Topic: If you were ripping your whole cd collection... (Read 4199 times)

magisimo · « **on:** November 20, 2002, 09:53:04 am »

IF you were ripping your whole cd collection, (lets say 750 cd's), which format would you chose. Mp3's? At what rate? Ape's? Any others? I am going to be playing these through a fairly high quality sound sound card digitally (TOSLinked) to a high-end stereo with great speakers. The computer will be dedicated for music and will only have MediaJukebox on it to run and sort the collection. Would you use MJ to rip or another program like Exact Audio Copy?

I'm looking for the best quality sound without going to crazy on hard drive space (I'd like to keep it under or around 200gb's. At most I will have 1,250 cds on these system when all is done.

Comments, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

WolfWalker · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2002, 09:59:34 am »

well I just tried ape and let me tell you it is great but the file size is about 500meg per CD so you do the math but it sound very good.

I was using mp3vbr high/normal and well ape just blowes it out of the water and I have tin ears so if I can hear the differenc then so can any one else.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** November 20, 2002, 10:10:35 am »

APE should be more like 250 to 300 MB per audio CD. Compression is around 50%.

ChicoSelfs · « **Reply #3 on:** November 20, 2002, 10:25:44 am »

If you want the true quality just use APE, if you don't mind of losing some bits use MPC @ braindead to me xtreme is enought. or Vorbis ( OGG )

xen-uno · « **Reply #4 on:** November 20, 2002, 10:57:36 am »

Use Ogg

at -q 6 or better (I use -q 8 which is ~High in MJ)

Accept no substitutes!

10^-27

rocketsauce · « **Reply #5 on:** November 20, 2002, 10:57:48 am »

If I had the hard drive space, I would rip my collection (over 2000 cds) to Monkey's (APE). If you are going to be playing back on a fairly good system, you might consider adding more hard drive space, since it's not that expensive these days. Since APE uses lossless compression, the sound quality will be equal to that of the original. Remember, though, that an APE compressed file will only be about 50-75% smaller than the original WAV. Also, having your music in APE format makes it easy if you need/want to convert to other formats (for portability or sharing).

Quote

APE should be more like 250 to 300 MB per audio CD. Compression is around 50%.

I use the High setting and rarely get 50% compression. Most of my files probably average in the low 60s to low 70s It seems to have a lot to do with the type and loudness of the music.

In my mind, the only reason to use MP3 is if you want to be able to use the files on a portable player or if you want to share them and don't want to deal with converting from APE. The biggest drawback of MP3 for me is that it has problems with truly gapless playback (for dj mixes and live albums).

Ogg Vorbis at higher bitrates (-q 6 and up) is pretty much equal to MP3 at similar bitrates, and doesn't have the gapless problem. However, most of the sound quality tuning has been concentrated on the lower bitrates (below 128, -q 4 and under) in anticipation of upcoming support by some portable players.

MPC is generally considered to be have the best sound quality at higher bitrates (160 and above), but is less well known than the other formats. It is probably not a good choice if you want portability and sharing, but is great for sound quality without going crazy on the bitrate.

Before you start ripping, you might consider choosing a few tracks of varying types of music and encoding in the different formats and see what sounds good to you on your system.

Rob

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** November 20, 2002, 11:15:45 am »

Quote

The biggest drawback of MP3 for me is that it has problems with truly gapless playback (for dj mixes and live albums).

Have you tried the last build of 9.0? Some changes were made that improved this a lot.

marketability · « **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2002, 11:16:25 am »

My vote would have to go to APE... Why?

If a new amazing format appears in a few months/years you can batch convert without loss (compare the cost of some extra hard disks to the pain of having to re-rip your collection!)

The difference in sound quality compared to even 320K MP3 is massive

If you need files for a portable you can always use the damned fine conversion utility in MJ

Thats my ha'penny's worth - hope it helps

rocketsauce · « **Reply #8 on:** November 20, 2002, 11:52:53 am »

No, Jim, I haven't tried v9 yet. Right now, I'm pretty happy with v8. Most of the stability issues I was having with older versions of 8 on my Win98se system seem to have disappeared with the current version. I'm kinda apprehensive about messing around with it. But I'm sure I'll eventually give 9 a try.

Anyway, I don't miss out on anything by not using MP3 since I don't use a portable player or share my files.

Rob

xen-uno · « **Reply #9 on:** November 20, 2002, 12:35:11 pm »

Jim....

Shouldn't the number of asterisks match the number of letters?

For instance, in Markets "If you need files for a portable you can always use the **ed fine conversion utility in MJ", I just can't piece together his sentence with that durn **ed in there. No foul 4 letter words end in "ed". Closest I can come to is "dead" (which is unpleasant but not foul). What's your take on this? What did he really mean?

10^-27

michel · « **Reply #10 on:** November 20, 2002, 12:51:49 pm »

Quote

The difference in sound quality compared to even 320K MP3 is massive

You exagerate a little bit, no it isn't ? They are probably 0,0001% people able to detect a difference between 320K MP3 and original sound.

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** November 20, 2002, 12:55:59 pm »

seed
feed
reed
deed, as in 'deed fine
bled, as in past tense of bloody (he's Briti**, I think)
bred, like "well bred" -- they say some funny things

It's a ** fine question you raise. My ***'s off to you.

xen-uno · « **Reply #12 on:** November 20, 2002, 01:25:35 pm »

Jim...

Thanks for the ****ing clarification

. I noticed my "dead" doesn't work there, but with your words, the true meaning is clear. Maybe YABB should underline the offending word and put it's type definition under it (like verb, adjective, noun, adverb, etc.). You know...sort of like Mad-Libs.

An example:

I ______ (verb) MJ because it is a ______ (adjective) program and has crashed _______ (number) times since I installed it....furthermore...the people that ______ (verb) out at Interact seem to be _______ (noun).
In short, MJ is very _______ (verb)!!!!!

10^-27

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** November 20, 2002, 02:28:37 pm »

blah blah blah MJ blah.

and in closing,

blah blah blah

ps. blah blah

pps. Most of the above are **** letter ****s.

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** November 20, 2002, 02:30:27 pm »

Quote

blah blah blah MJ blah.

and in closing,

blah blah blah

ps. blah blah

pps. Most of the above are **** letter ****s.

ppps. Thanks (verb?) for the **ed fine (adj) laugh (noun).

ChicoSelfs · « **Reply #15 on:** November 21, 2002, 02:05:10 am »

each time more i understand less of you guys

KellerDH · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2002, 06:59:24 am »

My personal take on the "real" difference in sound quality between a good mp3 file and an ape file is that: for pop, it prolly don't matter; for classical and jazz, it definitely does ... mp3's just aren't even tolerable for those genres.

Now, your problem is hard drive space; you ain't gonna fit 1,250 cds onto 200 gigs on hard drive space ... not close. BUT, stay focussed! I recently read an article about some new developments in "removable storage media" technology, and there are some VERY exciting things on the horizon, maybe a couple years out. These include a TERABYTE disc (that's 1,000 gigabytes of information) which will be viable for the consumer market and which will allow you to store that whole collection in one handle little disc.

For now, personally, I'm just migrating my collection (of around 1,000 discs) slowly over to my hard drive in ape format. Don't get too caught up in your obsession for perfection, in that you prolly don't listen to at least half those discs anyway. Migrating as you listen will assure that nearly all of the stuff you like will be available to you while you wait for the terabyte stuff.

Also, for ripping, I'd definitely use Exact Audio Copy. From the little testing that I've done, I've caught it cleaning up glitches that MJ missed; not to mention, it's very fast. I use MJ sometimes, usually when I know that I'll be listening to the track immediately after ripping it ... but, for the heavy-duty lifting, I always use EAC.

zevele10 · « **Reply #17 on:** November 21, 2002, 09:33:01 am »

Zevele is back and NOW you will get a logical answer.

APE
= under 50% with classic music [well not Wagner or things like it who are kind of hardcore punk]

= round 65-70 % of the original size with metal.
So there is not a definitive answer

OK ,this answer was not for you .
YOU now .
Just rip to different formats . I would say 'standart best formats'
mp3 LAME 192 VRB
MPC at ??
OGG at ??
read the posts before this one
and APE .
It is non sense to try extreme format like MP3 320 kps.
It is a waste of space [ tell me Karolus ...]

I mean rip only few cds or few songs.
NOW THE TEST
play the songs radom NOT GLUE IN FRONT OF YOUR COMPUTER.
Just do thinks as you do when playing cds from your stereo -you do not look at you cd player desck for 63 minutes ,do you?

You would have sound you do not like ,sound you like. Just have a look when you do not like or when you like to know the format.
From it you have the formats you like .
Have look to space on the drive ,if you have a player and so on .
When you know what you want ,start to rip.
Of cause APE is best ,but more than a thousand cds on APE ....

doc6502 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 21, 2002, 11:18:13 am »

Hmmm... well, I'm in process of doing that thing right now. I've got about 100gb free and 2000 CD's whose storage issues are driving me mad.

I'd love to do APE, but a good many of the commercial digital players don't support it. So I'm sticking with MP3 right now. I normally use 128kbps, which works for me-- I usually listen to music when I am on the move in the car or walking or as a shield to block out the noisy co-workers. As such, ultimate fidelity isn't too much of an issue for me, just jitter-free reproduction.

However, backups *ARE* an issue, due to the amount of data involved. Anyone have any suggestions for mass storage backup, short of buying a big honking hard drive and mirroring it?

Also, when I record my own music (I'm a guitarist), I use APE, which seems to retain the depth of live acoustic instruments very well indeed.

-Doc

hvy_duty · « **Reply #19 on:** November 21, 2002, 01:22:09 pm »

Well back from camping though the summer so I better get started again.(that is giving JimH a headache)For the normal person with the average sound card and speakers 128mp3 is alright. If you have the SB audigy the new one($225PLUS) and Boston ($500) speakers or the $5000 home theater than 320 is you bag. I use ape to rip songs from different cd's to make a favorite it is probably the best encoder out there but it isn't supported that much(maybe it will be in the future). MJ rips pretty darn good with the lame vbr high just to put them on your computer.

OH I just got my new hearing aid that ought to be worth something.

xen-uno · « **Reply #20 on:** November 21, 2002, 01:36:09 pm »

> OH I just got my new hearing aid that ought to be worth something

Does it have a SP/DIF connection on it? DA converter? Is the amp in it solid state or vacuum tube? How is the stereo imaging with 2 of them?

Bottom line...would you recommend your setup to anyone else?

10^-27

zevele10 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 21, 2002, 01:46:37 pm »

Xen
According to the picture we got from you , would you recommended your setting ?
Do the bottle on he floor a kind of special bass home cynema special effect?

If not did you ever try TACOS as headphoneS ?
I can tell you that salsa start to be a problem for ears after few hours.
Did i ever tell you that i am drunk this evening /night?
Of not importance for you ,but even more for me .
Just a way to take a break of all this BUG_HELP_NOT WORKING and so on posts

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** November 21, 2002, 02:24:55 pm »

Quote

Did i ever tell you that i am drunk this evening /night?

Really? Thanks for the weather report. I'm never sure what zev in zevenglish really intends. It's always a pleasure, though. You make more sense in fractured English, drunk at 2:00AM, than a pile of politicians or professors.

JimH · « **Reply #23 on:** November 21, 2002, 02:26:56 pm »

Quote

Well back from camping though the summer so I better get started again.(that is giving JimH a headache)

I was wondering why my head was hurting. Where did you go? Any pictures?

hvy_duty · « **Reply #24 on:** November 21, 2002, 04:14:12 pm »

>>Bottom line...would you recommend your setup to anyone else?
Yes but I am not picky I have SB Audigy 5.1 the cheap one and $40 speakers sounds good but with the new hearing aid I can adjust the bass, contrast,sharpness, treble is a little rough can't find the SP/DIF it might be there somewhere let you know later as soon as I read the installation book. JimH I have some pictures(they would only interest wildlife people)but they are petting chipmonks at the campground takes about eight weeks before you can finally pet one and hope you don't get bit rabies oh well we all got to go sometime.Zevele I thought we were tight I was getting ready to come over and help you guys out I wish things would get better for you but it don't look good, good luck. JimH just kidding about the headache I got to get started on 9.0 I guess I better buy it. King might want to hire me now we can talk the rodents out, save chemicals (no coup de grace) we will have a new relocate plan we will be able to get grants from peta, goverment, world wildlife animal fund who knows who else. I better quit while I am behind.

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Author Topic: If you were ripping your whole cd collection... (Read 4199 times)

zevele10

zevele10