The topic title may not be the most descriptive, but I will try my best with writing this topic starting post. I've been ripping in FLAC, and MP3 in 256kbps and 128kbps using Joint Stereo.

I've been ripping in FLAC for archival and quality purposes. Basically to have the best of the best.

I've been ripping in 256kbps for a highly compressed high quality, my iPod (FLAC is not supported), and for file sharing.

I've been ripping in 128kbps for a highly compressed alright quality (though if most people have sub-par sound cards and/or speakers which aren't that great, which is a lot of my friends, and I assume also a lot of other people, it's hard to tell a reasonable difference between this and higher bitrates), my iPod (FLAC is not supported / Other MP3 players who carry only 2GB, for example, make use of these much smaller file sizes), and for file sharing (it's annoying to wait too long to send a file to a friend if you want to get them into a band they may not even like).

FLAC is right on. I have no plans of changing that.

256kbps though, I'm wondering if I should change that to V0 VBR? I figure the jump from 256 to 320 is probably not that useful for larger file sizes, and well, the goal of audio compression is to have a good quality to compression ratio. I would estimate (correct me if I'm wrong) that 256 is better when you take this into account. Anyway, I did some test rips, and my friend has always said that he dislikes VBR because he claims he can hear the bitrate jump around, so when I sent him a 256kbps CBR and a V0 VBR, he preferred the CBR, though said that the VBR I sent seemed to be ripped far better than others he has heard.

But I don't understand this. Wouldn't CBR have a tendency to jump around more than a VBR due to how they work? Some passages with high complexity will have relatively less quality due to bit restriction than passages with lower quality, would they not? I really don't see how it would be any different. VBR, since it seems its aim is to keep quality homogenized, should give the most even sound, right?

Anyhoo, the 128kbps I ripped in I have ripped since the beginning, back when everyone had smaller hard drives and all that jazz, when it was the standard. So that's why I still do it. Because I am very anal and value consistency very much. I think I will likely keep ripping in this, even though I'm re-ripping all of my CDs and labeling them all (very much work, holy shit), because I want to have two groups of MP3s, and well, a 128kbps CBR is just as compatible with whatever as the most compatible MP3, right?

the wiki is always a good place to start.

unless your friend can abx "the bitrate jumping around" i wouldn't believe him. even if he can, that doesn't mean you can too.

this seems correct to me.

First, read the LAME wiki as it answers most of your questions.

Second, I'd be seriously surprised if your friend could tell the difference between a 256 CBR and -V0 --vbr-new file encoded by LAME 3.97 or 3.98b6 unless the track is a LAME problem sample. I doubt even more that he could tell when the bitrate changes on a VBR file. This is probably the placebo effect. Use foobar2000 to do an ABX test between the two files if you doubt what I'm saying.

EDIT: twostar beat me to finish the first reply

Thanks for the info thus far. I've read the wiki, but I don't think that subjective things like if 128kbps or 256kbps for the needs I listed can really be addressed there. For those two things, I'm basically looking for your personal opinions and why you would go by them, and well, the VBR jumping vs. CBR jumping thing I stated I wanted addressed.

I'd like to add one thing though, when I tried to install an ASPI layer and not use the Native Win32 Interface, my ripper gave me a silent clicking track. So I went back to using the Win32, obviously. But a few guides I've seen suggest installing another ASPI, and I've read the wiki on the ASPI which says:

The Advanced SCSI Programming Interface (ASPI) is an established system of accessing Drives (with its origins in 1970's mainframe technology) which today is commonly supported by CDROM reading/ripping softwares. The performance of some Software/OS version combinations can be improved by installing the missing (or an alternative) ASPI driver, which is also sometimes called the ASPI 'Layer'. Windows 2000 and XP come with ASPI preinstalled and software can come with its own version. There is normaly little to gain from changing ASPI unless prompted by a specific problem.

So from what I get out of that is that I should just keep using Win32, right? I mean, just because I'm paranoid I want to know for sure, that using that or an externally installed one will make no difference to the rip and quality, right?

You've come to the wrong forum if you're asking for subjective opinions on which bitrate to use, but VBR is so well tuned nowadays that at 128k it is likely to always be superior in quality to CBR, and might be superior at every bitrate (lower than 320k). You need to listen (and ABX) for yourself to be sure of what you want.

I don't think anybody cares about ASPI anymore. The finer points of ripping have more to do with lower level drive control (C2, drive offsets, burst mode+AccurateRip vs secure modes). As you've discovered, the most that usually goes wrong with a driver change is complete failure.

There will be no difference in quality among working drivers.

Unfortunately there are a lot of EAC guides that give bogus information.

What would the right forum be then, Axon?

And (potentially) one last question, because of what I said here:

"But I don't understand this. Wouldn't CBR have a tendency to jump around more than a VBR due to how they work? Some passages with high complexity will have relatively less quality due to bit restriction than passages with lower quality, would they not? I really don't see how it would be any different. VBR, since it seems its aim is to keep quality homogenized, should give the most even sound, right?"

Wouldn't V0 VBR be more consistent than 320kbps mp3s, and in a way higher quality? Because if the quality isn't homogeneous throughout the entire track, I'd consider that a big problem.

The answer to both of these questions is no.

Feel free to create some samples and do some ABX testing so you can hear for yourself.

If you haven't already, please read TOS #8.

Sorry about that, I wasn't aware of those TOS.



So you disagree with this then?

The thing is though, that my current setup isn't the best, so I'm not the best to run a test on at the moment, but I want to get a consistent ripping method set up so I can rip everything, so, someone must be able to objectively tell me the answer to the above quote, right?

i thought the original question was if cbr 256 was better than vbr 256. vbr should give your better quality since it can allocate 320kbps should the sample require it.

cbr320 is better than vbr 256. the wiki clearly states that.

The reason someone would choose -V0 or -b320 is transparency and -b320 has the ability to give the most transparent results.

If -V0 isn't able to achieve transparency in areas of a track where -b320 can, then it's clear that it won't be giving "the most even sound".

EDIT:
...and this seems correct to me also.

When comparing ABR and VBR (as oppposed to CBR and VBR) the discussion is more interesting.

Wouldn't the VBR choose 320 in those areas then? I'm getting confused, and sorry for prolonging this thread more than it maybe should be.

Maybe I'm thinking too much like how FLAC encodes... I think I see my misconception now. A CBR will take it all and compress it all, it won't sort out like "ok, this frame only needs this many bits to be deadly, while this frame needs more than I can handle" thus creating one secton of high quality and another of lower quality, it'll just be like "ok, I'll take the entire file and compress it to 50% of what it already is" right?

Again, sorry for wishy washy explanations, I really am trying.

To try to explain it better, we'll say we have simple passage encoded at 128 and complex at 192. But we have a CBR at let's say 160. The simple to mid passages in the CBR will be right on, but if quality were measure by percentage, the simple to mid would be higher quality than the complex in the CBR, whereas the VBR would encode them to whatever bitrate would be required to keep that quality percentage consistent.

One last thing, because it probably doesn't warrant its own thread: if a friend of mine ripped a CD in FLAC with EAC, and I had those files, and I used frontend FLAC to decode the FLAC back to wav, and the used EAC to encode them to LAME, would there be any quality loss? Would it be identical to if I just had to CD and plopped it in my drive and hit rip?

It might though I don't think it's as simple as that.

With CBR, the encoder doesn't have to use all the bits for the audio and has the ability to reserve bits for neighboring frames (known as a reservoir), but this is not as effective as VBR. IIRC, 320kbits doesn't make use of the reservoir.

...this is like what twostar was getting at and it seems correct to me as well.

I am far from an expert regarding this, so if anyone wants to jump in, please do! I'd also appreciate corrections to any inaccuracies I may have made.

No, but you're probably better off using a different application to convert flac directly to mp3, like foobar2000 which can transfer tag information among other things.

Depending on the configuration, sure.