[navin]

Vivek, try EAC with LAME APX (alt present extreme)

[tsk1979]

If you want good sound and low file size, i suggest use variable bit rate. For heave sound sections it will go to 192kbps and for the silent ones you will have 24kbps.

[navin]

that depnds on the VBR settings. my VBR settings go as high as 450kbps if the music demands it.

[tsk1979]

But in a normal sub 10lac car it is difficult to feel any difference between 192kbps and 320kbps(CD quality). If you rip your music from CDs, if you encode at 450kbps its no use as CD quality is equivalent to 320kbps.

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

But in a normal sub 10lac car it is difficult to feel any difference between 192kbps and 320kbps(CD quality). If you rip your music from CDs, if you encode at 450kbps its no use as CD quality is equivalent to 320kbps.

emm, thats a point.....

[navin]

CD quality is not 320kbps. 320kbps is still lossy just as ANY Mp3 format is. Why even Flac, WavPack and other "lossless" formats are only mathematically lossless.

I have most certainly hear the difference between my WavPack rip and my MP3 rip. My WavPack rips have a compression ratio of about 2:1 (so a CD takes about 250-300MB) and my MP3 rips have a compression of about 5:1 (so a CD takes about 100-120MB).

The differences I heard were using a PC audio system (Monsoon speakers) and using Foobar to play the MP3/WV files. I agree that in a car there could be other considerations.

I have not compared other rips as I primarily have only ripped my CDs. WavPack for my Home PC and MP3 for my ipod.

[mclaren1885]

hhhmm...finally got to listen to my system for the 1st time since JB left..thats a long time i must add,guess the rains took a huge toll on my health and coulnt bare any noise or music...
so yesterday i was listening to a few old mp3s(in the sence 2 months old) and must add that though they sounded great on my old system i must add that their quality on this system really sucked..sucked to such an extent that i had to listen at min volumes..so now i wrote some cd using WMP and yet the quality wasnt that great..most of my songs are downloaded from P2P sites so that might be one of the reasons..well so whats the best way to write them as to get best quality..i mean any softwares and also brief procedures..navin,GB,JB,sam,vivek...

PS: hey navin can u provide some links for the softwares(lame,exact audio copy,wavpack) u mentioned i tried googling but failed to get get them..what to do

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

hhhmm...finally got to listen to my system for the 1st time since JB left..thats a long time i must add,guess the rains took a huge toll on my health and coulnt bare any noise or music...
so yesterday i was listening to a few old mp3s(in the sence 2 months old) and must add that though they sounded great on my old system i must add that their quality on this system really sucked..sucked to such an extent that i had to listen at min volumes..so now i wrote some cd using WMP and yet the quality wasnt that great..most of my songs are downloaded from P2P sites so that might be one of the reasons..well so whats the best way to write them as to get best quality..i mean any softwares and also brief procedures..navin,GB,JB,sam,vivek...

PS: hey navin can u provide some links for the softwares(lame,exact audio copy,wavpack) u mentioned i tried googling but failed to get get them..what to do

I'd like to tell you that I listen to all my music, taken from Navin, since my HDD crashed. And of course the music is brilliant but the encoding is positively the best I've heard. Closest to CD. Whatever Navin is personally doing is perfect I'd say.
As far as downloading from P2P, It's very bad. I hate the quality, all the pops and crackles make it sound like a cereal sometimes. You cannot download quality recordings, only make them from a CD.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

I'd like to tell you that I listen to all my music, taken from Navin, since my HDD crashed. And of course the music is brilliant but the encoding is positively the best I've heard. Closest to CD. Whatever Navin is personally doing is perfect I'd say.
As far as downloading from P2P, It's very bad. I hate the quality, all the pops and crackles make it sound like a cereal sometimes. You cannot download quality recordings, only make them from a CD.

ahem..point taken sam..navin send me ur HDD..hehe..just kidding..but folks im a student not working to blow money on buying original CDs..

PS: navin let the secret out to the whole world..if not il interrogate sam and get it out ..

[Sam Kapasi]

It's no secret McL. Look in this thread. Navin has explained how he rips CDs.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

It's no secret McL. Look in this thread. Navin has explained how he rips CDs.

arey sam simple logic..navin always lets out very less to whats actually running in his head ..so guessing that he might have some tricks up his sleeve that he hasnt yet told us about..so waiting for that undisclosed,classified info..

PS: my HU plays wma too..so which one to choose WAV or WMA???

[dogdiga]

VBR is an easy way out. If your player supports wma, lower bit rates in the range of 64k to 96k yield excellent quality. If AAC is supported, low bitrates around 64k result in very good music quality.

[bigman]

Exact Audio Copy

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lame_Encoder.htm

[bigman]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

I'd like to tell you that I listen to all my music, taken from Navin, since my HDD crashed. And of course the music is brilliant but the encoding is positively the best I've heard. Closest to CD. Whatever Navin is personally doing is perfect I'd say.
As far as downloading from P2P, It's very bad. I hate the quality, all the pops and crackles make it sound like a cereal sometimes. You cannot download quality recordings, only make them from a CD.

It really depends where you look for your downloads.

I know of a few sites where you can get quality VBR MP3 and they sound a lot better than the rubbish you find on many of the P2P networks.

There are many bittorrent sites that provide quality MP3.

[navin]

no secret.

step 1. register on hydrogenaudio.org

step 2. download Exact Audio Copy I use 3.96.1 but i think the latest stable release is 3.97

step 3. if you want to rip a mathematically lossless version download wavpak 4.2 as well (4.3 is in beta last i heard)

step 4a. configure EAC to use LAME

step 4b. if you want to rip lossless and mp3 at the same time use wack 0.46 and follow the author's instructions

step 5. if you do not have a stable internet connection download CD database from freedb.organd follow instructions carefully here.

step 6. download wapet, wavegain 1.2.4 and accuraterip.dll (part of dbpoweramp) hydrogrenaudio.org on how to install them

step 7. start ripping.

Links to start with
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
http://lame.sourceforge.net/
http://www.wavpack.com/
http://www.uninformative.com/wack/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...p?showforum=20
http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=S...ticle&artid=12
http://www.monekysaudio.com
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/
http://www.rarewares.org/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...x.php/f15.html
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
http://blogs.msdn.com/jamespr/archiv...15/439495.aspx
http://www.accuraterip.com/

for those who dont want to experiment my settings for LAME and WAVPak are as follows:

LAME 3.96.1
ARGUMENTS=--preset extreme --id3v2-only --pad-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --scale %x --ta "%a" --tl "%g" --tn "%n" --tt "%t" --ty "%y" --tg "%m" %s %d
FILEPATH=D:\mp3\%a\%g\%n - %t

WAVPAK
ARGUMENTS=-hm -w "Artist=%a" -w "Album=%g" -w "Track=%n" -w "Title=%t" -w "Year=%y" -w "Genre=%m" %s %d
FILEPATH=F:\wav\%a\%g\%n - %t

I would not use my settings as they might not be the best. I would not be surprised if one of you guys did not find a better set of settings. it took me 2-3 days to set up my EAC. Since you guys are younger you should do it in 1-2 days.