NERO

 

When I went on a ripping frenzy, I preferred, "LAME". At the time, it was the best quality solution with the most encoding options. Today, I rip things to FLAC format to get full quality rips.

 

so is it a safe guess that flac is not going to be compatible with most mp3 players out there?

 

Correct. FLAC players are few and far between. But... with FLAC you have a nice lossless copy. I just convert it to lower quality mp3 when I want to drop it on the ipod then erase it and keep the FLAC archive copy.

 

FLAC is no good for me. I want it to play in a variety of stuff. MP3 at like 192 is good enough for me.

 

Then CDex is the way to go, in my opinion. There are lots of encoders built in, including LAME. You can do any fixed or variable bitrate. I usually rip VBR with an average of 192kbps or better.

The only downside I've found is the consistency of the CDDB entries, but that goes for anything that uses the free CDDB. You just have to check 'em over before you accept it to make sure there aren't any typos.

And like I said, it's free, easy, simple, and lightweight. Give it a try with a disc and see how you like it.

 

It definitely not for everyone. Not only is FLAC limited in compatibility, but it's really large in size compared to an MP3. I moved to it mainly in an attempt to stop bouncing all over the place with mp3 settings. When I first started getting mp3's, 128kbs was considered, "CD quality". Then... somewhere along the line, 160kbs became the standard. After that, VBR was the hot setup. Now... you're looking at 192kps (probably VBR). I'm hoping FLAC ends that cycle for me since I essentially have an exact copy of the original CD which I can re-encode as I like. Another thing that really doesn't hurt is that FLAC seems to be the popular option for downloaded lossless music right now.

 

Ripping frenzy with LAME? Is it 1999 again?

Actually that used to be my encoder of choice except for a timeperiod where it wouldn't run on my AMD boxes... then I had to fall back to bladenc. bleh.

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Regarding iTunes and iPods, you don't need an iPod to use iTunes. Personally I like it, besides owning two iPods it's still a decent music player/organizer. It doesn't require that you purchase music through the iTunes store or anything and you can still auto-fetch the album art. Just don't use the default encoding settings and switch it to say MP3 192Kbps or whatever and you're good to go.

Additionally it's good for downloading/managing Podcasts and surfing the iTunes store for Podcasts (which are free anyway) is a good way to find new ones.

 

You mean everyone didn't start ripping music when the original napster came out?

 

Interesting... but... Can you tell the difference between your FLAC encoded file and a 192Kbps VBR? I did a comparison between 192 Kbps and SHN (shorten, another lossless format) about 5 years ago and my ears weren't good enough to hear the difference. It might be because I'm too old now and I've been to enough concerts where the tinnitus lasted hours after the show. I'm surprised I'm not deaf yet.