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ph0ust · Jul 21, 2006, 08:56 PM

hi there. so i want my albums to be ripped at the best quality that is reasonably available. i say this sadly knowing that i have ripped everything in itunes with a bit rate of 192kbps; but i did notice that if you re-rip something it maintains the other attributes you have for a song if you replace it (i.e. rating, genre, etc.) at least re-ripping it won't require resetting all the other attributes

so the question is what settings are best in ripping your music for quality? obviously, it won't be cd quality regardless of what people market. i would like, however, to get as close as is possible. uncompressed (e.g. wav) just isn't yet an option *yet*. so what do you all recommend.... 256kbps? 320?

also, do you all:
> set sample rate to something other than "auto"?
> use variable bit rate encoding?
> set to "optimize for voice"?

what do these three even do for that matter?

thanks for any input... it would be good to know how to keep my music in its most quality and usable format since i stream everything off my mac around my house.

mduell · Jul 22, 2006, 02:18 AM

Apple lossless is about two thirds the size of the raw wav.

gooser · Jul 22, 2006, 09:44 AM

1. i personally prefer 320 mp3. better bass response than aac at this bitrate.highs not as crisp though.
2. what sounds best for my ears may not sound best for yours.
3. if you are considering re-ripping all your music and want the best quality you will never be satisfied with compressed music. no matter what you rip it to , at a later date you will think about it again. 192 is good enough for casual listening in the background, but for serious listening i would recommend store bought cd's or mix cd's that you have encoded in aiff played on a regular stereo and not through your computer. i have a separate user on my computer set by default to rip in aiff and used to burn cd's. easy to keep track of that way and you will want to delete everything often as these songs will eat up hard drive space like crazy.

wataru · Jul 22, 2006, 10:14 AM

AAC sounds better than MP3 at the same bitrate, but you can't burn AACs to MP3 CDs. Personally I find that all my needs are met by 128kbps AAC.

gooser · Jul 22, 2006, 10:23 AM

there is no question that aac sounds better than mp3 at lower bitrates but this isn't necessarily true at the higher ones. you will get a lot of opinions here, ain't life grand?

Chinasaur · 06:36 PM

I ripped my collection at 224K AAC based on studies like the one below and my own testing -

http://members.chello.nl/~m.heijlige...mpression.html

http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm

I prefer AAC because it's crisper in the upper registers and I need that due to a slight high frequency hearing loss. 192K mp3 sounds good to be as well, slightly warmer, but I notice I am missing the upper freq's. Do some tests yourself ripping mp3 and AAC and ogg and see if you can hear the artifacts at varying levels of compression. This way you will find what you can and cannot hear and that will determine what you can and cannot live with.

Usually one can hear the difference between 128 anything and full on CDDA unless you've spent tim in the artillery or are Pete Townsend. You simply have to walk yourself through ripping/encoding the variations between 128 and CDDA to hear it. Once you arrive at the point where you can't tell the difference, or the file size becomes to large, then you've found your sweet spot.

iTunes AAC encoded songs presents some challenges later on such as:

1. My Nokia e61 & 6230i will play them, but will not recoginize song information.

2. AAC is a proprietary format. if this bothers you, encode with mp3 or ogg.

3. AAC sounds "brittle" to some vs "warm" mp3 sounds. You decicde.

Remember, the iTunes music store sells songs at 128K AAC because the record companies don't want you having a perfect/near perfect copy. 128K is used because it's considered "good enough". NOT because it really IS good enough. 128K AAC also produces a smaller file so it's quicker to download. Don't decide anything based on what iTunes sells

YMMV. Best of luck.

DigitalEl · Jul 22, 2006, 01:25 PM

I usually rip at 192 and it's fine. Then again, I have a couple of hundred dollars worth of iTMS stuff at their standard 128 and it's fine, too.

I'm never sitting in an acoustically perfect room with $500 headphones. When I'm listening to music, I'm either sitting at the computer paying bills, doing house work, outside doing yardwork with the iPod on... Whatever.

For classical music, lossless is probably the way to go. Any kind of music, really, if you're an audiophile. Otherwise, who cares!? I think 80% of the people who get their panties twisted over bitrates are delusional.

Apfhex · Jul 22, 2006, 02:56 PM

I use 256kbps VBR AAC. That's the highest iTunes will let you import using VBR. The difference isn't always noticeable, never huge, but they DO sound better than the 192kbps that I had been ripping at before and undoubtedly better than my 128k files—except for iTMS files, which are mastered to sound surprisingly good.

Originally Posted by Chinasaur

2. AAC is a proprietary format.

What'cho talkin' 'bout Chinasaur?

wataru · Jul 22, 2006, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Chinasaur

2. AAC is a proprietary format. if this bothers you, encode with mp3 or ogg.

Surprise! MP3 is also a proprietary format.

hickey · Jul 22, 2006, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by wataru

...snip... Personally I find that all my needs are met by 128kbps AAC.

I concur. But when I get a bigger internal HD, I might re-rip all my stuff at higher qualities.

Chinasaur · 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by wataru

Surprise! MP3 is also a proprietary format.

Whoa. Touche Wataru. You da man on da money. Of course it is. Fruanhofer. :eyeroll:

In practice, it is not.

Now, do you have anything to contribute to the thread discussion re: best quality to rip albums? Or are you simply sniping other peoples posts?

wataru · Jul 22, 2006, 07:13 PM

Actually, yes, I already responded to the OP's question earlier in the thread.

And in practice, it is. For instance, Linux distros generally don't have MP3 playback support by default, because it's a proprietary format.

Thanks for playing. Try again.

badtz · Jul 24, 2006, 09:53 AM

is AAC proprietary? I thought it was just the audio codec that's used in mpeg-4?

Stradlater · Jul 24, 2006, 10:42 AM

128kbps AAC (+VBR)

wataru · Jul 24, 2006, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by badtz

is AAC proprietary? I thought it was just the audio codec that's used in mpeg-4?

Well, it being proprietary doesn't stop it from also being the default audio codec for MPEG4. So the answer is "yes" and "yes."

Note that "proprietary" doesn't mean "incompatible" or "evil" or any of that jazz. It means that usage of the codec must be done under agreement with whoever owns it. They may decide to charge you money for it; they may not. I don't know what, if any, AAC or MP3 licensing fees exist.

The opposite would be an open source codec like Vorbis, which can always be used free by anyone (as long as modifications to the codec are handled appropriately according to the GPL).

iREZ · Jul 24, 2006, 02:18 PM

i go with 160 AAC or 192MP3...both sound very similar to me and are way better than 128 but dont take as much space on my ipod such as 256 does.

ph0ust · Jul 24, 2006, 03:01 PM

wow, you guys are all over this with great feedback. i was ripping at 192kbps in AAC and just changed it to 256 and will test at 320. i know streaming it to my audio equipment is not ideal for quality, but i just have way too much music to want to mess around with all of it. i should, however, test some apple lossless encoding. i assume it plays on an ipod too? i wonder if my media streamer works with that format... will have to check.

also, what about these options:
> set sample rate to something other than "auto"
> variable bit rate encoding
> set to "optimize for voice"

should i keep these in mind? what do they do specifically and do any of them affect sound quality? thanks a ton!!!

wataru · Jul 24, 2006, 11:47 PM

Streaming to your audio equipment has no negative effect on quality. I'm not sure why you think it would. Data is data, and as long as it gets there in a timely fashion then you're set.

Don't set the sample rate to anything other than auto. Downsampling will only reduce quality, and upsampling won't improve anything at all.

VBR is good in theory. Test it out and see how you like it.

I believe "optimize for voice" is meant for voice-only audio, like speeches or lectures. I think enabling that would only hurt the quality for music tracks.

ph0ust · Jul 26, 2006, 07:19 PM

you are right that streaming has no affect on the data... it is just data. storing music in a compressed format in order to stream and listen to on a stereo is subject to lousy digital-analog conversion... that is where quality really takes the hit.

G-Force · Jul 27, 2006, 07:04 AM

I rip to apple lossless and then transcode to 192 AAC for on the iPod.

ph0ust · Jul 27, 2006, 07:42 PM

hmmm. why is it you do that out of curiousity?

Busemann · Jul 27, 2006, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by ph0ust

wow, you guys are all over this with great feedback. i was ripping at 192kbps in AAC and just changed it to 256 and will test at 320. i know streaming it to my audio equipment is not ideal for quality, but i just have way too much music to want to mess around with all of it. i should, however, test some apple lossless encoding. i assume it plays on an ipod too? i wonder if my media streamer works with that format... will have to check.

also, what about these options:
> set sample rate to something other than "auto"
> variable bit rate encoding
> set to "optimize for voice"

should i keep these in mind? what do they do specifically and do any of them affect sound quality? thanks a ton!!!

Encoding with more than 192kbps VBR AAC is generally a waste of space. If you hear artifacts at 192kbps, then you can be sure they'll be there at 320kbps as well.

You should choose Auto on sample rate, so that the sample rate stays the same as on the source file, VBR should be turned on, so that the quality is constant as opposed to the bitrate, and optimize for voice should be turned off unless you're actually encoding voice (this setting detects speech harmonics and allocates bits to them).

Apfhex · Jul 27, 2006, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Busemann

Encoding with more than 192kbps VBR AAC is generally a waste of space. If you hear artifacts at 192kbps, then you can be sure they'll be there at 320kbps as well.

I wouldn't say its about hearing artifacts (I can't hear any at 192k either) as much as it is that you get richer, clearer sound at higher bitrates. I've ripped albums as 192k (before iTunes had VBR AAC encoding) and later at 256k VBR and the later sounded better, with a larger range of sound (deeper bass, higher treble, cleaner midrange) which is obviously what would happen with less compression. It's not a HUGE difference but if you don't mind the slightly larger file sizes, then why not.

- - e r i k - - · Jul 28, 2006, 12:44 AM

A Recording Engineer's Guide to
the Secrets of iTunes and iPod.

Busemann · Jul 28, 2006, 07:00 AM

Originally Posted by Apfhex

I wouldn't say its about hearing artifacts (I can't hear any at 192k either) as much as it is that you get richer, clearer sound at higher bitrates. I've ripped albums as 192k (before iTunes had VBR AAC encoding) and later at 256k VBR and the later sounded better, with a larger range of sound (deeper bass, higher treble, cleaner midrange) which is obviously what would happen with less compression. It's not a HUGE difference but if you don't mind the slightly larger file sizes, then why not.

The reason for this is actually placebo. When you listen to a file that you know has a higher bitrate, then it 'feels' much better too. If you do a blind comparison, it would be excruciatingly difficult, in fact impossible, to tell which is which.

gooser · Jul 28, 2006, 09:10 AM

told you you'd get a lot of opinions. problem is----everybody is right.

siMac · Jul 28, 2006, 10:09 AM

AAC is the evolution of MP3, developed by the same people, with the same licensing procedures.

Neither is any more or less 'proprietary' than the other. One, however, is technically superior. Can you guess which?

ph0ust · Jul 28, 2006, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

A Recording Engineer's Guide to
the Secrets of iTunes and iPod.

great link... thanks!

OreoCookie · Jul 28, 2006, 12:48 PM

You can use Apple's lossless codec and be sure that you get the best quality possible.

However, since the compression ratio is a meager 50 %, your harddrive fills up pretty quickly.

SpaceMonkey · Jul 29, 2006, 12:11 PM

I rip to Apple Lossless, which I archive to an external hard drive and DVD-R. Before I archive them, I transcode them to VBR MP3 files (using the LAME 3.97b2 codec, "V2 --vbr-new") that average out to about 192 kbps. Public listening tests show that LAME MP3 (not the iTunes MP3 encoder, however) and iTunes AAC are both transparent, that is, indistinguishable from the source CDs, all the way down to 128 kbps VBR. I prefer MP3 just for the feeling of flexibility, even though I don't actually do anything with them that I couldn't do with AAC files.

macintologist · Jul 30, 2006, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by DigitalEl

I think 80% of the people who get their panties twisted over bitrates are delusional.

Touché!

gnomexp · Jul 30, 2006, 12:39 PM

I used to rip using 192K mp3s, but on my new computer with a huge hard drive, and a G-Tech 250GB, I just switched to lossless.

It does sound better for classical music, especially Alicia de Larrocha's Mozart set (you can hear her fingernails if you listen close enough). I could care less for my other stuff though.

macintologist · Jul 30, 2006, 04:29 PM

I rip at 128k AAC> Up yours audiophiles.

generationfourt · Jul 30, 2006, 04:53 PM

thanks guys. now i get to spend the whole day re-importing my collection to AAC :x

siMac · Jul 31, 2006, 06:10 AM

One day?

Small collection.

generationfourt · Jul 31, 2006, 10:34 PM

hah. Yes im glad my collection is small at the moment. I'm on day 2 and almost wrapped up the re importing. It's only 45 or so albums. I just recently started buying cd's :o

Gavin · 01:33 AM

The key to this is your sound system.

An MP3 at 128 may well sound great on an iPod but can sound muddy on a car stereo.
As the quality of your sound system goes up you begin to notice the quality of the recording, or lack therof. So my 128 AACs sound great on my desktop system (altec lansing speakers + subwoofer) but when I burn a CD and drop it into my Denon stereo you can hear the difference between that and an original CD.

The other vartiable is what kind of song is it? Something grungy like mudhoney or motorhead just doesn't require the clarity of a string quartet.

Streaming will affect the quality. Not of the data, but of the experience. Higher bitrates are more likely to drop out and skip, esspecially over wireless. You most likely won't notice a difference, YMMV.

So, personally I rip at 256 AAC. For me this is the right quallity for filesize, streaming to my laptop, and burning to a CD for the car or the stereo. And it still leaves me some headroom if I want to convert it to something else - like for an MP3 CD.

The real answer is "try it". Rip the same cd at 3 different bit rates then listen to it on all your systems.
Your best choice is the smallest filesize that sounds acceptable to you on your best gear.

Remember you can add a 400GB drive for less than $200 (on sale + rebate, etc.) and even if you just drag in the raw aiff files (~500MB per album - 50 minutes or so), that's still a boatload of music.