Old Rips: May They Rest in Peace

Iria · Dec 7, 2005, 03:30 PM

Paul Rossman, an undergraduate at New Mexico State University, remembers vividly the last time he assembled a music library on his personal computer. It was the third time he had converted his CD collection to music files on his hard drive, a process called ripping, and with 5,000 songs, it was anything but a trivial undertaking.

"I thought I was going to go nuts," says Rossman. "All my friends were saying, 'What's the matter with you? You already have all your music on your PC.'"

Far from losing his mind, the college senior studying civil engineering was following a path plenty of his peers have also traveled: After spending years painstakingly compiling the perfect music library, he came to realize that the sound quality of the computer files left plenty to be desired.
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Read More / Source: Wired News

Matth · Dec 7, 2005, 04:03 PM

Wrong move!

There is only ONE way to store your primary transcription, and that is LOSSLESS - probably the best known and most widely supported format being Monkey'sAudio - APE
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
There are probably better formats than that, since it is getting a little old, but it is practically the "ZIP" of lossless audio compression, used not because it is the absolute best, but beacause it is the best known and supported.

It has been proven (by blind ABX testing), that even if the first lot of damage done by a high bitrate lossy encoding (let's say LAME MP3 as 320k) does not greatly impair the audio quality, it greatly impairs the quality of further transcoding, as it deals poorly with any as yet inaudible artifacts introduced by the first encoder.

It's a bit like repeatedly editing and resaving JPG images, the quality drains away a little every time.

If you have an uncompressed format, a lossless format (or in the case of JPG images from cameras, a source-fresh and unadulterated original), then you have something that you can always begin a rework from, with nothing added or taken away, no matter what format you now want to use it in.

Zelig · Dec 7, 2005, 08:07 PM

I'm too lazy to re-rip everything, all my rips are 192 kbps ogg vorbis, with more recent rips using newer versions.

Judas · Dec 7, 2005, 08:57 PM

For typical Stereo hi-fi cds.... 320kbps mp3 NON Variable, is still damn great.. only extremely HIGH HIGH end audio amps/stereos could pick up the quality drops... Surround sound emulation will be hampered a smidge.. but decent amps and reproduce great.

Until they start making 5.1 surround sound DVDs more readily availble.... Mp3 320 will work great. Problem is.. 160kbps per channel is good... probably a bit better if it was 192kbps per channel. in any case.... 6x192 makes up for 1152kbps high quality mp3 in 5.1... using 160kbps is only 960kbps.. which would be plenty yet..

IMO, enless you REALLY need to have high quality (i don't download music.. only rip @ max quality, not lossless as imo, it's not needed), anything lower then 320 is good for say typical home simple stereos... walkmans..... just go under 128kbps... thats when it gets ugly...

Dec 7, 2005, 03:30 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	Old Rips: May They Rest in Peace Paul Rossman, an undergraduate at New Mexico State University, remembers vividly the last time he assembled a music library on his personal computer. It was the third time he had converted his CD collection to music files on his hard drive, a process called ripping, and with 5,000 songs, it was anything but a trivial undertaking. "I thought I was going to go nuts," says Rossman. "All my friends were saying, 'What's the matter with you? You already have all your music on your PC.'" Far from losing his mind, the college senior studying civil engineering was following a path plenty of his peers have also traveled: After spending years painstakingly compiling the perfect music library, he came to realize that the sound quality of the computer files left plenty to be desired. _____________ Read More / Source: Wired News

Dec 7, 2005, 08:07 PM	#3
Zelig HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 3,187 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	I'm too lazy to re-rip everything, all my rips are 192 kbps ogg vorbis, with more recent rips using newer versions. __________________ --

Dec 7, 2005, 04:03 PM	#2
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	Wrong move! There is only ONE way to store your primary transcription, and that is LOSSLESS - probably the best known and most widely supported format being Monkey'sAudio - APE http://www.monkeysaudio.com/ There are probably better formats than that, since it is getting a little old, but it is practically the "ZIP" of lossless audio compression, used not because it is the absolute best, but beacause it is the best known and supported. It has been proven (by blind ABX testing), that even if the first lot of damage done by a high bitrate lossy encoding (let's say LAME MP3 as 320k) does not greatly impair the audio quality, it greatly impairs the quality of further transcoding, as it deals poorly with any as yet inaudible artifacts introduced by the first encoder. It's a bit like repeatedly editing and resaving JPG images, the quality drains away a little every time. If you have an uncompressed format, a lossless format (or in the case of JPG images from cameras, a source-fresh and unadulterated original), then you have something that you can always begin a rework from, with nothing added or taken away, no matter what format you now want to use it in.