Hey guys,
This is the first time i've checked on this forum in years, and I see you've moved on from ye olde "r3-mix" preset to "-preset standard"! I've been encoding my cd collection with r3mix for about 4 years now (shudders) and have got about 40 gigs worth altogether! Is it worth the time and effort re-encoding my 200+ cds to the new preset, or is there not much differance to r3mix?

if the files sound transparent to you there is no need for reencoding.

If you're that concerned about keeping up to date, and you're going to bother re-ripping, rip everything into lossless files, burn them to DVDs, and then use a tool like foobar to encode to whatever strikes your fancy. r3mix is pretty ancient, but unless you have some special application, like you want smaller files for a dap, or you need higher quality files for production activities, your old files should be fine.

I would suggest re-encoding, but it's your call.

If you have the time and CPU cycles to burn, I'd say go for it.

Hey,
I just updated LAME to the newest version I tried the new -preset standard fast setting. I've just done a brief listening test on a song with this setting, compared to the r3mix mp3 I already had through some decent headphones (sennhesier hd555s), and I must admit I cannot tell them apart!

Speaking of loseless codecs though, I have become a lot more interested in this since buying an expensive cd player, I am beginning to see why some people still prefer CDs over mp3s. When I get the time I am considering ripping my collection to FLAC for archival purposes (I tried it out for the first time yesterday and the results are mighty impressive considering the 0% quality loss!)

Since I am pretty darn fussy when it comes to audio quality, I think i'll re-encode to the new LAME preset when I get around to the FLAC encoding, that way it won't be such a hassle with the ripping
Cheers for the feedback, I appreciate it
Dawson

I would actually go for wavpack instead of flac, but that's personal preference...

Why's that Shade[ST]?

Before I realized how much longer it took to transcode my collection of APEs, I used to use Monkey's Audio because it had better compression ratios for about the same encode time as FLAC. Wavpack has a lot of features, but imho, FLAC still offers pretty much the best Size to decompression speed ratio of any encoder out there, and has more support than most formats in other software and such. I guess WavPack is kind of a happy medium for some people?

I was thinking about wavPack lossy 400kbit/s for archival in situations where lossless is impractical... should still provide excellent quality for transcoding.

Wavpack provides a hybrid mode which is very nice to be able to toggle. Also, Garf's optimized compile (I don't know if David updated his source code with it) gets better efficiency, and I've experienced faster decoding per compression ratio with wavpack as opposed to flac. Plus I like the name better.

edit : Argh. it seems the optimized build is FLAC, not Wavpack. Whatever. I still like wavpack's name better

If there ever was a better reason for choosing a codec, I haven't heard it!

I like fb2k's use of hyper-threading that encodes my wv -> mp3 at > 17x. I recently just reencode all my albums (more than 900 cds) for my portables. The tags and RGs are updated this time.

Actually, it's -V2 now...

That sounds like a very sensible plan, if your current files are good enough quality for now.

Oh... You say FLAC still gets better decompression speed to filesize ratio? I haven't heard about any optimized versions yet... Would you care to provide some info, or a link in regards to this?

If there's an optimized version of FLAC, that would interest me.

Look for something like "optimized flac" by garf. It's quite a popular topic.

Gets up as flac 1.1.2.1 I think.