Hi all

I'm planning on making two collections of MP3s of my CDs. One high quality ripped with "--alt-preset standard" to use on my home stereo, and one lower quality (thus smaller size) to use in a portable MP3 player (probably an iPod). From what I've read, you don't really need as high a quality for the portable players that you're just listening to with head phones. Question is, just how low should I go and what method should I use? I was thinking something like "--alt-preset ABR 112", which produces file ALMOST HALF the size of "--alt-preset standard". What do you all think? I want these files to be as small as possible, but still sound fine in little bud-earphones on a portable player.

Thanks
--Dan

With a 20GB I-pod, you can fit a TON of files on it. Myself, I wouldn't bother re-encoding. LAME MP3's encoded w/ alt pre std are pretty compact already. You might only save a meg or two if encoding @ 128 CBR versus the alt pre std MP3. So you'll have much better quality with nominally larger files. I know...it's not really what you asked about but....

xen-uno

I put a 60 gb hd in my nomad jukebox 3 and stuck >5000 mp3s on it @ --preset standard.no complaints here, I still have 25 gigs left =)

Jeff

If I might just add to this topic with a question upon the same lines, I've recently started ripping with MPC, but obviously my MP3-CD portable doesn't play those... and since I DON'T have one of (insert east-Texas accent here) them nice fancy portable music things that got all that darned space... I'd like to squeeze in as much as I can per CD without it sounding like, well, shit.

Right now I'm stuck on --abr 128 -h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 --ns-bass -8 --scale 0.93, but I'm still thinking I could go lower bitrate-wise for earbuds and casual listening. So I wouldn't ask "What's TRANSPARENT on earbuds at X bitrate" simply because I CAN tell a difference if I'm paying attention/doing tests/etc. But what do you find acceptable for portable listening?

I'm in the same boat you are (except I have a bland un-accented midwestern accent). My player is the iRiver 350 (CD based).

Along the same lines as a HD based player, I would still use alt pre std. A 700MB CD will hold 100 to 150 tracks. That's plenty. I care more about quality then quantity.

xen-uno

especially when using headphones, you will hear a world of difference, as those are more "analytical" than (household) speakers.

so ... stick with aps and get a set of decent koss porta pros ... you will be happier in the long run, BELIEVE ME!!!!

alfred

A couple years ago I did a similar thing: I archived music using --r3mix and made low-bitrate --alt-preset XXX copies for portable listening and compact storage. "XXX" was always between 112 and 120 kbps. Sometimes they were transcoded, sometimes from the original source. This was before and during the beta releases of the --alt-presets.

At the time, I couldn't hear much deterioration with the low-bitrate MP3's. Now, my artifact-hearing ability is better-developed, and the low-bitrate MP3's are sometimes irritating to listen to. The transcoded ones are painful, and I just delete them whenever I run across them on my hard drive. The original-coded ones are usually listenable, and sometimes transparent-sounding to me, but I can almost always hear a "deadening" or "smearing" of the sound with pop/rock music on all but the most unfaithful playback devices. If I were to do the encoding project again, I would not bother with the low-bitrate versions at all, and just stick to high-bitrate encoding.

I wouldn't go below 128kbps for any lossy audio compression codec, --alt preset 128.

I agree with Xenno. Why double your workload? Use the APS-encoded files for both. Besides, you never know whether you may wish to plug your MP3 player into the AUX input of a hi-fi system somewhere when you will want high quality.

I put my MP3s on CD and play them in my Discman. I find that 100 or more tracks on my CD is more than enough. And with CDs, the capacity is only limited by the number of MP3 CDs you have on hand.

I don't know why everyone says they don't as much quality for thier portable. When I'm listening to music in the backgroud through computer speakers or a stereo I need less quality then when I'm sitting in a quite office with my portable and nice headphones. I wouldn't reencode for an I-Pod. It's got plenty of space.