I recently lost a lot ie all of my mp3s due to a stupid human error on my part....its not that bad, I was due to reencode anyways

anyways, some of my archived stuff is mpc insane and extreme. I (since I no longer have any of these albums) transcode these to mp3 with --alt-preset standard.

My question is, I also have about 10 albums that were encoded with mpc standard. What is the recommended bitrate I could comfortably transcode to ? Is --alt-preset standard too high? SHould I go with a CBR of 128 or 160?

thx

What do you want transcode these MPCs for?
If you plan to listem to them on a portable player while in the airplane or while going to work, I believe abr 128 is fine.

Actually they are being played thru my stereo.
(decent equipment)

But I dont have the originals, so thats why I must choose.

If you're using an MP3 playing capable device like a CD or DVD player then I getcha.

However, I believe the question is why, if you have the mpc versions, would you possibly want to transcode to mp3 for playback? I went with a long fiber run from my PC to my receiver for the playback. No signal loss between the decoder and the receiver and the receiver's DACs are much better than anything on my PC except perhaps my pro-recording gear that I use the optical out from. Using those DACs I'd have to worry about signal degredation across a 40' run of interconnects, so that also is bad.

G

Use --alt-preset insane. Why not? You'll be able to fit almost 6 hours worth of music on one CD-R...and the quality should almost match the original MPC.

Basically, I use linux with Globecom Jukebox to send music to the stereo, and it does not work with mpc, and I cant code worth a bean, so I'm stuck with mp3s.