On 12/13/06, Andy Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thanks to everyone who replied - > I downloaded FreeRip and CDex to try (also Audacity but haven't had time to > look at that yet): > FreeRip was the easiest to use and rock solid; CDex (beta) was less solid > (e.g. proxy passthru) but: > > since I was new to this I did sample rips to mp3, ogg, and flac. > There is a download that adds all these codecs and more to Windows Media > Player, and since it seems that Win pc's just 'have' that <g> I decided to > use it. > - now with the inevitable affluction of time my ears ain't what they were > but I could still hear (subjective?) differences in quality: - mps was > 'bright' almost tinny, ogg was better but slightly woolly*, flac was > indistinguishable from the original.
Try to find a MP3 encoder that uses the LAME MP3 encoder. I use WinLame. Simple, but effective. > So my vote goes for CDex + flac on wmp for my laptop, but I have never > heard of an 'mp3' player that can handle flac (anyone?) so if I buy one of > those I'd go for FreeRip and ogg. There's very few that handle OGG as well. > Sizes - original 45Mb, mp3 3.5Mb, ogg 2.5Mb, flac 9Mb > > * Later I found that in CDex (not sure about FreeRip) I could up the > bitrate from 128 to 256 for ogg which took it much nearer to flac quality > imho (size 5Mb) Flac is lossless AFAIK, so it will always sound the best. Did you try M4A? It the format iTunes uses (OK, it uses M4P, a DRM protected version.). > and finally - don't know why *anyone* would choose mp3 Because it 'works everywhere' (TM). It depends on what you're listening on. Use a cheap MP3 player with cheap inner-ear phones on a noisy train to work and you'll not notice the bad quality :) Also, it might be worth trying a different MP3 player. Maybe there's better MP3 codecs than Microsoft's? -- Paul _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
