No I'm not thinking about re-ripping my library into Lame 3.98b4.

My library is currently ripped into Lame 3.97 -V 5 --vbr-new, I was toying with making my library more efficient in size by re-ripping it into AAC.
I did some audio quality tests, and to achieve transparent encodings (as Lame 3.97 -V 5 --vbr-new imo were) I am using the same bit rate using Nero AAC encodings -q 0.4, so I don't know what the advantage of useing AAC actually is.

Simply I was wondering if its worth waiting for the next lame version to come out of beta and re rip my libary then?
I need to delete and re-organize most of the stuff in my libary so it would be a good excuse to re-rip into a better format anyway.

It probably sounds obscure but it means lots to me.

Only question I have to ask is: are you really gonna re-rip your library with every new version? As long as you've achieved transparency, I'd suggest you be happy. Otherwise you'll be left with the daunting prospect of having to repeat the process on a larger scale each time as your library grows.

Just trying to save you some work here

honestly, have you ever considered lossless?

I guess you haven't intensively tested AAC so far. It performs quite well at low bitrates, as the latest 48 kbit/s multiformat test showed. Its high anchor, 96 kbit/s iTunes AAC, was transparent to a lot of people. That's the fact for myself as well, during my own listening tests using foobar's ABX tool I wasn't able to distinguish Nero AAC -q 0.34 from the sources.

And about the re-ripping: As mentioned above, updating your collection with every new version is a serious waste of time - unless you rip to a lossless archive instead, which can easily be transcoded to any possible lossy codec, without having to do all the ripping and tagging work over and over. That's the way I do it myself, all my CDs are stored as a cleanly organized FLAC archive on an external drive. It allows me to update the lossy collection regularly and to test several different lossy codecs in an automatic, painless job.

I feel as if I should get a new hard drive! haha

I've considered lossless, but I can't comfortably play that on my ipod, (its 80gb size isn't the problem there, its the battery life)

I can honestly say I'm not going to be happy with any current lossy audio codec, besides vorbis. All other have tagging inconstancy but vorbis is getting neglected.

Well thanks for the advice. you've helped.

ID3v2.3 is widely supported by just about everything out there that matters. The Vorbis comments system has its own vagaries and isn't supported nearly as widely as MP3 and ID3 are. Oh, and WMA (thanks to its centralized development) has practically zero inconsistencies within the format.

haha, I guess mp3 is the way to go until something better comes up. Thanks!

Consider ripping to lossless and store the files on DVD. It's cheaper and less probable that whole lossless collection gets lost when there's a problem with the media.

However, even if you don't want to listen to lossless, it's useful as an archiving format since you can convert from the lossless files to whatever's the lossy flavour of the month or whatever your current players/devices use. As Junon points out, having a lossless archive means if you do want to change the lossy codec you're using, you don't have to re-rip; you simply transcode from the lossless to whatever lossy format you want.

The same point is made here:



http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/

I think he has a point myself.

DVD storage should be used only if you're low on cash. A properly backed up HDD solution is always faster and a lot more convenient.

Are lossless codecs really necessary, I've toyed with ripping wav's and cue sheets a while ago, and it is a really neat format, just mount it with Daemon Tools and rip with whatever.
I would rather use that format than others, sounds logical to me.

Lossless is not necessary. It's all up to you.

IMO questions like these are primarily a matter of a user's inner properties - more than a question of a codec's quality. Most users of compressed music will never consider re-ripping or re-encoding their music. They just enjoy it and they're fine.

(Persistent) Members here are either a bit paranoid about quality or very interested in audio compression technology or both (I belong to the 'both' folks) or beleivers in 'new things are better'. They have a tendency to reencode their music from time to time, and it comes quite handy to just reencode without re-ripping that is using a lossless codec.

From what you write I guess you wonder whether new things are really better. You're not a beleiver in this and want to be proven wrong (or better not).

You seem to be happy with your encodings so why don't you stick with them? No reason to change unless you have a real experience for doing so.
In case you're really uncomfortable continuing this way: join us paranoids, rip and encode once to lossless, and from time to time from lossless to any format or version you consider attractive.

I think you are looking at lossless from the wrong perspective. Don't look at lossless for carrying around your library on a portable and for playback through said portable. That would not make any logic at all especially since modern-day lossy formats can achieve transparency at lower bitrates thus allowing you to carry around your entire library on your portable without draining its battery life.

Look at lossless from the perspective that you have a digital copy of your CDs that you can later use for other encoding purposes. You want to re-rip your entire CD library to a new version of Lame. Well, what about 2-3 years down the line, will you want to do the same thing again? That is why lossless is the route to go. You simply rip your CDs once and never have to rip them again. You can then encode those lossless files to whatever lossy format/encoder that you want. If a new version of Lame comes out then you can delete all your current mp3s and setup your computer to convert those lossless files overnight. It is a whole lot easier than going through and re-ripping all your CDs.

Ripping CDs also causes wear and tear on optical drive. Re-ripping CDs too many times will cause a optical drive to brake down. It is better just to shell out for the external hard drive now than it is to have to purchase a new CD drive once every 2 years just because you want you refuse to use lossless. You can pick up 300GB external hard drives for less than $120 at common electronics stores. On top of that, if you have a desktop with an extra hard drive bay, you can get 500-600GB internal hard drives for less than $100.

In all seriousness, you should rip to lossless for archiving purposes then encode those lossless files to whatever lossy format you want. Don't carry around your lossless files as there would be no point in doing that since they will eat away at your iPod's battery. Use the lossless files as a digital backup so you will never have to rip your CDs again.

Honestly, thinking about that pretty much sums it up. And when its put that way, it really does show me that mp3 is the way to go for me.

I should honestly go for lossless and get a second harddrive. I am seriously considering it. Would be way easier for me.

I never considered myself an audiophile until I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago.*
Although sometimes I am getting unsatisfied with with the quality of my music at Lame 3.97 -V 5 --vbr-new, its just some songs, not all of them.

*Perhaps it has something to do with my having a portable CD player a while ago (all I used for a good few years), I probably grew to used to high-quality audio quality.

I don't listen to anything but MP3s, and yet I ripped everything to FLAC originally. They never get played; just transcoded to MP3 whenever a new version of LAME comes out.

Pick up a 300GB HD, they're dirt cheap now.

Same here. All is ripped to FLAC and converted to MP3. At given times I re-convert the entire FLAC library. Doesn't happen much though, last time was when I switched from Lame 3.90 to 3.97 .

seems to me the proper Hydrogen Audio response is to do an ABx on a few and see if it matters to you.

Something that crossed my mind, what if a new version of the Lossless encoder (I will use flac) came out, with a higher compression method, is it worth transcoding that?

Unless its major I'm thinking not, but whats your opinion.

It rarely makes sense, unless there's a specific optimization in the compression of the type of music you have. The only time i've transcoded lossless -> lossless is when i jumped ship from Flac to Tak. The savings were anywhere from 5 to 15 mb per album, which really added up.

If a new lossless codec comes out then as you say you only need to transcode - not re-rip. For me it would come down to the tagging system and the compatibility of the new codec with my DAP. I use FLAC - very happy with it.

Luckily lossless codec development is being continued as we see right now and have learnt especially from TAK develeopment.

Anyway compression ratio of different codecs and versions do not differ much on average with the usual codecs. Moreover this shows that we are supposed to be pretty much near the end of what's achievable. So it's hard to imagine that any reencoding of a current lossless codec will make much sense.

There are some things to be considered however when chosing a codec right now:

a) Is best compression ratio with sufficiently good speed for encoding and decoding of highest concern to you?
Than good old Monkey (MAC) extreme high (-c4000) is a very good choice IMO - at leat in case your pc isn't very old (max. ~ 5 years).

b) If you care more about speed especially on the decoding side while having average compression ratio not far from MAC extra high than maybe TAK is your best choice.
Decoding speed is of concern if you plan to transcode often to lossy codecs or listen to the losslessly compressed music on pc and want this to be only a negligible burden for your CPU.

c) If your highest concern is widespread use and hardware support for DAPs with other properties similar to TAK's then maybe FLAC is your best choice.

d) Interesting is wavPack because wavPack can be used not only in pure losssless but also in hybrid mode. With hybrid mode you can create a comparatively small lossy file together with a correction file. Using both together makes up for a lossless encoding. For instance you can store the very high quality lossy files on your pc and the correction files on dvd or ext. HD. For transcoding to mp3 or whatsoever you use the correction files together with the lossy files (you have to temporarily copy them to the folder(s) with the corresponding lossy files). For enjoying music on your pc you just listen to the top quality lossy files stored on the pc.
Top quality of the lossy files is achieved by using a considerably higher bitrate than you do with mp3 etc. But that's still essentially a lot lower than that of the lossless encoding (files roughly half the size of losslessly encoding depending on your needs).
You have a lot of choices. For instance you can forget about the correction files and just use lossy files but with extremely high quality. These top quality lossy files are very well suited for transcoding to other codecs.
For DAPs which can make use of free Rockbox firmware wavPack files (no matter lossless or lossy) can be played and are efficiently decoded. (I use wavPack very high quality lossy on my DAP and I'm happy with it.)

e) For mere PC use remarkable codecs are also LA and OptimFrog.
Both can be used for getting an even better compression ratio on average than that of MAC extra high.
Speed however is not impressive. OptimFrog is remarkable moreover as it has a hybrid mode like wavPack.

I personally use MAC extra high for my lossless archive. If I would start my lossless archive right now I would seriously consider using TAK or FLAC apart from MAC. Guess I'd use TAK with all I know now about my lossless usage - I have transcoded my lossless archive pretty often to various lossy codecs. But MAC's decoding speed isn't pain at all so I will not transcode to TAK.

...nevermind...

I can't really add much to halb27's statement.