Hi all,

I want to start encoding my CD collection to MP3 format, I have been reading up about what software to use etc...

I have found this site:

http://www.chrismyden.com/bestmp3guide.php

I was wondering if anyone can tell me if this is good to follow or is the software listen on the site a bit dated now? What version of EAC & LAME is recommended now?

I have read up on this forum but the post about what version to use seems to be out dated!

Any help for this MP3 rookie would be great

DJAd

You should be using EAC v0.95 beta2, it's the latest version. LAME 3.90.3 is also fairly dated now although extensively tested. I would opt for 3.96.1 or the latest 3.97 alpha (see this sticky for more information on recommended versions). Other than that it seems like a reasonable guide, although there's extensive guides right here on HA. HA's guides also let you customise the options to suit your needs rather than just supplying a configuration.

Also, I'd probably opt for Adaptec's ASPI drivers as the installer will properly register the DLL so any application can use it, not just EAC.

You won't go wrong with using the myden format and could use it as a starting point
to configure EAC & LAME, however like Defsac mentioned the other guide's show
you how to customize specific options that may be of interest to go above & beyond
the general configuration file which you could then save as your own configuration file.

Any of the reasons stated in the myden guide for using the older EAC version is pretty much moot now..

One of things you'll probably want to change if you start off with the myden config
is removing the tick from 'Beep after extraction', it gets quite annoying..

Thanks for the help guys, I think I'll give 3.96.1 a go. Is it best to use the preset standard for LAME???

Regards,

Adam

Adam: preset standard is concsidered transparent by the vast majority of people, and is the most commonly used mp3-encoding setting by people who frequent this forum. That said, it tends to bloat (go really high bitrate) with heavy metal or sometimes with applause on live cd's, because there's a lot of high-frequency info in those, and preset standard tries to faithfully encode this information and just really increases the bitrate. On most music, if I go from V3 to V2 (V2 being equivalent to preset standard, V4 to preset medium, V3 obviously inbetween), the bitrate will jump from 175 to 195 or something. When I'm encoding metal, V3 might still average 175 while V2 might average 225.

Anyway, if you want transparency that will satisfy most people, without overkill bitrate (and you don't have the absolute best ears out there, nor the best speaker equipment, preset standard should be your choice. If you listen pretty carefully but not a ton, you could go with V3 or V4... or possibly even V5, if you listen in a noisier environment. V5 is still mostly transparent to lots of people, surprisingly. If you're paranoid and wanna go overkill (or have top-of-the-line, 99.99th %-ile ears and equipment, or will be sharing with people who do, you could go with preset extreme (V0) or V1.