So, now that I have a passable mp3 player (the Sony D-CJ01) I've decided to start archiving all my CDs into mp3...

A few questions I have...

1. I see that when you set EAC to rip and compress 'on the fly', it rips one track, opens the external LAME compressor while RIPPING IS STOPPED, and only start ripping again once compression is finished. In this case, what do I gain compared to encoding after ripping? I thought the whole idea was to start encoding the last track while ripping the next track, so that the time to rip + encode = time to rip + time to encode last track, and not + time to encode all tracks--as is the case now and when encoding 'off-the-fly'!!

2. Because my CJ01's VBR support is flaky, this is the line I'm using:
--alt-preset cbr 256 %s %d; the bitrate is specified at '192kbps' and 'high quality' outside of the commandline box. Are these settings correctly overriding EAC's defaults and applying --alt-preset cbr 256?

3. Would any of you in my position rather encode to MPC for listening on the computer and transcode to mp3 for the mp3 player and other new formats as they come along and I buy the players for them? (my computer speakers are nothing special so I'm not likely to notice artifacts on the computer better than on the portable, when I'd be using Etymotics ER4P earphones. I'd consider MPC because I feel it's the most futureproof format in the sense that it has the best quality of all current codecs and maybe even future codecs, so if and when mp3 dies out and another portable player-supported format comes along I can just transcode from MPC to that format. OTOH if I just need mp3s now the transcoding is a pain and a possible quality degradation step. But that applies to future formats too--I feel like I'm trying to talk and put my foot in my mouth at the same time Anyway, I am not really into this ABX stuff and am not really sure that I can ABX 128kbps mp3s (whatever encoder) from the original if I really wanted to, so perhaps my quality requirements aren't all that high?

Notice though that the mp3 encoder settings that I get to use are a compromise for my current player and hardly ideal as an archive setting... that's another reason why I'm somewhat reluctant about encoding all my stuff in mp3...

What do you think?

TIA
Joseph

You have to check the box saying "On extraction, start external compressors queued in the background" in the preferences.

For your third question, I'd strongly consider going lossless for the files on your PC if you think you might want to transcode in the future. But if you can't save the diskspace the degradation from transcoding from MPC to another format shouldn't be _that_ severe.

I'm guessing your new to lossy compression, what I've noticed is that when you first start off it's very hard & near impossible to define between 128kbps & the original but as you start to listen more & more your ears will (unfortunately) "tune" to lossy artifacts I first started off with r3mix LAME 3.89 & couldn’t tell (r3mix or 128kbps) from the original just today I was listening to some old r3mix albums & I couldn’t believe the artifacts I heard. I wouldn’t use MPC because just as you I thought of encoding to MPC then trans coding to MP3 (or what ever future format) but really you’ll find it's not worth the hassle & can become a burden when your going out, want some music to listen to & instead of just grabbing an mp3 CD you have to decode/encode/burn every_single_time you want Mobil music. Really --alt preset standard is of excellent quality & so far I find it hard to find artifacts sure you can obsess about the best quality but what are you listening for the music or the artifacts? mp3@128kbps can make music hard to enjoy but --alt preset standard is very, very acceptable quality I think good enough so that even with to notch audio hardware & trained ears you can still ignore the small enough artifacts & enjoy the music. In the end lossy compression should make music easier to use & more fun In my environment MPC does not do that.

EAC is known to forget the VBR header, I would not use LAME.dll encoding.

For 100% sure quality why not use:

RazerLAME

or

ALL2LAME

Also if you plan on having alot of music you may want to add ID3(v1) tags to make the files more organised:

Tag frontend

Eh? Forget VBR header? Wouldn't mp3gain not work then?
Anyway I'm using the exe, not the dll, for external compression... if that matters

edit: speak of the devil! Next thing you know mp3gain refuses to work with my first batch of VBR files!

About the quality issue, I've deliberately put of ABX'ing because I'm worried about what would happen if I start detecting the artifacts all of a sudden