I've decided to rerip my entire CD collection. Mostly because my current mp3s were created by AudioGrabber using Burst Mode, and because many of them have a 2-second pregap (CDR rips) appended to the end of the file. I'm also second-guessing my decision to not use Joint Stereo.

I used AudioGrabber to normalize the wavs to 95% if the peak was less than 92% (I disabled it when I felt it necessary) and have no complaints with the results. I used this LAME command line: -b 320 -m s (I didn't use vbr because I don't care how large the file is).

A few questions:

I'll be using EAC in Secure Mode this time. Can EAC rip the track without adding the pregap at the end of the file? Or will I have to do this with my wav editor?

Is my current LAME command line sufficient to get the highest quality results?

no, using -b 320 -m s will NOT give you the best results. If you don't care about space, use --preset insane. That will still be CBR 320 but with a better psychoacoustic model and joint stereo. joint stereo WILL SOUND BETTER than full stereo using LAME, as described many times on this board. This is because full stereo needs more bitwidth to encode, and even 320 believe it or not is not enough for some passages in some songs. Using joint stereo frees up extra bits, with no downside.

Even --preset standard will sound better than what you proposed on many samples, at just over half the bitrate.

also I assume you are normalizing to 95% to avoid clipping. A better way to accomplish this is:

--preset insane --scale 0.95 (even 0.98 should do)

which will do the same thing but avoid an extra lossy resampling stage.

oh and yes, you can have it either append the gaps to the ends of tracks (default), beginnings, or ignore them entirely. Can't remember where that setting is though, and I'm at work.

EAC-->EAC Options-->Extraction-->Delete leading and trailing silent blocks.

You lost me on this one. I use normalization mainly for my CDs with a low peak value. If it peaks between 92-100%, I leave it as-is. Is that a bad idea? Wouldn't LAME's Scale setting peak everything at it's specified value? And what do you mean by "extra lossy resampling stage"?

Also, I'm having difficulty setting the command line in EAC. It only allows "additional command line options", which seems to suggest that you can only add to a preset command line. With bitrate and quality already specified in the drop-down menus, wouldn't it end up using "-b 320 -q 2 --preset insane"?

I don't want to delete the silent blocks that appeared on the original CD. I just want to delete the 2 second pregap that was added by the burning software, and nothing else.

edit: I just discovered "Copy Selected Tracks Index-Based", so this problem is solved.

Normalization is not good (or even accurate), plus it's not a lossless procedure. Best bet would be to use mp3gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

In EAC, select "User Defined Enocoder" and point it to lame.exe.
Now enter "--alt-preset insane %s %d" (without the quotes).
Using the user defined encoder passes only the user entered command line.
I'd still highly recommend use --alt-preset standard.

The downside to this is if there is actually musical material in the pregap, such as an intro, or talking, it is now a seperate track, instead of joined with it's intended track.

I'll only use this on CDRs that I created by dragging the wav files into Nero, so I should be safe.

I'm considering it, but I'm still undecided. I guess have a really hard time believing that a smaller file could be of equal quality, even if the difference isn't audible to the human ear.

I'd actually prefer to go lossless, but I don't have the drive space for it, and I haven't found a good lossless player that can match the features of my preferred mp3 player (MuzicMan).

Thanks for the EAC/LAME command line.

Why didn't you archive the WAV files so you wouldn't have to re-rip your collection? Or archive them in a lossless format?

I believe that the best solution is to rip/encode to MP3 and FLAC simultaneously using MAREO/EAC and archive the FLACs for future codec advances or if you want to move to another codec.

Also, using the normalization within EAC will permanently alter the files and you will lose dynamics somewhat. Whilst more time consuming it is better to do each album separately using MP3Gain (I believe the default setting of 89dB is best). Each album will have the same relative volume but the dyamics within tracks will still be present.

BTW I haven't done all this. I am still trying to find the best solution. There are problems with specifying separate file paths for the different file formats using MAREO that need to be fixed.

When --aps fails, it's usually because of a limitation of the mp3 format, not a limitation of the bitrate. Chances are that --api would fail too. Also, try abx testing. If you can't hear a difference, there is no difference. This is the whole point behind lossy encoding.

Hi
i'm used to encode to preset extreme
but does it sound really better then standard????

Discussion about JS split here.

(I re-moved the relevent information back in case Grey missed it.)

What another poster said, if you can't hear a difference, for all intents and purposes, there *is* no difference!

If you really don't care about filesize, go lossless.

by the way , a question
i'm a novice ,is extreme preset also in vain????

You'd be best answering this question yourself by ABX testing both aps and ape. If you cannot hear a difference under ABX testing conditions, then the extreme preset worthless. Constantly asking questions about subjective audio quality will do no good unless you actually objectively test them to prove to yourself that you cannot hear a difference.