Hello,

I'm finally ready to rip my CD collection (about 450 CD's). I'm an audio enthusiast bordering on audiophile, so sound of course is critical to me. I'm tired of dealing with CD's and have purchased my first portable MP3 player. I'm VERY new to ripping and am looking for advice learning from other's mistakes.

Based on what I've read in the past week my plan is to rip (using dBpoweramp and LAME 3.97):
- one set of FLAC files (also backed up to a external hard drive)
- one set of MP3 files at 192 kbs (or LAME -v2)
- files will be name as: Artist - Track number - Song Title

Is this a good plan of attack so i'll never have to rip again? Also is there anyone here that notices a difference between a lossless file and a 192kbs MP3? I'll be listening on a decent tube amp and decent headphones. Although I haven't been blessed with perfectly "fine tuned ears" I do have moderately good ears. Will I hear a difference? Should I rip at 256kbs?

thank you in advance

If you are ripping a lossless and a lossy file I would suggest listening to your lossy files. You probably can get by with something closer to 128 and if you have a lossless file you can always use that to transcode from to a higher bitrate or new codec.

Sounds fine to me. I use AAC rather than LAME MP3 myself for lossy these days. (Like you, I use FLAC for lossless.) But that's the setting I'd choose, too. It seems to be in line with what Hydrogen Audio's Knowledge Base suggests, as well. (And, one assumes, that KB article is based on what the LAME people recommend). Here's the relevant section:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...quiet_listening

From what you said, that's what this is for, isn't it? -- HiFi, home or quiet listening?

If you're really not sure you're happy with what the KB suggests, you'll need to test for yourself.

If you are not limited to file size, go ahead and rip to 256kbps. File size is proportional to bitrate, so a 256kbps file will be 33% bigger than 192kbps.

I'm not the best person to comment about file naming... I mostly listen to CDs... I create a folder for each artist. Then a sub-folder with the album name. The actual file just has the song title. The exception is that I will include a track number for particular albums where the sequence is important. That would include live albums, musical soundtracks, greatest hits albums where the songs are in chronological order, and maybe other special situations. (I've forgotten exactly how I handled various-artist CDs, and I don't have my music collection on this computer, so I can't check right now.)

And, make sure to ID3 tag your files while you're ripping. (Some of my files are not tagged and the player software shows them as "unknown".)

Personally I never rip mp3 to constant bitrate anymore. File size vs. quality will always come out better using any of the variable bitrate presets (like LAME's V2 switch).

If I were you I'd use V2. That way LAME will choose the most appropriate bitrate for each file whilst maintaining a more than acceptable level of quality.

I use AAC, though it's primarily based on anecdotal evidence that AAC behaves better at lower bit rates (which I don't use). I plan to ABX some audio files soon, now that I have the tools, and see if I've just been fooling myself.

But to my point - on iTunes, ripping at 256K VBR, I get a fairly consistent 75% to 80% reduction in file size vs. AIFF for the dozen or so CDs I've examined (mostly prog/jazz). That's below the pain threshold for my 60GB iPod, and 256K seems perfectly fine to me for my level of critical listening.

Do you mean to record Album Name, too? There's a long thread on organizng classical music you might like to have a look at.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=61135&hl=

Lame V2 is what most people would recommend you start with. Depending on your ears and your music, you *might* be able to hear a difference from lossless, but if you've also ripped to lossless, re-encoding to a different lossy format is way, way, way less bother than re-ripping.

Have fun

I don't understand your proposed file naming scheme at all. No folders? Just a flat file system? Then what does "track number" mean? The track number on the original CD? What CD? If you have more than 1 CD by a given artist, you'll have multiple track 1's, track 2's, etc.


Anyway, your file-naming scheme is less important than your tagging scheme. I would devote lots of thought and planning to your tagging scheme, because it will be via tags that you will most likely search, sort, organize, and display your music.

What type of mp3 player will you be buying? If it's a flash based player, you should consider using 128kbps vbr mp3 or aac to fit as many of your cds as possible. If it's hard drive based, then lame -V2 is fine.

Are you only going to listen to the music on your computer? If so, you should SERIOUSLY consider WavPack Hybrid. You could use something like 384 kbps Wavpack Lossy for listening and store their corrections in an external.

* Wavpack IS supported by rockbox, but if you want guaranteed portable usage, stick with MP3.

Why not just rip into flac and then convert from those files into whatever loseless format you want?

May I also say that Vorbis at 96kps is AMAZING.

What you propose sounds good.

But if you are close to being an audiophile, I would use the recommendations in this link #2. Page 9 I believe talks about setting it up for your HIFI rig, which I assume you will be putting together to play through your stereo. If you are brave, you will do both #1 and 2.

http://www.imageevent.com/cics

FOr portable, 192vbr will be fine, but probably not for your main system.

You won't have to rip again because you said you're ripping to FLAC. Very few people here can regularly hear differences on mp3 at 192 kpbs, but that doesn't say anything about whether you will *in general*. If you're out to prove a point, sure anybody could find some specific well known samples to hear a difference, even at 320. Otherwise, in most circumstances, you probably won't hear a difference. If you're ripping to lossless, then no I wouldn't also rip to 256 kbps. With Nero AAC at ~100 kbps I never notice any problems in non-ABX listening.

You don't indicate your feelings on iTunes or other media player.

Personally, I ripped everything into iTunes using Apple Lossless. You can always transcode the Apple Lossless to another lossless format with no loss of quality. This should only take a couple hundred gigs, and you can buy a 1 TB drive for around $200 these days.

You pop a disk in every couple of minutes while watching TV and you're done in a week or 2.

If you have concerns about the quality of an iTunes rip, even with error correction on, you can always rip to Apple Lossless using the dbpoweramp Apple Lossless codec, and then import into iTunes.

I would never go down the road where I am depending on a file name to help me identify music. Let a library do that for you.