What bit rate do you rip music to?128/160/192 or 96?

[johnnr892]

I just found out today that i can rip music to different bit rates in windows media player but it takes up more space and takes longer at a higher rate. I'm ripping my music again now but at 160k/bits instead of 128 and it seems to be slightly better. Just wondering what bit rate you are using and what you have found to be the best and if it really makes a good deal of difference.

[Rave]

I tend to rip MP3s to 160 (or VBR with a rough average of 160) but if I'm honest I do find it hard to tell the difference between 128 and 160 if I've ripped it myself using Nero's highest quality setting (why in this age of 2GHz+ processors does it default to 'fastest' encoding? ).

Rich :¬)

[Agent]

Depends on the format im using.
I use OGG over MP3 whenver i can, which sounds better at the same bitrate as MP3.
On my p900, i can get away with using 32 or 64/sec because the background noise is usualy too loud for me to hear the imperfections (on the bus). What helps is that most of the music i listen too is hard dance / techno / rave / hard house style, which is a lot more tolerant in the area. The few clasical tracks i have on there HAVE to be at a much higher bit rate (96 MINIMUM, even on OGG, but i tend to do them at 128) otherwise they sound really bad, and tend to have "wobble" effects in the sound.

Sound wise, everything i rip is done at OGG 160, somtimes 192 if i know ill be re-encoding it to another format at a later date.

edit - this is probably better suited to audio/visual, moving

edit 2- wma *spit*, drm can goto hell.

[Zak33]

depends on the headphones I'm gonna use

I'm a WMA man myself.....for the PC I go with the 128.
For portable players, 64.

I really do find wma scarily good

[Jonny M]

OGG level 6 (192k variable)

[johnnr892]

can you only rip wma. in windows media player?

[Agent]

As far as i know. There is probably some obscure hack to allow otherwise though.

If you want to rip though, there ia a lot better range of tools out there. Check out http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ for a start.

[Knoxville]

192 in either mp3 or ogg

[Howard]

YOu missed 224, 320, uncompressed WAV, etc.

I rip in 320 usually. And my dad's music is uncompressed (for the Squeezebox )

[Knoxville]

YOu missed......WAV.....

Did maxtor sponser you to say that?

[Howard]

Hehe... Seagate 120GB holds all our WAVs So no

[unrealrocks]

Depends what for - normally I'll rip at 192KBps - 32KBps VBR if its just going from CD to my MP3 player (takes longer but helps size and no worse quality than 192KBps).

If its for copying straight to another CD I'll just rip it to wave.

When I'm recording from desk when doing either live sound recording or at home rehersing I'll normally record at 192kHz/32bit although if its more than about 6 tracks of audio at a time (IE drums) I'll pull it down to 96kHz because I get a jump every so often as its all going onto one ATA133 HDD.

[blockers]

320kbits....the only way heh, normally have it 128kbits for my mp3 player....only 64mb.

[streetster]

320KBps here too

[Kumagoro]

I read in an audio eng periodical (not a commercial magaine) which had an article about serveral different codecs and they got a group of golden ears and other to sit and listen to different types of music at different bit rates.

They used Mp3 AAC OGG and WMA maybe comparing to the original .. i think they also used a live band and play back to compare....

Anyway they said that OGG did very well generally but AAC wasnt as good as they had expected. MP3 at higher bit rates also came top in some cases.

So using the most advanced ones at high bit rate doesnt mean they will be better quality... just like Mpeg2 is higher quality then Mpeg4 at very high bit rates.

OGG did really well in all tests as i remember a pity that many consumer stuff doesnt support it.

[silent ben]

VBR Min 196, max 320.