In an unguarded moment (actually a couple of weeks) i used realaudio plus to rip all of my cd's to mp3's at 128kbit. I used that partly because it was the fastest ripper that I could find.


So my question is whether I really need to go back and re-rip them all? Does anyone know what the general quality of realaudio is as an encoder?

unless you have very poor hearing, then YES
look at the list of recommended LAME settings if you want to use MP3 still. I personally use MPC or Ogg-Vorbis for the extremely rare times I touch lossy anymore - nothing but Flacs for me now (and many GBs of slightly older ape files before I left that camp)

edit: added quote and a few small corrections

I did look at the recommended settings but didn't see anything there to contradict the 128b/44khz/cbr that i recorded them at already ... are you saying that 128kb is just too low a sampling rate?

How could you not see anything there to contradict '128b/44khz/cbr'. The very first recomended setting is --alt-preset standard (~190 kbit/s, typical 180 ... 220). You should definately re-rip all of these tracks.

The recomended version of the LAME encoder is available here.

For good quality, ues "--alt-preset standard"
For better quality use "--alt-preset extreme"

You may also want to read about other formats like AAC and MPC that are discussed at this forum, as they potantially offer better quality than all MP3 encoders.

Make sure you're ripping with EAC to.

Edit: And read the list of recommended LAME settings.

it is for my ears
using
--alt-preset standard (~190 kbit/s, typical 180 ... 220)
gives you a decent balance of size and quality that is usually lacking when using CBR.

edit: fixed atrocious grammar

The recommended settings page is there to show people what quality preset to encode at for high quality results.

Ripping a CD to the hard drive isn't merely to just have it to listen to from the hard drive. Part of the ideal is to make a high enough quality backup that can be archived and used to restore a CD that becomes damaged, lost, stolen, etc.

128kbps is not the sample rate, it is the bitrate. 128kbps may be fine for casual listening when you need to jam as much music as possible onto a CD-RW or portable device. But, it is in no way high enough quality to consider for using when archiving, let alone the mp3 encoder in Real products isn't going to be as good as what LAME can produce. Since the tracks weren't ripped securely in EAC Secure Mode, or at the least CDex Paranoia Full some of your already encoded tracks "may" have problems.

Its called a BITrate, not a sampling rate. The sampling rate is the 44.1khz thing.
Yes, most people don't find 128kbps enough, but its your choice, if you are happy with it, so be it. Lame aps is still the best quality setting for the mp3 format. You could try other formats too, mpc is the best quality lossy encoder recommended here. aac and ogg vorbis are also worth trying.

if you are new to all the settings and compile options i would recommend EasyLame.

Actually, I think you should listen more to your own ears first than us in this forum. Try re-ripping the some tracks to wav and compare before you start re-ripping everything. For most people in this forum, 128kbps is far from enough to achieve good quality. For most people in the rest of the world, it probably is enough.

If you do want to get "perfect" results, or just best possible quality at a given bitrate, use EAC & Lame to rip and encode. Choose --alt-preset standard if you want "perfection" and any of the abr presets if you want best possible quality at a given bitrate.

If encoding speed is of great importance to you, and you want to switch to a better MP3 encoder, there is a 'fast' switch in LAME too. For example, the command line that I use presently for speedy encodes where quality isn't quite as important (for portable) is:

--alt-preset fast standard -Y

128kbps cbr with Real is definitely a compromise that I wouldn't recommend unless your hearing isn't very good or you're listening in an environment where quality isn't important.

If you're willing to try a different codec, MPC (MusePack) using quality 5 will sound vastly more transparent, without too much of a file size penalty. It is my lossy codec of choice when compatibility in a portable isn't an issue. (I would suggest that even quality 4 would be much better than 128kbps cbr Real though I don't think many people use MPC below quality 5.)

As for whether you "should" re-rip all of your CDs, well that is up to you. I would ask how many CDs you're talking about. Also, can you hear any artifacts, or do the Real files sound good to you? I wouldn't be happy with them, but that doesn't mean you can't be.

Also, even if you don't want to re-rip and encode all the albums you already did, why not start today using a better format like LAME --aps or MPC quality 5 for future encoding?

OMG, Real Audio uses Xing, right? (puke...)

BTW, rhellyer, u r better of using a ripper other than Real Player.
Real Player may be fast but that's just because it rips without
any kind of error checking/correction.

Actually, by far, most people find 128kbps enough for them.

You should rephrase saying "most people here at HydrogenAudio don't find 128kbps enough"

Thanks to everyone on this forum for the great set of replies! I do appreciate that. Going forward, I will be trying to use Lame/EAC for any new CD's, and I will re-rip some of existing ones using the --alt-preset standard. My ears have been around long enough that they aren't too sensitive any more (I did try experimenting using ABX, and really did badly on the tests, as it were) , but who knows who else may want to listen to the CD rips in the future? Incidentally, I have been using both a PC and a SLIMP3 to stream audio my various stereos and love the Slimp3
Over and out.