After reading through a lot of threads, the general opinion seems to be that MPC and Ogg Vorbis are the best formats for quality.

Well, unfortunately my Panasonic SL-CT800 does not support either of those two, but only supports MP3 and WMA.

I have quite a lot of CDs which I intend to rip. I can either use Windows Media Player 9, or Musicmatch Jukebox 8.

WMP 9 can encode from around 40Kbps to 940Kbps, constant and variable bitrate.

MMJB 8 can encode MP3 Pro up to 96Kbps constant or variable, MP3 up to 320Kbps constant or variable, WMA up to 160Kbps constant.

Sorry for such a newbie question, but it was really hard to find comparisons between MP3 Pro and WMA 9 through google.

Your best choice is LAME mp3 @ --alt-preset standard. Get LAME here and get a simple frontend (if you need it) here.

Not WMA9, not MP3Pro, AAC HE and LC i think...But your's Panasonic don't support this

Does the player actually play MP3 Pro ? I always thought it had to be supported independently of MP3. Maybe I have been mistaken




Like the man says, and as you can have an unlimited supply of low cost CD-R's file size should not be an issue.
Try CDex for ripping and encoding, it's better than what you mention and just as easy.

Here

Edit: Added quote

Well, it seems to play MP3 Pro.

I did a quick test yesterday, and with files of roughly the same size, MP3 Pro files sounded slightly better than MP3 files. (But I must state that I am a complete total NEWBIE to all of this, and that this is only what it sounded like to me) The files were made with MMJB 7.5, with MP3 VBR and MP3 Pro VBR both at roughly 96Kbps.

At something like 55Kbps, the VBR WMA files I made with WMP 9 sounded better than the VBR MP3 Pro files of the same size.

File sizes are kind of important. I don't need to archive the music, as I have the original CDs. What I am looking for is to fit around 150 songs onto each CD at the best quality I can get, to play on my MP3 CD player.

I will try encoding some files with Lame.

Yes, it can most likely play mp3pro but the real question is whether it's actually supported by the chip on the player. If it doesn't perform the high frequency recreation (also known as spectral band replication), then you're basically still using mp3, for all practical purposes.

EDIT: ah, you edited your post. If the Panasonic manual doesn't expressly mention support for mp3pro, then you can pretty much count on it not being available. I would be surprised if it did...I don't know of any mp3 cdp's that DO have such codec support. "Slightly better" isn't very convincing (there should be a very noticeable increase in highs when using an sbr decoder).

Take care with stuff like that,

Your treading on thin ice

Make sure you read the HA terms of service, especially # 8.


Edit: Added rule #

I see... I don't think there was any mention of MP3 Pro in the manual. It was really just a short guide to operation of the thing.

I will try encoding MP3 in 55Kbps and compare.

Assuming that my player does not support MP3 Pro, what would happen if I tried to play MP3 Pro files? Would it give good quality for low frequencies but bad quality for high?

And in that case would Lame encoded MP3 be better than WMA 9 at the same file size?

sorry about that... I edited my original post. Is it better now?

They would be played back as if they were regular Frauhoffer mp3's. The "pro" information would just be ignored. (ie. there just wouldn't be any high frequency recreation.)



In blind testing and IIRC (I may be thinking of WMA 9 pro here), wma 9 has generally shown to be more transparent than LAME @ 128kbps and under.

Does that mean that at 128Kbps and under, more people perceive WMA9 to be better than Lame? That's what you mean by "transparent" right?

correcto

Great. That settles it. I will rip all my stuff in WMA9 at the VBR 85~145Kbps setting.

Thanks a lot everyone, especially vinnie97

WMP 9 Also takes care of Album art quite nicely.

I'm not a pro, just an audio format/music enthusiast who watches from the sidelines, so to speak (haven't done any blind testing of my own but have done my own unscientific comparisons and tend to agree with this board's consensus) You might want to do some more research before you take my word for it.

In fact, do your own testing and let your ears be the guide. I don't know of any portables that can actually support the wma 9 pro format at the moment (only wma 9 - oh no, not this again ) You should be ok with plain wma 9, however. Also, it introduces artifacts to the sound like mp3 (they're just different). While the frequency response may seem better in the high range, there is a very noticeable metallic ring to upper frequency sounds (particularly, percussion like hi hats and cymbals). Even for a portable, I can't personally tolerate anything below 96 kbps using wma 9.

EDIT: You're welcomed. Just don't rip too many albums to a bitrate/format you might regret later. You won't be thanking me for that.

No!

Transparent means that the files sound indistinguishable from the original CD. LAME --alt-preset standard generates files that are almost always transparent even to trained listeners, but at bitrates around 200kbps.

WMA is NEVER transparent no matter how high you go.

right, but there are different levels of transparency, no? That's what I was referring to...

So that doesn't necessarily invalidate the following quote (if you go by the recent ~128 kbps blind test conducted by Roberto):

cool. let me calculate what that means for number of files per cd...

roughly 7.4 hours of music at 200Kbps, roughly 11.55 hours at 128Kbps. (650MB RW CD)

hmmm... around 100 songs instead of 150. Got to think about this.

I get about 100 songs per CD using --alt-preset standard. To me, the additional consistant quality definitely is worth the sacrifice of 50 or so songs. Besides, CD-R's are so cheap it isn't a big deal to get more when needed and chances are, you aren't going to listen to over 100 songs in a row at one time.

You might find --alt-preset medium a good compromise, you will need a different encoder than the previous one I posted, though. Personally I would stick to --alt-preset standard.

or --alt-preset standard -Y

Ah right, I forgot about that. How much does the -Y option cut down the filesize (usually).

How can there be different "levels" of sounding perfect, exactly?

Maybe you would try LAME 3.90.3 --alt preset 128. These preset gives best quality than cbr 128 at the same bitrate. Personally I prefer --ap 128 to WMA (at any bitrate) but the choice is yours. Try some tests before to take a choice. Let that your ears tells you which codec and bitrate you should to use

It's a matter of semantics. There are certain types of glass that are only partially transparent, for instance. Light passes through but the images appear to be distorted. I think the same can be said for audio codecs and their relative transparency levels: From not at all transparent to completely transparent and the spectrum inbetween. But maybe I'm talking junk science.

Nah it's a common observation when people compare such files against one another, and not against the original source. Of course, there must be placebo too, after all, PRO should sound better than no-PRO, right ?

It can be, for people who are not trained to hear artifacts, or for those who use rudimentary hardware to listen to their music. Of course, they may not even possess the original CD sources in the first place (tsk...p2p...tsk).

wow! I forgot to put Hydrogen Audio under my favorites and so forgot where the thread was.

did a search in google for wma 9 and mp3 pro, and guess what, the link to this thread came up first!

I found out that my mp3 player definitely does not support MP3 Pro. Unfortunately.

Surprisingly, I found this out by listening to electronic music (trance to be exact). It was Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport, and a lot of the sounds were muddled when played with the MP3 player.

Now that I know what to look for, it was quite obvious that the higher frequencies were messed up, comparing the same track on the MP3 player and computer.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that this is not a cd I own, and I deleted the original mp3 file. Guess I will have to go and get the CD.