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Spoon
05-07-2002, 05:46 AM
Which Audio Format does your Collection Use?

Razgo
06-08-2002, 08:23 AM
when i do any ripping it is typically in ogg format. but any songs or samples i download are typically in mp3 format.

so I have both.

MODatic
06-09-2002, 07:49 AM
hehe WMA has a zero :happy:

I'll be re-ripping my whole collection over to Ogg Vorbis once my iRriver supports it. (If :confused: )

Of course, I'll always have mp3s hiding in some folder on my HDD from some download. If only you could download Ogg Vorbis files :cry:

edgarde
06-11-2002, 10:26 AM
I rip tons of Ogg Vorbis, download pounds of MP3, and trade a few Shorten.

Shorten is increasingly popular in groups I trade in. I would like Illustrate to release a Shorten codec if it hasn't already (I'll check after this is posted). It would be expecially helpful if there were an easy to use codec that supported Shorten version 3.x (which supports "seek"), along with version 2.3a (last "official" version).
http://shnutils.etree.org/shorten

Es.

totalXSive
06-11-2002, 02:02 PM
I think Spoon intends to add a Shorten codec sometime in the near future. Keep your eyes peeled :)

MPC Fanatic
06-22-2002, 07:30 PM
I use Monkeys audio (for archival purposes on a seperate computer, I tried compared shorten and Monkeys both at max lossless compression and Monkeys came out with smaller file sizes) and MPC for all my other computers and for general listening. I use Vorbis on my iBook because I can't find a player for Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X that will play MPC and vorbis is better than MP3 by a long shot but MPC, IMO, is better than vorbis.

hiperpinguino
09-10-2002, 08:24 PM
I tend to mix mp3 and Monkeys (as some may remember from this (http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=753) post), as I download mp3 but rip monkeys.

MadiZone
09-14-2002, 10:21 AM
Vorbis all the way...

Larry!
10-07-2002, 04:39 AM
mp3,most likely. not that i really love it,but it has good enough
quality with certain bitrate,192kb/s for instance. though,if i need to record it without compression (for some reason),i`m just using a wav format. an advantage is that most progs has familiarity with those formats. it could change,but for now...:happy:

Unregistered
10-09-2002, 03:11 PM
I still use MP3, though I would love it if most software/hardware made the switch to OGG. Until that happens, I'll stick with MP3 for a couple of reasons:

-My MP3 player's software doesn't support it (OpenMG)
-You can't download many OGG files from P2P networks
-Getting out all of my CD's and re-ripping them to OGG would be time consuming, and maybe not worth the effort yet (I could transcode, but I don't want to).

That being said, if OGG becomes more standarized, I wouldn't mind the switch.

totalXSive
10-10-2002, 07:53 AM
P2P support for Ogg is increasing - the latest WinMX uses it, and apparently KaZaA also supports it, though I wouldn't know since I'd never let such a scummy piece of software on my hard drive.

In fact, one of the few major programs not to support it is Nero Burning ROM, which is why I'm keen to try dBpowerAMP Audio CD Writer :).

Unregistered
12-12-2002, 03:57 PM
Amen to that

Unregistered
12-24-2002, 06:06 AM
Winmx also has good support for MPC too, me and a few guys share their entire collection on it, you have to choose the 'other audio format' tho,for some weird reason.

Lord Mortus
12-29-2002, 11:11 PM
First of all I would like to say hi.. and I love the dBpower stuff :)

As to the poll.. my collection is exclusively mp3. Can someone tell me what the qualitiy difference is between mp3 and ogg? I don't have any experience in ogg format, but if it's better I'll see about converting my 1000's of songs over :)

damon
05-15-2003, 03:27 AM
I've just started ripping my CD collection, mainly to cut compressed CDs to play in my iRiver, so MP3 works for me. Maximum compatibility is the main driver.

I figure my next car system will be MP3 compatible too so I won't need to buy a stacker.

At 192kbps the sound quality is fine, and compression is still good enough to get 10 or so albums per disk.

One of the lossless formats would obviously be superior to keep as a master copy, and convert to MP3 only when writing to CDs, but the downside is I'd have to fork out the readies for heaps more hard drive space to keep it all on-line.

I'm not into swapping / downloading - my internet connection is still dial-up.

Unregistered
05-22-2003, 03:21 AM
I rip exclusively to monkeys cause quality is * 1 with me,but i have some mp3 and some ogg.


Whats the origin of .ape anyway,is that a spoon creation?

Razgo
05-22-2003, 04:03 AM
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/index.html :happy:

heinhuiz
05-22-2003, 11:52 PM
I'm blessed with an audio-challenge (I'm a bit deaf :cool: ) so I'm sticking with (and converting every file I find to) MP3, which is still - and probably will be - the best supported format...

Razgo
05-23-2003, 12:15 AM
yes mp3 is prbably still the most widely supported format. however that will/is slowly changing.

what is being a bit deaf got to do with mp3's?

heinhuiz
05-23-2003, 12:26 AM
Quantity over quality :p

(MP3's can play in my car if I want to, ogg's won't.)

Razgo
05-23-2003, 12:37 AM
yeh it's a shame more hardware support isn't there yet for OGG.

but if you ever want to reach the "G" Spot in OGG do a convert to ogg q-6 / 192/kbps Variable Bitrate. near cd quality perfection :p

heinhuiz
05-23-2003, 01:17 AM
Well, my car CD-player does actually play CD's too :)

bicho_en_canada
07-12-2003, 05:32 PM
any tried soulseek lately?

Avenging Angel
07-19-2003, 05:20 AM
.asf , but wma for my player but winamp plays every format there is and i guess i so used to it that i will never change peace to yous AA

Unregistered
08-11-2003, 06:19 AM
I've tried most of them. Even ones not supported by DMC. I'm not trying to have a uniform collection, though. It would take too much time. In theory I like Ogg the best because it is truly a free, open architecture format. Other formats might also be free, but I don't know about it.

It isn't like people are going to come along and try to charge you money for your Mp3s (at least I hope not) but the idea of a truly non comercial format is appealing. Like the DMC itself :)

Still, I use flac, mpc, shn, ogg, ape, mp3 (lame, frauenhoffer, and pro), Mp2 & 4, Wma 9 (though I hate to admit it), wvc, and more.

My major gripe about all these formats, is that my Windows XP doesn't recognize most of them as being audio files, and so the ID tag info doesn't show up in explorer. (or only the title)

Comparing audio quality is difficult, because they are always releasing new codecs, and to compare someone's old version with the latest of another kind is useless.

Razgo
08-11-2003, 06:32 AM
My major gripe about all these formats, is that my Windows XP doesn't recognize most of them as being audio files, and so the ID tag info doesn't show up in explorer. (or only the title)
i don't run XP but i would check with Spoon on this one, as it should all work fine in that area.

Spoon
08-11-2003, 03:29 PM
Not within explorers file list, that would need special coding which is on my todo list...

JVILLAS
08-11-2003, 04:48 PM
I've been using Monkeys for classical and Jazz, for lossy MPC,for portable mp3 at 128kps on nomad llc, and wave on nomad 10g., holds about 150 songs.

Unregistered
11-03-2003, 10:57 PM
First of all I would like to say hi.. and I love the dBpower stuff :)

As to the poll.. my collection is exclusively mp3. Can someone tell me what the qualitiy difference is between mp3 and ogg? I don't have any experience in ogg format, but if it's better I'll see about converting my 1000's of songs over :)


It's mainly opinion, but the first time I ever listened to an ogg rip right after hearing the same song ripped to mp3... it really caught my attention. I looked up at my speakers and started thinking I had a bad wire connection before. The dynamic range was much better with ogg. I think the technical phrase would be 'better psychoacoustcal modeling'. mp3's sound slightly muddy to me while ogg files sound more crisp. When you say "convert to .ogg", I hope you mean "rip to ogg". Converting between lossy formats should only be done as a last resort. Converting from .mp3 to .ogg can add noises or "artifacts' that you don't want.

If you have the storage space and you want to archive your sound collection permanently, you should really rip to a lossless format. I trust .flac for longevity and offering future hardware support. Spoon has always promoted .ape and I'm sure it is a slightly better performer, but I think .flac will be better accepted by the general public. If you rip to lossless, then you can make quick copies to whatever lossy format you want for portable devices.

I usually rip all my new cd's to .ogg. I don't really download music off the web. My computer output goes to my home sound system, so I have a jukebox of several thousand songs available at the click of a mouse.

Mti

Unregistered
11-03-2003, 11:04 PM
My major gripe about all these formats, is that my Windows XP doesn't recognize most of them as being audio files, and so the ID tag info doesn't show up in explorer. (or only the title)


I like the fact that Microsoft doesn't know what a file type is. If I know what it is and I have a stand-alone application that knows what it is, I'm very happy.

Mti

Unregistered
12-26-2003, 08:25 PM
I am trying to keep my collection mp3PRO, cause of many programs can read them. But I'm hoping that suport for AACplus will come soon. For me space is a constante problem and I dont have a lot of it.

If anyone knows any news on this codec, I would like to know thax.

Spoon
12-27-2003, 05:06 PM
AACPlus is Mp4 HE (or AAC HE), nero create it - dbpoweramp will decode it no problems.

Unregistered
01-01-2004, 08:52 AM
Any plans to make dBpowerAMP to suport it soon?

Spoon
01-02-2004, 07:40 PM
I supports it in that it can read such files, and with the Nero encoding plugin (in beta) it can create AAC+ files.

DJ Scuff
01-14-2004, 09:50 PM
My collection is mp3 at the moment, but since those are recovered from a hard disk crash :vmad: most are messed up. So i'm looking around for a new file format. I think it will be aac+, but i still have to test sound quality at various bitrates before deciding.

ferris209
01-16-2004, 02:16 AM
I use the mp3 format, mainly becuase it is currently universal and I can put the files on a disk and play it on my stereo and on any computer I come in contact with. I am curious about doing more with ogg or monkies though. I rip at 192 kbps and I think I get great results ofr my type of music (classic country) but there are a few of my collections I'd like to have lossless.

Unregistered
01-18-2004, 08:42 AM
I think Spoon intends to add a Shorten codec sometime in the near future. Keep your eyes peeled :)
But do you know anything about VVS?
Got a disc and I was trying to convert it to MP3 of some kind but can't find a decoder! the only site which has one won't load the page!!!

Any help gratefully appreciated!

Paul

JVILLAS
01-18-2004, 10:50 PM
Hi, all I could find out about .vvs is a site called file hungry.com, it has a converter available, but is shareware. You might want to give it a look. At least its a place to start. good luck.

claren44
01-25-2004, 04:56 AM
I use 64/44/stereo mp3pro for storage,because that's what I stream in thru Live365. :cool: Besides,I have only a 20gb HD ("only" 20gb...two years ago that was Sooooo big).
Love & Peace,Clarence

Unregistered
02-11-2004, 07:23 AM
MPC here
Insane and Brain dead
Extreme from friends from FTP

Beside this some MP3 Hight ,but less and less
And some OGG7

Unregistered
02-11-2004, 07:23 AM
MPC here
Insane and Brain dead
Extreme from friends from FTP

Beside this some MP3 Hight ,but less and less
And some OGG7


Hop! No login
Zevele posting

Wolla of ishöj
02-18-2004, 12:05 AM
Hi...
I use OptimFROG Dualstream for most encoding, but with rare/old
cd's I use OptimFROG lossless. I am also considering about only to
use a lossless encoder for back-up for all my cd's instead.

Unregistered
03-25-2004, 06:06 PM
hi all
ogg definitely...
but theres qualityloss ..
i thought why not convert into monkeys audio first and then
to ogg... is there still loss? is it worth it?

Razgo
03-25-2004, 07:03 PM
going from monkey to ogg is still going from losless to lossy. i find it difficult to tell the difference between ogg-VB/192 and the original. but i guess it depends on your sound system and setup as well.

keithbaran
03-28-2004, 11:49 AM
I rip to ape for use on my home computer but convert to MP3 192 to use on my Nomad Zen, which I use in my car as my car stereo. Ape files are great!

drspy00
04-07-2004, 10:49 PM
I use ogg vorbis now because I dont like mp3 much, the quality isnt as good as ogg. I ripped all my CDs to ogg to allow easy access to them. I hope I encoded them at a high enough bitrate though. Is it ok to convert ogg to mp3 because If I get an mp3 player I will have to do this.

ChristinaS
04-28-2004, 11:03 PM
I generally prefer wma because I have noticed a better sound quality over mp3 at the same bit rate. In fact I think a wma file at, say 128kbps, is equivalent to an mp3 at 256kbps, but at only half the size. Of course you have to encode to wma from a wav or other hi-fi original, there's no point converting mp3 @ 128kbps to wma @ 128kbps and expect an improvement.

drspy00
05-20-2004, 12:54 AM
I've changed my mind now! I think Monkeys audio or other lossless audio formats are the best (although I havent tried any other lossless other than monkeys) especially for archival purposes and to backup entire CD collections for backup and easy access.

I don't really see a point in trying the other lossless formats but might try a few. Are there any better than monkeys audio?

Razgo
05-20-2004, 09:00 AM
i use flac for lossless. i bailed out on monkey's because it had issues with win98se not working with the latest release. and the developer of monkey didn't seem interested. so i went to flac and never looked back.

ferris209
05-30-2004, 04:04 AM
I read an article a couple weeks back about a symptom known as "disk rot" where the CD's and DVD's are beginning to rot and bubble for some unknown reason. The only thing they can think of is extreme and sudden tempuature changes. They suggest storing the CD's vertical, but now scientitst are beginning to s doubt the old "CD's will last 100 years" theory. So for this reason I will be soon getting a couple of external HDD, probably 250 gigs or more, and I will archive my entire 200+ VALUABLE CD collection to lossless, dunno which format to go with yet though. Between monkeys and flac. I would just die if I lost these precious gems which I hold in the form of music.

Brandon :(

ChristinaS
05-30-2004, 07:45 AM
I read an article a couple weeks back about a symptom known as "disk rot" where the CD's and DVD's are beginning to rot and bubble for some unknown reason. The only thing they can think of is extreme and sudden tempuature changes. They suggest storing the CD's vertical, but now scientitst are beginning to s doubt the old "CD's will last 100 years" theory. So for this reason I will be soon getting a couple of external HDD, probably 250 gigs or more, and I will archive my entire 200+ VALUABLE CD collection to lossless, dunno which format to go with yet though. Between monkeys and flac. I would just die if I lost these precious gems which I hold in the form of music.

Brandon :(

OK, I'm just ranting here - never mind me :)

Have you ever experienced a hard disk crash? Then you wish you'd had everything on CD or DVD :D

The truth is that no matter which medium you have for storage it may get ruined or otherwise become unusable through changes in technology.

Maybe the only way is to continually keep copying your data from one medium to another so as to keep up with evolving technology. That and keep older technology that still works around.

I have quite a few old vinyl records. I still have the old turntable. What I don't have is the old amplifier that the old turntable used to work with. I have a new one that works with the new CD player :) The old turntable, while it can be plugged into the new amplifier, sounds terrible, as they are not really compatible. I won't buy a new turntable for that, I am not that desperate. Especially since most everything I wanted to salvage off of my old vinyls is available on remastered cd's anyway. :D For the most part it's even cheaper than new current releases, and it beats any ability and patience I may have to transfer everything myself. But that's just me :D

ferris209
05-31-2004, 11:51 PM
It's kind of funny, seems that those old records will hold up better than most of our stuff these days!

ChristinaS
06-01-2004, 12:47 AM
It's kind of funny, seems that those old records will hold up better than most of our stuff these days!
At a time when last month's hit is about as popular today as last week's salad still is, yes, this is true :)

Themutant86
06-21-2004, 04:41 PM
On my Computer, I use all 16 Bit Wav files, all undeleated mp3's I download get converted to .wav also. Besides my computer, other than a couple cds, I have a nice sized vinyl collection coming along pretty nicely.

Archon
06-22-2004, 06:19 AM
I have mp3's mostly, but I'm are ripping to ogg , and there are a couple of wavs that are still hanging around here...

drspy00
06-23-2004, 03:37 PM
On my Computer, I use all 16 Bit Wav files, all undeleated mp3's I download get converted to .wav also. Besides my computer, other than a couple cds, I have a nice sized vinyl collection coming along pretty nicely.
Does converting compressed audio like mp3 to wav make the quality better? Because if it doesnt it would be better to keep the files as mp3s as it saves space.

Themutant86
06-25-2004, 12:02 AM
Well supposively once it's converted to mp3 u can't get the quality/original sound back. But even so I found that it makes all songs sound much better. Well it seems that the sound mp3's produce, sounds kinda muffled in a certain way. It just doesn't sound right for some reason. When I convert an mp3 to a Wav file it seems like it balances out all the frequencies as a matter of speeching, In turn making it sound better without raising the bit rate or kbps.

drspy00
07-12-2004, 11:39 PM
Oh, I see.
I dont like the mp3 format much at all, I only download in that format since its what most songs are in and if I got an mp3 player I guess I'd have to use mp3 more. I do find though that most good quality mp3s can sound almost as good as a CD.

ChristinaS
07-16-2004, 12:54 AM
Well supposively once it's converted to mp3 u can't get the quality/original sound back. But even so I found that it makes all songs sound much better. Well it seems that the sound mp3's produce, sounds kinda muffled in a certain way. It just doesn't sound right for some reason. When I convert an mp3 to a Wav file it seems like it balances out all the frequencies as a matter of speeching, In turn making it sound better without raising the bit rate or kbps.
That's kind of not quite true. MP3 is a lossy encoding format, so it is a little (or a lot) worse than the original wav. You'll never get back the original wav, it's just the nature of lossy formats.

What may happen is that with a wav you can use variuous enhancements to make it sound a bit better than the original mp3 from which is was created.

It's also possible that the mp3's you're considering inferior in quality to the resultant wav files are played in a poorer player, while the wav files may be played in a better player, which will leave you with the false impression that the wav recovered from an mp3 is better.

Mind you, all compresson/decompression changes a bit the wave pattern and thus the sound, so it could be pure fluke that you detect an improvement after converting to wav. It could as well have been a deterioration.

It serves no purpose to convert mp3's to wav and store them that way other than for enhancement and in order to convert to other formats you may need. A wav takes about 9 times more space than the typical mp3 file at 128kbps.

Yes, the original wav is better than any lossy compressed format. But I stress original here. You are not getting that from an mp3 to wav conversion, no matter how much you fiddle with it.

Themutant86
07-24-2004, 10:32 PM
Thanks for the info :thumbup:

hans-j�rgen
09-12-2004, 04:08 PM
The old turntable, while it can be plugged into the new amplifier, sounds terrible, as they are not really compatible.
It seems that you only need a separate phono pre-amp for your new amplifier which are available from different manufacturers at a wide price range.


I won't buy a new turntable for that, I am not that desperate. Especially since most everything I wanted to salvage off of my old vinyls is available on remastered cd's anyway. :D For the most part it's even cheaper than new current releases, and it beats any ability and patience I may have to transfer everything myself. But that's just me :D
Right, I'm in a similar situation, but for some vinyls I might do it at some time, because they don't exist as an exact CD replica, e.g. the old ZZ Top albums.

Razgo
09-12-2004, 10:22 PM
there are quite a few ZZ track/albums here: http://catalog.allofmp3.com/mcatalog.shtml?group=61

hans-j�rgen
09-13-2004, 01:09 AM
Thanks for the link, but the only available "old album" there would be the first one, and I doubt that someone actually uploaded a lossless conversion of the original vinyl version. The problem with the first six ZZ Top albums is that they were republished in the CD Sixpack which was heavily remastered by the producer who thought this was a good idea back then. The 1:1 transfer from the original master tapes was done in 2004 with another 4-CD Box, but not completely. :(

Razgo
09-13-2004, 09:05 AM
yes there is no wav file available for download. pick a track and i will grab it and we can see how good it is or isn't. i have an account there and it would only cost me something like 5 cents for the track :)

hans-j�rgen
09-13-2004, 04:33 PM
Thanks Razgo for your kind offer, but I'm pretty sure the available "Rio Grande Mud" album on Allofmp3.com is a plain CD rip either from the Sixpack or the identical single CD which had been published shortly after the Sixpack release (like the other five in that box, too).

To add something on-topic to this poll ;) , I voted for AAC (of course) and lossless, too, because I stored some demo recordings of my band in APE format.

ChristinaS
09-22-2004, 10:20 PM
Oh, oh! You've just lost your umlaut in the conversion! :D

hans-j�rgen
09-23-2004, 03:29 AM
Yes, I've noticed that, too. This might become a problem when the forum cookie expires and I have to login again, at least this happened to me over at 3ivx.com.

Razgo
09-23-2004, 04:40 AM
what is the correct letters that should be there? i will see if i can fix it.

Razgo
09-23-2004, 04:43 AM
nevermind, i just realised this is all over the german and french forum also.

DJFX
10-17-2004, 01:28 AM
For archiving I use Monkeys Audio on Normal setting, but for regular day to day listening I use MP3s done with Lame 3.96.1 on Alt Preset Standard.
This way I have ready MP3s for trading with friends and if someone needs different format, or higher quality, I can just convert off the archive and don't have to search for that specific CD. Plus if anything happens to my MP3s, and I did loose the HD with all my movies and music once before, I don't have reripp all CD's, just do a bulk conversion.

Larry!
10-28-2004, 07:03 AM
My major gripe about all these formats, is that my Windows XP doesn't recognize most of them as being audio files, and so the ID tag info doesn't show up in explorer. (or only the title)

Here's my salvation of this: In winexplorer go to Tools>Folder Options>File Types. Press "New" button. add your extension, e.g., ogg or aac or mp4 or else =). Optional: Press "advanced" and choose what kind of file it is (windows media audio/video, etc). Now just check, M$ now goes familiar with not "original" file extensions! =)

Spoon
11-11-2004, 05:07 PM
Or use dMC R11 to add dBpowerAMPs columns in explorer, these support any audio file dbpoweramp knows about.

neilthecellist
01-21-2005, 01:44 PM
Ogg Vorbis , mp3, and APE.

Smoggy
04-02-2005, 10:30 PM
So, OGG Vorbis isn't lossles?

LtData
04-02-2005, 10:59 PM
No. Ogg is lossy just like mp3, wma, Musepack, and various other formats. More information about different audio formats is here: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm

Smoggy
04-03-2005, 12:25 AM
Is there much difference between wave and Monkey? besides size.....I'm thinking about re-ripping my CD collection into a lossless format to keep as a general purpose back up that I can convert to what ever format I want later. Kinda like a master computer copy.

Unfortunately I have about 350 CDs


Any suggestion on the best format for this would be appreciated!!

neilthecellist
04-03-2005, 12:32 AM
all APE does is just compress the audio like a ZIP/RAR/7z archive....it just compresses the file without losing quality.

Wave is lossless but takes up lotsa space.

LtData
04-03-2005, 12:34 AM
Also, APE files have tags containing information such as the artist, album, and track title. WAV cannot hold these tags as it does not support meta-data (tagging). Ape files normally are compressed about 1:3 or 1:4, that is, 1MB of an ape file equals 3-4MB of a WAV file.

Also, if your ripping your CD collection for a backup, consider installing dMC's AccurateRip function: http://www.accuraterip.com and if you do this, get the beta online database .dll from the forums.

neilthecellist
04-03-2005, 12:39 AM
Yeah, so to sum it all up: APE is better than WAVE. Don't do WAVE unless you're an idiot or you have a good reason to convert to WAVE. :)

LtData
04-03-2005, 12:57 AM
Like you want to burn your APE files to an audio CD using Nero. How? Convert to WAV and THEN burn those files. WAV files do have their uses, neil.

neilthecellist
04-03-2005, 01:06 AM
darniti hate it when you contradict me, Lieutenant!!! :)


You got a point there! :lol: :)

LtData
04-03-2005, 01:10 AM
I also correct spelling on request. :D

But honestly, WAV files do have their uses. For instance, IIRC, all windows sound files have to be wav files. Some programs have their sounds as wavs. However, new games are moving to either mp3 or ogg for their in-game sounds.

Smoggy
04-03-2005, 01:13 AM
LOL
I forgot about the wav tagging thing. I will definetly use APE then....
I got accuraterip w/ online db and totally love it. I hope all the rips I did previously will give me an "accurate rip" message whe I re-rip...or will it not since I was the first to rip it??? hmmmm.....

LtData
04-03-2005, 09:19 AM
If someone else has ripped the CD, it will tell you whether or not the rip was accurate. Note that to be sure the database is accurate, the Confidence should read 2 or higher. If you are the first to rip a CD, then it won't be in the database and you can submit it when your done.
Edit: Also, any rips you submit will take a few weeks to show up in the database.

neilthecellist
05-17-2005, 02:22 PM
A few weeks? Maybe it's different for me on dialup.....:D

LtData
05-17-2005, 03:08 PM
Note that I'm coming from the standpoint of using the online AccurateRip database. The database is recompiled every few weeks, as it takes a couple of hours to do.

neilthecellist
06-02-2005, 06:25 PM
bump.

Maybe this'll sound a bit crazy, but I've begun to rip all my music CDs to every single format. That's how bored I am. And I have finals next week too! :eek:

LtData
06-02-2005, 08:22 PM
Umm... That's called a waste of time, neil. Rip to FLAC and then convert, but even that is pointless. Why every single format?

neilthecellist
06-02-2005, 09:39 PM
Like I said in post *87, I'm really bored. I mean, REALLY bored.

iTunesIsEvil
06-02-2005, 10:46 PM
Learn C*. That'll keep you busy for a while. Plus you can call dMC with C* and do conversions, then not only will you learn an uber-cool language you'll get a great example with object-oriented programming with a nifty real-world use. MS has an Express Edition of C* '05 (http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp/default.aspx) available for free, though it will only work for a year...

neilthecellist
06-02-2005, 11:55 PM
Ew, no C languages yet. I'm learning UScript, part of Unreal Tournament 2004. Currently I'm making Unreal Matinee cinematics on this thread (http://www.xabora.com/torlan/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1713&highlight=)

In other words, I'm already busy. But still bored, strangely. :)

neilthecellist
06-08-2005, 06:16 PM
If you want to swap/download music, try Ogg Vorbis or WMA.

EDIT: I double posted?

GSV3MiaC
07-03-2005, 06:52 AM
Replying to the original Q, only 2 years late (hey, I just arrived!) I have stuff in MP3 (downloads .. no really, legal ones!) WMA lossless and WMA (because it sounds better than MP3, because WMP10 and my portable player can handle them) and I'm moving everything to OGG Vorbis (better qualiy in smaller space, and my NEW portable player can handle it .. OK, WMP chokes a bit on library mgmt, but I just bought dbpoweramp).

Q6 or Q7 for the main 'master' files and Q0 or Q-1 even for the ones to put on the portable player (out in the field that's quite good enough). Would be real nice if poweramp (music colletion) could get its head round the idea of 'I have 3 copies of this song that I want to keep synched' (kind of like a C Makefile or something) .. so if I change the artist tag on the master copy the Q0 OGG (and anything else I might have built fromt he master - WMA 64 Kbps for my old player maybe) also get updated.

hexadecimal
07-28-2005, 02:26 PM
winmx don't work on charter, comcast, or time warner connections. I did get it working ONCE on time warner, then it died again. plus its too windows 95ish. kinda scares me.

and bearshare has alot of mailcious software on it, and also most of the movies on there are pr0n. and also its very hard to find dance music on there.

but.... my fav audio codecs are AAC, Real, and mp3. AAC is pretty good since a 212k mp3 sounds about as good (on my speakers/sound config) as good as a 128K AAC file.

but I have good speakers, creative 5.1 inspire. but I want those new 7.1's! and an audigiy 4 plantnum!!!!!

neilthecellist
07-29-2005, 07:11 PM
Soulseek/Shareaza?

LtData
07-30-2005, 12:32 AM
Or mabye, heaven forbid, BUY the CDs? I admit, I copy music from friends. However, if I like the artist, I buy the CD. If don't like them, I delete the songs.

gameplaya15143
10-27-2005, 01:36 AM
ogg vorbis for me :smile2:

i dont have a huge hard drive, small size and great quality is a must
i still have a few mp3s around though

Hyrize
12-15-2005, 11:33 PM
i have mostly mp3 because that's just what everything is downloaded as and i figure converting it to anything else is just going to degrade the quality more (ie. to lossy) or take up more space (ie. to lossless).

mostly i rip to oggs, but now i have more hdd space i'll prolly rip to lossless wma more.
that or now that my iriver can play wavpack i might give that a go in hybrid mode:smile2:

neilthecellist
12-28-2005, 06:52 PM
Have to start using Ogg Vorbis again because most maps made for Unreal Tournament 2004 require the Ogg Vorbis codec for music.

jtbse
01-11-2006, 12:06 PM
Hi Spoon...

First of all...just want to say the dbPowerAmp conversion tools and codecs rock! :smile2:

I use AAC mostly (.m4a), for a few reasons. 1) Seems to be a good lossy compromise (at least to my ear) 2) I have an iPod and it's compatible. 3) At the time I started using WinAmp to manage my library it was the default ripping encoder that WinAmp was using.

I also convert lots of vinyl LPs to digital (when I've got the time for such things ;) ), and use the dbPowerAmp converter to encode to AAC from WAV after cleaning up the pops and noise.

But lately, I've been considering going to a lossless (probably FLAC), to allow for more flexibility with streaming and such. But converting my current library of nearly 4000 songs is a big project I'm not ready to take on right now.

jtbse

neilthecellist
04-16-2006, 01:03 PM
FLAC is a good idea. I just wish portable devices would support APE (Monkey's Audio) more often, because I find that compression seems to be a lot better in Monkey's Audio format.

As of now... If I'm ripping CD's to my computer, it's either Ogg Vorbis at -q8 or mp3 at 320kbps. Yes, I know, I still use mp3's.

Ruhe
05-19-2006, 02:48 AM
Ogg with -q5 or -q6

neilthecellist
06-10-2006, 05:15 PM
Anyone here support FhG mp3 encoding? Sometimes I want to deviate from LAME...

gameplaya15143
06-17-2006, 05:14 PM
Anyone here support FhG mp3 encoding? Sometimes I want to deviate from LAME...
depends on the situation, I use which ever encoder is best suited to the task (IMO lame3.93.1 is best 99% of the time)

The only version of any fhg encoder I would ever use is l3codecp.acm v1.2 (aka radium) at 128kbps, simply because it lowpasses at 20khz and has a bit less ringing than lame at 128kbps cbr with it's lowpass at 20khz (newer versions of l3codecp.acm lowpass at 16khz). fastencc merits decent enough quality with -vbr 1 at ~96kbps or so. mp3enc and l3enc suck.

xing and helix have their own merits as well.

What reasons do you have from deviating from lame (just curious)?

JVILLAS
09-04-2006, 12:36 PM
Hi It's been 3 years since my last post. Currently for lossy I use Ogg and Lame MP3vbr. Lossy is used primarily for portable listening. For Home stereo,and computor listening I like Flac, WavPack, and of course I still will sometimes play play the original cd

Shyone379
09-04-2006, 04:05 PM
I have made changes to my collection several times, used monkies, Ogg, mp3 etc, although I found Monkies, a good codec, like ogg, it has little support or usage elswhere in the world... mp3 tho being the most used, is locked at 16 bit. so MP4 it is for me now as it has better support in commercial hardware, good quality and file size.

DudeBoyz
11-02-2006, 12:27 AM
MP3

For Fast Fraunhoffer (Music Match 4.x and above) I do 160kbps
For Lame (audio grabber, dbpa), I do 192kbps

With headphones on I cannot tell much diff between the FF at 160 and the Lame at 192.

bhoar
03-20-2007, 03:20 PM
This thread keeps popping up as new, even though no new posts are showing up.

Is this because it is a poll, and folks (or webspiders?) keep submitting responses?

-brendan

LtData
03-20-2007, 05:25 PM
Its because people keep voting in the poll

bhoar
03-21-2007, 08:55 PM
Its because people keep voting in the poll

Ok then. Well, I figure I should put something smart, then, at the end of the thread while I can.

Hey you! Yeah you! What are you doing at the keyboard? Go outside! Have fun!

-brendan

wmoonshine
07-11-2007, 04:00 AM
I primarily rip to .APE. Monkeys Audio (.APE) is slightly better than FLAC according to tests I ran over a year ago. See also the table at http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison.html for a comparison of the performance of most of the popular lossless compressors.
Lossless compression allows for conversion to a lossy format later should I need to download to a player such as the IPod.
With the low cost of large hard drives these days, space isn't an issue, nor is the cost of a backup drive. A 320 GB hard drive can store a little over 8000 30-Mbyte APE files. Classical music typically rips with an average compression ratio of 2.2:1. Rock, pop and folk music usually around 1.5:1. Anyone who rips a lot of music should have at least two backups and this is easy to do now with the large and cheap drives.
I do a fair amount of wave editing of tracks I've ripped, often sometime after I've ripped them. This necessitates a lossless compression. I'm always on the hunt for beautiful and prefessionally recorded music and I rarely rip entire CD's, only tracks I like.
Music files that are poorly recorded (ie, noisy, contain distortion, poor miking, etc) or one's that interest me only a little I rip to m4a Nero (AAC) or mp3.