MP3, OGG, APE or FLAC?

[directhex]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1561566,00.asp is also relevant

[Bindibadgi]

320kbps VBR?

Sorry, ABR :slap:

[elglg]

I use WMA9's Lossless codec to Rip my CD's to my Hard drive. I didn't want to have drag all my CD's to and from Uni several times a year and with Hard disks so cheap seemed like an ideal choice. I haven't tried OGG etc but compared to mp3's there is no comparison. Just compared a few songs ripped at different bit rates and the 128K mp3 was no where near, 192K was a lot better but still lacking in the higher frequencies, 320K was pretty good, but still not quite as good as the lossless. I couldn't find any mp3's on my hd with a higher bitrate to compare. The only downside I have is I can't listen to them in Linux, as I can't find a codec for lossless wma's I can listen to lower bitrate wma's fine tho.

[directhex]

elglg, use FLAC - it's lossless so the audio quality is IDENTICAL to lossless WMA, the files are slightly smaller, and since FLAC is open source loads of linux apps play it (e.g. xmms-flac plugin, libflac library, etc)

[Howard]

When I rip CDs I use 192KBPS WMA with Windows Media Player and I have no complaints about the quality. Very good in my opinion. Of course it sounds a little compressed when playing back on my hifi, but it's barely noticeable unless I'm listening to quiet, detailed music. I tend to not use anything lower than 160 KBPS WMA or MP3 for my MP3 player, as the headphones I use have a tendency of showing up lesser quality tracks.

If I could re-rip or aquire all my albums at a higher bit-rate, I would.

I'm hoping there will be firmware available for my MP3 player that will allow it to deal with FLAC, OGG, APE, etc And it doesn't play lossless WMA files unfortunately

[elglg]

directhex, I will look into FLAC for ripping my new CD's in the future, but really cba to do all my albums over again, maybe if I get bored over the summer...

[directhex]

something like DBpoweramp should be able to convert them.

there's nothing lost converting between lossless formats, only lossy ones

[Stoo]

MP3 via EAC/LAME to generate 192 average vbr files, sounds very good on the hi-fi connected to my pc

Tried flac, wasn't particularly impressed:

Track: Bic Runga - When I See You Smile
wav size: 18272KB
flac size: 10025KB (Compression Level 8)
mp3 size: 1778KB (LAME encoded VBR, 192kbps average)

They all sounded pretty much identical, but with the mp3 being ten times smaller..

Pretty easy choice to make

[Trash Man]

So no one else has even tried MPC?

[Stoo]

not yet, but gimme a few with google and I'll let you know

[Stoo]

hmm, the normal mode isn't quite as good as the mp3, there's a very slight rawness to the upper notes of her singing, but when encoded at the "insane" level, it's as good as the mp3 and flac

Edit: ape>flac (smaller file sizes), but mp3/mpc>ape when encoded properly

[BeelzebubUK]

I use MP3 with LAME to record my original CD's at a high VBR for archiving.

I use Ogg to convert those MP3s so I can fit 3 albums worth on the 128MB stick on my P900 and the still retain decent quality.

I only got part way through my CD collection and am now considering starting again. What would anyone suggest I use for archiving....hard disk space is not really an issue but do want to use some kind of compression. Should I stick to CDex and LAME or change to something else. I want to make sure its fairly future proof as I don't want to have to do it again for a long long while.

[Doug]

OGG for portable, gives me plenty of music for the small 128MB card in my P800.

i've had great results using iTunes & AAC. 256k is good enough to be indestinguishable from the CD (going through the same DAC)