2007 ripping/encoding general poll Options

[guruboolez]

With the agreement of Synthetic Soul, I started a new bunch of polls. As explained in a private message, I'd like to see a more rationalized usage of polls, with a fixed duration. Polls are interesting to see how what tools they're using at home. But a succession of identical polls could also teach us how people are changing with time. It could interest people fond of statistics but it could also give to developers (especially lossless' ones) good information about the popularity of their product.

This poll merge the two most popular questions into one single topic. Please answer to all questions when it's possible. Even if you rarely use a lossy or a lossless format, tell us which one you prefer to perform this rare task.

N.B. As said, the opening period should now be fixed but the duration haven't been set. It could be one new poll per year, or two polls/year, or one each quarter.


link to previous polls (2006):
• your lossy codec of choice in 2006
• your lossless codec of choice in 2006


N.B. I deliberately ignore some possible answers (like mp3pro, vqf, LA, TTA) based on results obtained in the last poll. I already add TAK lossless encoder even if it's not available for the public. Future voters could therefore give their voice to this promising encoder. The formats are sorted by popularity (results of last polls).

P.S. This thread's right place belongs to the "poll" forum but I don't own the right to directly create it at the right place.

This post has been edited by guruboolez: Jan 2 2007, 00:33

[Soap]

Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.

[memomai]

Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.

yeah that would be nice... (well I think EAC is winner right here, but maybe not.......)

I'd like to see which other rippers are used as well (I think foobar2000 should also be added to the poll then...)

[Sebastian Mares]

For use with my iPod Nano 2G and my Sony Ericsson K750i, I encode to LAME MP3, 80 kbps mono (my left ear is totally deaf so I never knew what stereo sounds like anyways).

For lossless, I went with WavPack after trying out Monkey's Audio and FLAC. The compression ratio is good enough for me and the encoding speed is excellent.

I use dBpowerAMP RC12 for ripping and rip to single tracks.

In 2006, things looked somewhat different. Until recently, I used EAC only with my Plextor PX-755A in order to have - what I thought - "perfect rips" including the 30 samples from the lead-out. In the meanwhile I realized that it's bullshit and not worth the hassle. I also used to encode to WavPack image + CUE. Additionally, I encoded using WMA Lossless in order to import the tracks in iTunes and rip to AAC at 128 kbps VBR (WMA Lossless can contain tags that are recognized by iTunes).

[Diow]

For general use [bitrate between ~128, ~300 kbps] LAME
for low bitrates AAC
Lossless: monkey's audio, others codecs have better decoding speed but the compression ratio are decreased and decoding speed aren

[guruboolez]

Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.

Yes but I could only put three questions in the same poll.

[Diow]

For general use [bitrate between ~128, ~300 kbps] LAME,for low bitrates AAC.
Lossless: monkey's audio, but this just with classical and metal musics.

[Teknojnky]

I'd move to (embedded) cue + flac image if more players supported it (meaning most standard players: wmp/winamp/mediamonkey/etc).

[rjamorim]

Go MP3!!!! Go WavPack!!!!

[/mnt]

Lossey format:

MP3 (LAME 3.97 VBR V2)

LAME Mp3 can be played gaplessley with a few more different players now , such as Winamp, iTunes and mpg123 (Unix). And i can listen to Dark Side Of The Moon, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile and other gapless albums without any clicks or pops on my 4GB 2G iPod Nano. 2006 was a good year for gapless playback for mp3.

Lossless format:

FLAC and PCM Wave

I use lossless for ABX test samples are if i have really bad CD that needs to be backed ASAP.

[Fandango]

MP3/WV/IMG+CUE

I don't think my preferences will change throughout the whole year (except maybe when TAK becomes a full-blown codec with a nice license), but I would like to have quarterly votes on this subject anway. The more often these polls are being conducted the better. PS: ...and I think it was a good idea to splice all of them together.

This post has been edited by Fandango: Jan 2 2007, 02:17

[Acid8000]

Lossy = MP3
No lossless, although I'm thinking of ripping to FLAC images in the future.
One file per track MP3s.

This post has been edited by Acid8000: Jan 2 2007, 02:29

[Remedial Sound]

MP3. Universal compatability. Transparency for me at V5 ~128 kbps. Thanx LAME

Compatability & ease of use for lossless - I flipped a coin and picked WavPack over FLAC.

[Gnerma]

LAME 3.97 -V 2 --vbr-new seperate tracks for my Sandisk M260.

WavPack 4.32 -hx1 single file with CUE for lossless. I'll very likely be switching to TAK once Thomas has it feature complete and expresses his confidence in using it for real.

This post has been edited by Gnerma: Jan 2 2007, 02:54

[Borisz]

LAME 3.97 -V0 --vbr-new, using EAC to rip from CDs and Foobar2000 to convert my FLAC backups.
For lossless, I'm too lazy to reencode everything in a different format, and most people already use it, so I just stick with FLAC too. As far as I can see, it's already the standard for everything but DVD-Audio.

[Andavari]

Go MP3!!!! Go WavPack!!!!

Amen brother!

[goldenratiophi]

Max (cdparanoia mode instead of comparison w/ C2 becuase my CDs are barely scratched) rips to q5 Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, track-by-track. The oggs go on my Rockbox'd iPod 5.5G 30GB. WavPack looks interesting though, I'll have to check it out. I did a quick test and it encoded really fast, but it has even less player support than FLAC and Ogg...

[Khaine]

Currently I use Lame to encode my music as AAC is confusing and the open source encoders are not as well developed as the commercial alternatives. And if I used lossless I would probably be using Flac, but because I don't want to re-rip all my music, and because it doesn't enjoy hardware support I probably won't be using it for a while.

[Firon]

Vorbis q-2 (it's transparent to me, especially on the go); WavPack; one file per track. I absolutely hate single file per disc + CUE.

This post has been edited by Firon: Jan 2 2007, 04:07

[dbAmp]

I rip everything as WavPack Images for backup purposes then use foobar2000 + iTunesEncode to convert to 128 VBR AAC for the iPod.

I've been thinking about switching back to MP3 for lossy so I can stream to my Xbox 360 through WMP11, but so far I've found too many problem samples at V5 and I don't have enough space on my iPod to go with a higher bitrate... plus I've had the dreaded iTunes LAME VBR seek issues.

[Cpt. Spandrel]

WV,
MP3,
mixed - cue for WV archive/PC playback, single MP3s now for portable use (Rockbox on iRiver h120). Was WVC for portable...

May I suggest that future polls split the "Other / I don't use x AT ALL!" question into two separate options? even if there are only 8 poll options max it looks like that answer is coming in about third or forth most popular, and it might be more interesting to get a breakdown than to see a fight for sixth and seventh.

Good idea about doing this regularly btw.

[skelly831]

LAME -V5 for portable/car, FLAC and/or WV image+cue for PC. Although AAC and Vorbis have cought my eye a few times (I keep up with aotuv and lancer releases) they are simply not a convenient solution for me.

[jorsol]

Ogg Vorbis for lossy, FLAC for lossless.

I rip in one file+cue for archiving purpuse (FLAC) and then convert to Ogg Vorbis in separate tracks for PC playback.

[herefornow]

mp3 -v5 --vbr-new for my traveling player. musepak for my archive. good enough for these old ears

cheers,
herefornow

[hellokeith]

My Muvo likes WMA Standard, and with two-pass VBR WMA, I couldn't get MP3's with the same quality any where near as small the file size.

Flac played through Foobar for my non-portable listening.