How to rip

[ctmagnus]

Just curious: How does everybody rip their CDs to listen to on their Pocket PCs? (VBR/CBR, quality (in the case of WMA), bitrate if CBR...)

[Dave Beauvais]

I use Audiograbber (http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/) to rip to 64 Kbps VBR WMA9 files, which average around 20 MB per CD. For playback on my desktop or notebook on good speakers, I prefer higher (variable) bitrate MP3s, which I also rip with Audiograbber using the LAME (http://mitiok.free.fr/) MP3 encoder. (Yes, I have a separate set of files for copying to my Pocket PC.)

I use WMA9 for PPC use because the audio quality is much better at a lower bitrate (and thus smaller file size) vs. MP3. I currently have three full CDs worth of WMA9 files on my 256 MB SD card along with various other files. The same audio quality in MP3 format would require much more storage space for the same amount of music.

--Dave

[Janak Parekh]

One word: CDex (cdexos.sourceforge.net). Supports both MP3 and Ogg. I rip about 160kbps Ogg for Pocket PCs, although I now I rip 256kbps MP3 to my iPod. Ogg also handles lower bitrates very well, like WMA.

--janak

[Weyoun6]

I use dbpowerAMP (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm). Great free program, just download the Ogg & WM codecs and you are ready to go. As for myself, I usually rip from the cd to monkeys audio (a lossless, highly compressable formant) and then I can just do whatever I want with them without bothering my cd collection. I usually use 160kb WMA's and 128 'VBR' Oggs, unless I am running out of space, then 96kb Oggs. I would use VBR, but I like to know what size its going to be before I rip it.

[qmrq]

Quality 8 (256 Kbit/s VBR) Ogg.

[droppedd]

I'm anal retentive about audio, need maximal cross-compatibility, and often rip extremely scratched up CDs. As a result, I've been using Exact Audio Copy with LAME using the --r3mix VBR high-quality mp3 encoding command line option, which sounds frikkin great. although i haven't even looked in a while to see what other mp3 options are out there.

Last time i tried .wma (WMP 8 or so for encoding) I was fairly dissatisfied. 64 kbps files sound better than 64 kbps mp3s, but the 128 and up sound no better than the comparable mp3s to my ears. In fact even when wmas sounded good they were inaccurate sounding compared to the original. Plus they always made Winamp crash :).

So i get (fairly) large files, but hey, i have 1.25 GB worth of expansion cards in my iPaq, and I'll be able to get my files from around campus with Wi-Fi :). And they sound great, even when burned to CDs.

[dean_shan]

128kbs MP3 for music 64 or 56kbs for audio books, and 16kbs w/ NoteM for Pocket PC recordings of meetings and confrences.

[davidspalding]

I use an old copy of Audio Catalyst. It does a fair job, and has lots of options for naming files. I usually use CBR 95 kbps as my PDA does funny things with CBR ... and 96 is a nice compromise between sound qual and size for really quite ambient and space music.

[droppedd]

I use an old copy of Audio Catalyst. It does a fair job, and has lots of options for naming files. I usually use CBR 95 kbps as my PDA does funny things with CBR ... and 96 is a nice compromise between sound qual and size for really quite ambient and space music.

ew. besides audiocatalyst doing not-so-nice things to the upper frequencies (cutoffs are within the audible threshold), you would likely get much better results with 96 or even 64 kbps WMAs (as much as i dislike the format in general). Or go the more modern route and try low bitrate OGGs. Personally I can't even listen to 112 kbps mp3s anymore; ever since i got decent speakers and headphones I've been ruined to low bitrate mp3s forever :). But hey, if it works for you, whatever. I do use mp3s to rip, just at higher rates where the exact format matters relatively less to final sound quality... mp3 is notoriously ugly at low bitrates; OGG and wma are designed much better for that.

[ctmagnus]

Guess I should have replied earlier. :)

I've been ripping audio from CDs to MP3s for use on my Nomad Jukebox 3 at 256kbps CBR or higher, using Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) to get the data into a (raw) wav file then RazorLame (http://www.dors.de/razorlame/index.php) to convert the wavs into MP3.

Then when I want to take some music with me that I don't have in an extremely portable format yet, I use dBpowerAMP (http://www.dbpoweramp.com) to convert the MP3s into WMA v9 files using "VBR Quality 50, 44kHz, stereo VBR" (to quote the program), normalizing the volume and preserving the ID3 tags.

[griph]

I'm anal retentive about audio, need maximal cross-compatibility, and often rip extremely scratched up CDs. As a result, I've been using Exact Audio Copy with LAME using the --r3mix VBR high-quality mp3 encoding command line option,

8O I'm just happy using Media Player with !Plus MP3 Rip add-on. 128kb/s quality mp3 - never bother with wma - prefer to stay with one format. Guess I must have cloth ears!

[Janak Parekh]

ew. besides audiocatalyst doing not-so-nice things to the upper frequencies (cutoffs are within the audible threshold), you would likely get much better results with 96 or even 64 kbps WMAs (as much as i dislike the format in general).
I believe they fixed upper-threshholding in the last versions of AudioCatalyst.

Personally I can't even listen to 112 kbps mp3s anymore; ever since i got decent speakers and headphones I've been ruined to low bitrate mp3s forever :).
Agreed. ;) For MP3s (for my iPod), I rip at 256kbps. I can spare the disk on that little guy...

--janak

[davidspalding]

ew. besides audiocatalyst doing not-so-nice things to the upper frequencies (cutoffs are within the audible threshold), you would likely get much better results with 96 or even 64 kbps WMAs (as much as i dislike the format in general). Or go the more modern route and try low bitrate OGGs. Personally I can't even listen to 112 kbps mp3s anymore; ever since i got decent speakers and headphones I've been ruined to low bitrate mp3s forever :). But hey, if it works for you, whatever....

Well, I would use WMP 9 to create WMAs, but the interface is so much clunkier than ol' Audio Catalyst that I go with what I know. I know, the sound quality ain't that much better than cassettes, but then I'm not trying for superbit SACD quality audio files on a PDA with less than adequate audio circuitry to play them. Having 6-10 CDs' worth of music on my PDA with cassette quality audio is still not too bad. I still remember my cheap Walkman knock-off circa 1982, and how it sounded.