Hello this is my first post on the forums.

I used to think I knew something about mp3 encoding but I have come to the realization today that I know nothing.

My question in a nutshell is how do I rip/encode mp3's from cd without losing too much SQ? I have 3 places that I mainly listen to music: In my car ($5000+ custom built stereo by me), my computer on my Z-680's with a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS (soon to be X-FI), and on my headphones SONY-MDR-V700DJ. Oh and I almost forgot... My ipod on Skull Candy ear buds. However I do not let Itunes encode any music.

Previously I have used Audiograbber using the lame codec (I have no idea the version lol) and joint or dual? stereo. I have no idea what settings have produced what in my library but I know I rip everything at a minimum of 192 KBPS. On some of my songs I have noticed the sound (mainly vocals) comes from the left channel where it used to be centered and go back to the CD and its fine. So I know its something with my encoding.

So basically I want to know what software I should use (already decided im using the latest version of Lame) to rip from CD's or if Audiograbber is fine. Also how do I set it up so that I don't have the channels unbalanced like it happened in some of my rips. I want my rips to be as true to the original as possible. I would sacrifice a little quality to have my channels correct again cause that just pisses me off. In my readings of Joint Stereo it sounds like it would do that to me so im scared to use it. Joint also sounds like its for systems with center channles? When I do not use a center channle for music? Please any clarification on Joint Stereo would be greatly appreciated. Also I need lower frequencies to remain intact as my car stereo can hit frequencies as low as 15-20 Hz and I notice a difference when these are cut out.

Finally I do not want to use a lossless codec. Simple reason being space and compatibility. None of my players aside from the computer will play lossless and I currently do not have the Harddrive space cause my library is over 5000 songs.

Ok, that was a lot. Any advice/help is greatly appreciated.

The Hydrogenaudio Wiki is a good place to start in order to use the right tools and getting them configured correctly.

You can learn a little about joint stereo (and the myths) from the Faq.

Also, blind listening tests are a must if you really want to evaluate a codec's quality.

Happy reading.

I very much doubt that joint stereo or any other property of LAME's encoding or the MP3 format itself can cause stereo balancing issues. Joint stereo, in fact, usually increases the chance of transparency (a.k.a "better quality") - assuming no exceptional cases.

I, along with many other members here, would recommend Exact Audio Copy for secure extraction of CDDA, LAME 3.97 for encoding and - as evereux said - proper methods of objectively evaluating sound quality.

Ok a quick addition after I have started reading.

Lame 3.90.3 seems to be the recommended, why are you recommending v3.97 here?

Also to better describe my problem before it seems that my encoding of my music has caused stereo separation. Although that seems to not be a problem at all (even with the small number of proven problems) with JS.

I have decided to use EAC and have downloaded the latest stable copy.

I am currently using a Plextor-716SA drive. Any known problems with SATA interface and ripping with EAC? I will be soon upgrading to a Plextor-755SA.

I am currently listing to some Stone Sour encoded with 240 kb VBR JS with Lame 3.90 and it sounds amazing (at least on my Skull Candy buds)

From where did you get the idea that we recommend 3.90.3?
3.97 is the recommended version.

The FAQ seemed to suggest 3.90.3. Now upon further reading in the WIKI it says v3.97.

I'm just gonna shut up until I am done reading

maybe it's because the HA community and tweakers alike were the first one to even come up with the 3.90.3 branch and extensively test it and develop it. which is nice because all of that happened more than 4 years ago. 3.90.3 has not been the recommended version for years. i really don't understand why people are being urged by other clueless gits to simply stick with that version. to get the best sound quality you have to keep up with current stable releases.

Ok I have EAC and Lame downloaded. I cant test it yet cause im at work so it will have to wait till I get home. However as far as the command line parameters go...This is what I would enter?

-V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

that would give me ID3v1&2 tags and a target VBR of 240 kbps using the new VBR method? (I chose -V 0 cause I am really liking these 240 samples I downloaded.)

If I enter that into the command line in EAC can I ignore the other settings? Meaning will that command line take priority over EAC settings for Lame or will I have to make sure they are all correct as well? And I assume that -V 0 will use joint stereo?

Thanks for all the help guys, in the passed 4 hours I have learned so much and done none of my actual work

EDIT: I noticed that on the higher end VBR settings the lowpass is set to ~18-20Hz. Is there a switch that will let me set it to ~10-12Hz?

If you choose "User defined Encoder" in EAC settings it will ignore all other settings and consider the command line only...

Command line is OK, but IMO -V 0 is too much even for "golden-ears". You can do some tests, but I'd reccomend you to use -V 2 to avoid wasting precious space in your iPod.

For reccomended LAME settings have a look at here

Edit: from reccomended settings thread:


-V settings use joint stereo. Don't worry, there are lots of false myths about it...



Humans can hear sounds from 20Hz... If you aren't listening to music with your dog don't worry about it

KHz, not Hz. (Lowpass means all frequencies below will be allowed to pass through.)

I will have to test the difference between -V 2 and -V 0 in my car. I can notice major differences between MP3's and CD's in my car due to the quality of the system. However that could be due in part to the decoder in my deck.

As far as --vbr-new goes, why do you not recommend it even though it is in the recommended settings thread?



Ok... I have no idea how I read that wrong. But now I see everything under approximately 18-20kHz will be intact.

The reason I am concerned about the 10-20 Hz range is not that my ears can hear it but that my subs can still respond at that low and in my tests the bass sounds deeper and richer with my specific sub box if the 10-40Hz range is kept intact.

By default there is no highpass filter, so don't even worry about it. All of the low frequencies will be encoded intact.

--vbr-new is indeed recomended to be used nowadays

Edit: I was first xD

It appears to me he did recommend it:

"-V 3 --vbr-new (~175 kbps), -V 2 --vbr-new (~190 kbps), -V 1 --vbr-new (~210 kbps) or -V 0 --vbr-new (~230 kbps) are recommended."

Before he edited it said to stay away from it. At least thats what I read. However it doesn't say it now and VBR new is indeed recommended so I am off to go home and try all this out

I'm sorry, i've edited the thing about --vbr-new as soon as I noticed the error...

It's alright its all been sorted out.

Anywhoo I tried this all at home last night. Everything worked great except for two minor issues. First the ASPI layer does not work with my SATA Drive so I have to use Native windows drivers. Second on the second CD I ripped Lame kept getting an error and crashing. It closed to quickly for me to see the error it was giving. However restarting fixed the problem and then it did it again. However one time it let me see the error before closing and it said "Unknown Genre: Melodic Death Metal" and a number at the end. Weird how it would work sometimes but not others. Anyone know anything about this? Either way I just put it as Metal and it worked fine after that.

Another good thing came from all this because I was curious to know the DAE quality of my drive so went and read up some reviews and found that my drive doesn't like 16x DVD-R media which is good cause I bought 100 CD's of Verbatim 16x DVD+R. Oddly enough it was my GF who told me to get +R instead of -R even though they were the same price... lol

Amazing the speed difference between my Plextor and the Toshiba drive here at work... 2.5x is the highest this toshiba goes yet my Plextor goes 5-10x.

So any other interesting things I should know that would be the next step to what im doing? I'm a sponge and I like to learn

EDIT:

I would just like to add that my previous ripping was done with Audiograbber using Lame 3.6 @ CBR 192kb/s Dual Stereo. The CD's I ripped yesterday... WOW!!! On average my file sizes increased by 1.5 MB but I don't care it sounds soo much better. And I have my true "Stereo Image" Again. It must have been the Dual Stereo that I was using... What is Dual Stereo? But I am now re ripping my entire library but its easy cause I can match the exact filenames with EAC and it just overwrites all my old files and Itunes automatically updates.

Ha, I was scratching my head at that post. Makes sense now.

Some really bad mp3 decoders have some issues with VBR (specifically high bitrate, or very dynamic bitrate VBR). However, these aren't subtle sound quality issues - you'll hear obvious glitching.

As for moving the vocal from the centre to the left?! I've heard very low bitrate codecs move things from left or right into the centre, but not the opposite! It shouldn't happen with decent lame settings.

Cheers,
David.

LAME itself can only add genres that are part of its built-in, "standard" list. Have a look at for clarification!

Also check out --ignore-tag-errors.