omg... i have spent hours reading about mp3 ripping and encoders that i must confess... the more i read the more i get confused. i am not that dumb in regards of computers but when it comes audio and video formats etc., this subject drives me nuts. there are NO STANDARDS! there are tons of econders, codecs, ripping programs, etc. out there. man... can the industry decide on ONE thing and stick with it? probably not...

anyhow... i found this site a few days ago, read a lot and now i have tons of questions. i was hoping some of you would kindly shine a light so i can see the end of my tunnel?

i'll post my main/first concern at this moment... then i'll post the second one down the road. i have to master on this one here first

ok... so i am ripping my WHOLE cd collection into mp3s and i am confused in witch encoder to use. so far i have figured out that i should go with 128kbs as i am not that pickie about sound quality... i am more concerned with size. i like to fit as much music as i can into my mp3 players... but of course... with a decent sound.

question#1 - which encoder should i use to have the best compatibility withing players that exist now and players that will come in the future?

i fear ripping music now and then not being able to play them in the future due to a new technology... so i want to make sure i cover my a@# here just in case. by the way... i don't even know if this is possible to happen?

question#2. - other then the setting i asked on question#1, are there ANY OTHER settings that i should concern myself before ripping my whole collection?

by the way, i will be using the latest winamp pro... but i also have blaze media pro in case this helps. i thank you all for reading this.

ps) i hope i have posted this in the right forum. if not... i truly apologize. can you please then move my post? thank you.

***edit - uhahuahuahuah... i am excited... just found one more thread here to read with some good info... http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=56461&st=

1) LAME would give you the best compatibility. You can get it at rarewares.org under MP3.

2) You can either use a LAME frontend, program, or the command line to encode audio to MP3. Most use a program such as EAC or dBpoweramp reference. That way you can rip CD -> MP3 and not have to go about ripping it to WAV and then converting it to MP3.

If you have any other questions, don't be afraid to ask.

1) As said before, LAME is an acceptable solution. Technically speaking, though, it's best to rip to a lossless codec and then transcode to lossy from that. I use MAC, but FLAC and WavPack are also recommended

2) Use EAC for your ripping

FHG is also more than acceptable and much quicker. Forget lossless as you already mentioned your goals. MP3 will never go away in our lifetimes.

Try the FHG encoder @ 128k. Its more fun when it fast.

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/amm/pro...atial/index.jsp

man you guys are awesome. thank you very much

that link i found (the one i posted/edited onto my 1st message here) helped me a lot as well!

so... so far this is what i have understood;

1. mp3s will likely stay around for a while, so they will be the MOST COMPATIBLE one for me to go with
2. a lot of people recommend ripping to a lossless format and it seems that most will recommend FLAC
3. then you transcode from FLAC to MP3s files and most people would recommend LAME 3.97 for this part
4. program wise... i guess most of you will advise EAC or FOOBAR2000

i will try FOOBAR2000 first... since i like the idea that it rips and transcodes all i one.

but with FOOBAR2000, here is where i am confused;

1. i read that i have to place the FLAC codec inside the MAIN DIRECTORY of foobar2000... but when i unzip the flac file i get a few files... do i place ALL OF THEM into the directory of foobar2000? or just specific ones?

2. when i open the LAME3.97 zip i get a few files as well... which ones do i place in the foobar2000 directory? all or just LAME.EXE?

thank you all again for helping me with this.

You only need the .exe files. So, lame.exe and flac.exe.

Important: If you use lossless, then consider the amount of diskspace which you will need. If your player supports VBR-mp3, then you will get more efficient quality at around 128kbit, if you use V5 (fb2k allows you to set that with a simply slider).

did you see this post?:
<http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=55619>

i'd do some ABx before i get too far into it.

i'm a fan of Omni Encode, it'll allow you to easily play around with the LAME V settings:
<http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=46639>

so sorry, i need more help here. by the way... and thank you LYX and SPAM FODDER for the information.

@LYX - I have placed the lame.exe inside the foobar2000 folder... but do i just placed it there or do i run the file as well?

also, the flac.exe did not work... it doesn't let me install in the foobar2000 directory. it gives me the option to install as a separate program in its own folder... but not inside foobar2000. i tried installing it... the a flac.exe icon appears on my desktop... and when i click on it a windows opens like i am running a program... i was under the impression that flac is a plugin and it is installed inside the directory of foobar2000 just like the lame.exe one above. what am i doing wrong now? by the way, i grabbed this file - flac1.2.0a.exe from the site http://flac.sourceforge.net/

@spam fodder - i had not seen that post. thank you... i have read it... and i must confess that confused me even more

1. No need to run the lame encoder manually. When you use Foobar's convert option and select MP3(Lame), foobar will use the encoder automatically.

2. There is also a zip version of flac available. extract it somewhere and copy the flac.exe to foob directory.

@kanak - i was editing my post above yours but you beat me to it and already and gave me an answer , thank you. i will then unzip the flac program and install is as i was installing a program and copy/paste the flac.exe inside the directory of foobar2000 and NOT run the .exe.

***by the way... anyone here can tell if i have to change any other settings of the foobar2000 program? or can i leave everything defaulted?

also, i think i am going to use mp3 lame v5 130kbps (instead of the 128kbps that i was thinking before)...

thank you all again for your time.

Have you seen the HA Wiki entry on LAME?

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

I think you mean "practically" speaking, which actually is debatable, there is no technical advantage to ripping first to lossless.

Obviously:
• if you do not want to lose, you have to use lossless encoding – FLAC is fine,
• if you want to listen to a lower quality, recode the flac files to desired format. If you can choose, choose AAC codec (audio file format – m4a). It is better than any mp3 codec.