and rip / download the mp3-versions. AAC sounds promising, but I found LAME MP3 overall better.

[twostar]

It's time for a new poll for the new year. It's tradition.

[greynol]

Thanks for pointing that out.

This poll is officially closed.