Ripping Software

Topia

I'm looking for some good quality ripping software, to convert to MP3's of course. I'd prefer if this is free, but no absolutely needed, and I really want to be able to rip up to 320kbps.

Thanks ahead of time if anyone can give me a few suggestions, would be much appreciated.

mastman

iTunes can do mp3s in 320 kbps

wunderbar

mastman wrote: »

iTunes can do mp3s in 320 kbps

gneGne

CDex, been using it for quite some time. Tried some others, but I like this one best.

Silvoculous

mastman wrote: »

iTunes can do mp3s in 320 kbps

What about Windows Media Player?

Dehumanized

I'd second recommendations for Cdex.

wunderbar

Silvoculous wrote: »

mastman wrote: »

iTunes can do mp3s in 320 kbps

What about Windows Media Player?

I believe WMP can do it, it's just that more people prefer iTunes to WMP

DHS Odium

Yeah Windows Media Player will rip Mp3's at 320kps, and you probably already have it installed if you use Windows, or have iTunes if on a Mac.

theantipop

For CDA ripping, I recommend Exact Audio Copy. It's fairly simple to setup and affords you both top-notch quality as well as freedom to choose your encoder. If you want to stick with MP3's, grab the latest LAME binary and go at it. If you are going with 320kbps anyway, I'd recommend going with a lossless format as the bitrate won't be much higher and will leave you with a perfect source.

The Hydrogen Audio Wiki has some great and easy to use guides. You seem to be concerned with quality since you specifically mention 320kbps encoding, so I would avoid itunes and WMP.

GameHat

Anything that isn't Exact Audio Copy is pure chumpery.

Monkey Ball Warrior

CDex and iTunes are both good programs.

iTunes supports AAC, the official successor to MP3, and has an automatic cover art downloader, which is nice. (you have to login for it to work for some reason, though). Unfortunately, it has fairly limited options as far as codec settings are concerned. If you're just doing a vanilla CBR 320 MP3 rip it should be fine, you could use a drunk monkey to encode and it would still sound good at 320, but you are really just throwing bits at it. A good setting is 256 AAC with VBR checked. This will be virtually indistinguishable from the CD. VBR (variable bitrate) saves bits in simple parts of a song so those bits can be spent later ensuring complex parts sound good. You should always use VBR unless you really don't care about filesize. And if that is the case, iTunes also supports Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) which is a perfect copy of a CD, but takes up about half the space (the files are HUGE compared to MP3's though).

For basic MP3 encoding I personally use CDex, because it has a lot more MP3 options. I usually set a bitrate range of 112-320, and all the quality settings cranked all the way up. It'll take longer to encode, but skimping on encoding time is never a good idea. CDex also supports AAC (though I've never used it for that) and FLAC, another lossless codec like ALAC.

Also, if you are encoding in MP3, you should generally use Joint Stereo. The reasons are complicated, but in almost all cases Joint Stereo sounds better than regular stereo.

Gihgehls

Official succssor to MP3?

wunderbar

Gihgehls wrote: »

Official succssor to MP3?

ya, I kinda stopped reading his post after that. AAC certainly is not the official successor to MP3. Better format? yes.(most other formats are).

He must think that because iTunes/iPod use it by default, it must be the official successor, because Apple always knows best!

Monkey Ball Warrior

... Well, MP3 is part of the MPEG-1 standard, while AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard. I consider that to be enough proof of "official successor" to state it as such. In as much as there could be an official successor, AAC is it.

Apple did not invent AAC.

wunderbar

Monkey Ball Warrior wrote: »

... Well, MP3 is part of the MPEG-1 standard, while AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard. I consider that to be enough proof of "official successor" to state it as such. In as much as there could be an official successor, AAC is it.

Apple did not invent AAC.

I never said apple invented AAC. Apple decided to embrace AAC because it is a better standard.

AAC also has less licensing fees than MP3 does but yet MP3 is still dominant. That should speak volumes right there.

As much as AAC is better, MP3 will never go away, simply because it is the ONLY format with universal compatability.

Dr_Keenbean

wunderbar wrote: »

Monkey Ball Warrior wrote: »

... Well, MP3 is part of the MPEG-1 standard, while AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard. I consider that to be enough proof of "official successor" to state it as such. In as much as there could be an official successor, AAC is it.

Apple did not invent AAC.

I never said apple invented AAC. Apple decided to embrace AAC because it is a better standard.

AAC also has less licensing fees than MP3 does but yet MP3 is still dominant. That should speak volumes right there.

As much as AAC is better, MP3 will never go away, simply because it is the ONLY format with universal compatability.

Which is why he called the the 'official successor' not the actual successor. I had no trouble grasping this.

Gihgehls

I always thought that mp3 was the actuall successor to mp3 when they came out with the extended ID3 tags.