Which bitrate when ripping CD's?

[phillai]

Is it me or does it takes ages to rip a CD? The EAC program seems to work fine but the dos like Lame thing keeps going on and hasn't stopped yet 15 mins after the EAC ripped the CD...

[Kotatsu Neko]

Is it me or does it takes ages to rip a CD? The EAC program seems to work fine but the dos like Lame thing keeps going on and hasn't stopped yet 15 mins after the EAC ripped the CD...

Takes a couple of minutes in iTunes.

Perhaps it depends on your PC hardware. I have a really good Plextor DVD-RW DL drive and a reasonable CPU (3ghz P4).

[gizmo1990]

I assume you mean you're examining the bit rate using Windows. If so don't - it can't report the correct bit rate for VBR files like you have. No MP3 can have a bit rate of over 320kbps, be it VBR/ABR or CBR. Check it in your media player for the correct bitrate. If you're using APS it should show as VBR with the average bit rate being shown.

As for changing between VBR & CBR you don't have to if you're using the APS command line. It overides whatever settings you have in EAC. In very basic terms by using the APS/APX commands your just giving LAME the ability to use a higher bit rate where its needed and when its not lower bit rates are used. This way you get a great trade off between quality and size of your file. If you watch the command dialog box when LAME encodes a MP3 you'll get the idea of what it does i.e. the spectrum shows what frames its encoding at what bitrate.

Thanks for that Fei Fong Wong.
Unfortunately I don't have a mp3 player. I'm just starting to convert my album collection for when I eventually get round to getting one!
Is there any other way to see the correct bitrate of my rips to check their correct?

Sorry if this is dumb but what are APS/APX commands?

Also in my mp3 files properties I get this under Description: ?berStandard - UberNet.org. Is there anyway to get rid of this? I'm sure the profile I loaded (from the guide) has created it but it must be able to be removed from EAC and then ripped again without it?

[Kotatsu Neko]

Speaking of MP3 players, rumour has it the 5th generation iPod will be shown om Thursday the 7th of July. Could be a pretty major update.

Oh and it sounds like all the iPods will have colour screens, which means album art on display. Get scanning those covers.

[phillai]

Takes a couple of minutes in iTunes.

Perhaps it depends on your PC hardware. I have a really good Plextor DVD-RW DL drive and a reasonable CPU (3ghz P4).

I don't think it's my hardware...
I got quite a high end PC (higher than yours! Sorry for bragging)

I noticed that once it's finished ripping the CD it then has a set amount of compression tasks to do.

Maybe this software is just a bit slower than the Goldwave software which I used previously!

[phillai]

Fei Fong Wong, how much more bigger are tracks typically when you use the -alt preset extreme?

Just wondering if it's actually worth doing that or keeping it as the normal -alt preset standard

[phillai]

One more thing... Is there no quicker way to speed up the process?

The actual EAC ripping is fast enough, it's just the LAME compression - It's so slow...

I'm sure it's doing it really slowly for me!

[Hohum]

This all seems like a load of hassle to me. It may be better quality I guess, but I ripped some recent cds I bought using WMP10 at 192kbps mp3 format, and the sound quality is excellent. Certainly can't tell the difference from any other high bitrate mp3s I have.

[charlesr]

I use Nero on 192, 44000, and medium quality. Sounds great and take a couple of minutes per CD.

[mid]

LAME is roughly an order of magnitude slower than iTunes' AAC compression on my box, yes. It's got a seriously huge amount of work to do in order to create the best-quality file in VBR, and also they jump through a few weird hoops that slow it down, in order to avoid stepping on Fraunhoffer patents and getting themselves in legal trouble.

[Fei Fong Wong]

Is it me or does it takes ages to rip a CD? The EAC program seems to work fine but the dos like Lame thing keeps going on and hasn't stopped yet 15 mins after the EAC ripped the CD...

I don't think it's my hardware...
I got quite a high end PC (higher than yours! Sorry for bragging)

I noticed that once it's finished ripping the CD it then has a set amount of compression tasks to do.

Maybe this software is just a bit slower than the Goldwave software which I used previously!

Yes, EAC rips the CD and then LAME encodes the WAV files to MP3. It will depend on your PC as to how long this takes. but it shouldn't take too long with your spec PC. It will take longer than other all in one CD rippers & encoders though but the quality of the files justifies this in my mind.

Takes a couple of minutes in iTunes.

Yes, but then by using iTunes to rip your CD's you lose quality. Whether you notice this or not will depend on what hardware you're using to play back the files though.

Thanks for that Fei Fong Wong.
Unfortunately I don't have a mp3 player. I'm just starting to convert my album collection for when I eventually get round to getting one!
Is there any other way to see the correct bitrate of my rips to check their correct?

Sorry if this is dumb but what are APS/APX commands?

Also in my mp3 files properties I get this under Description: ?berStandard - UberNet.org. Is there anyway to get rid of this? I'm sure the profile I loaded (from the guide) has created it but it must be able to be removed from EAC and then ripped again without it?

First part - yes. I didn't mean check in your MP3 player, I meant your media player on your PC like Winamp, iTunes etc.

APS & APX are just abrevations of Alt Preset Standard/eXtreme.

The last part do you mean in the comment field of the ID3 tag? If so you can set this to whatever you want by hitting F11 in EAC, select the offset tab, and then look at the very last option. If the text ?berStandard - UberNet.org is entered in the box here you can simply delete it or change it to whatever you want.

Fei Fong Wong, how much more bigger are tracks typically when you use the -alt preset extreme?

Just wondering if it's actually worth doing that or keeping it as the normal -alt preset standard

Not that much bigger and in my mind using the APX setting is better. It really depends of what HDD space you have though I guess and the size of your MP3 player. I wouldn't bother with alt preset insane though as that is pretty much overkill.

This all seems like a load of hassle to me. It may be better quality I guess, but I ripped some recent cds I bought using WMP10 at 192kbps mp3 format, and the sound quality is excellent. Certainly can't tell the difference from any other high bitrate mp3s I have.

I use Nero on 192, 44000, and medium quality. Sounds great and take a couple of minutes per CD.

As I said above it depends on the individual and your set up. Personally I can notice the difference straight away. WMP though??