If 128 is "near cd quality" what is full cd quality? What is overkill?

[kookoobirdz]

When I used to rip with either Real or Windows Media Player a couple years ago, can't remember which, it gave you a choice of what bitrate to rip at. And when you selected 128, it described it as "near CD quality". I want full CD quality. Does anyone know what this is? If 128 is near, is 160 full? 192? I see stuff online encoded at such rates as 320. Is this overkill? I want to rip my CDs at a rate that will be good enough for the future, so the tracks will be preserved at a quality level at least as high as CDs. I understand that lossy formats inherently lose some quality, but I'm sticking with mp3 for now. So with that said, what's a good rate to burn at? Am I going to notice a whole lot of difference between, say, 160 and 320?

[ferris209]

Re: If 128 is "near cd quality" what is full cd quality? What is overkill?

For archiving your music, I suggest you consider using a lossess format, Monkeys or Flac are the most predominent. If you want to get the best possible from mp3, using 320 kbps will produce files that sound really good but will be almost the size of the lossless files, so you'd be better off using lossless. I use 192 kbps for my music that I store on my computer just to listen to, I'd never store my music in anything less than a lossless format though. An mps at 192 kbps will make a 3 minutes ongs about 3 to 4 megabyte file. Mp3 is great to listen to, but I hate the fact it would'n't be perfect 50 years from now when I listen to it from a harddisk, or microchip by then. But to be honest, after two years of watching this board, I suggest you go with your ears, what sounds great to you, may not to another, but who cares about the other. If 192 kbps mp3 sounds great to you, go with it. If it seems to lack to your ears, try a lossless format.

Brandon

[kookoobirdz]

Re: If 128 is "near cd quality" what is full cd quality? What is overkill?

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to stick with lossy until I can get some external storage to re-rip and store lossless.

[Spoons]

Re: If 128 is "near cd quality" what is full cd quality? What is overkill?

i have some mp3's i ripped several years ago. i don't even remember what the settings were but i look at the tags and they have an everage of around 140 to 150 give or take. so it must have been a variable setting. anyhow they still sound great to this day. i like choosing variable to get the best sound. i would go for either 192 or 128. do a couple of tests and see which sounds the best.

/edit

just realised they are 4 years old :D

[fairyliquidizer]

Re: If 128 is "near cd quality" what is full cd quality? What is overkill?

alt preset standard which is a Variable Bit Rate setting on Lame is pretty damn transparent (it comes out about 200kbps on average depending on the source material). The actual answer is depends on your ears. Also 128kbps with a naff MP3 implementation isn't the same as 128kbps with a good one.

For portable listening I use 128kbps.

For listening on my HiFi (Squeezebox, Creak amplifier and Accoustic Solutions speakers) I use FLAC. On the Hi Fi I can spot the difference between 128kbps and FLAC although at silly bit rates I doubt I would (silly=256kbps+).

Fairy