Community Newsletter: Q&A: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection
- 1/18/08 4:08 PM
Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection
by commdan - 1/21/08 3:00 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This is a very timely topic for me as I am about to embark on the same path. I am planning to buy a new "Home Entertainment Computer" to go along with this project as I have purchased an Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver and Aperion speakers to update my home system. One thing I was wondering: I'm still using Musicmatch JB which I love. Why did it fold up? It was the best at one time, what happened. Can I still use it or is it obsolete? Is Audiograbber better? I'm still reading posts on this so maybe this has been discussed. Any advice about computer, ripper, et. al., is appreciated. Thanks, Dan F.
Nero
by ppollack - 1/21/08 3:12 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by commdanI started using computers with the IBM 9000, remember cards with holes in them? Moved to paper tape machines, then 5 1/2 floppy disks, dos 1.11 and others, Icame across Nero when Internet, was FREE! A friend said that NERO was the Best burner there was. I use it now and if it wasn't so EXPENSIVE I would have the most up to date version! But currently I have to rely on version 6. It has always done the BEST job of any I have delt with ! As I said before NERO or nothing!
CDex
by bbulusan - 1/21/08 6:49 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Dan, you can try CDex also, it's free & have nice features, easy to use. I've been using this for 8 yrs. now. I set my ripping format to mp3 (128kbps x 44khz) balancing between space & quality.
- bryan : )
manila, philippines
EAC > LAME
by yoladango - 1/22/08 8:23 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The free program Exact Audio Copy will give you all of the features you desire and will provide the standard for quality in the CD ripping world. You can then encode with LAME MP3 encoder using a variable bit rate (VBR) set to an average of 192KB. This, essentially, will give you a perfect copy of your CD(s) with a very reasonable file size.
iTunes
by His SHadow - 1/22/08 10:32 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Under the iTunes Preferences / Advanced / Importing, set the importing to MP3, 192 kbps VBR Highest Quality and filter freqs below 10 hz. Set the "On CD insert" to "Import CD and Eject". Smart Encoding adjustments are optional.
Set iTunes to "Organise Music Folder" and "Import songs to Library when playing". But before all that, set your music location, whether it is a folder on your system or an entire drive. Anything you play under iTunes will get moved to that directory and sorted.
MP3s are playable on everything without conversion. 192 VBR will give you near CD quality without the file size.
Download and install Evil Lyrics.
http://www.evillabs.sk/evillyrics/faq/faq.php
It downloads lyrics as you play songs in iTunes or Winamp or Media Player and dumps the lyrics into the MP3 file. Your iPod can display the embedded lyrics when you play the song.
Reply to Dan & Lee on Ripping CD Collection
by ingesch - 1/22/08 12:37 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dan asked a good question about the best format, bit rate, and/or other settings. I have been following the forum and doing some research myself about the same question. Here is what I found out so far and I hope any audiophiles can comment on this.
The indsutry standard is determined by what consumers buy. Right now MP3 is popular because it saves space on drives, portable units like iPods, etc. MP3 format is not CD quality as some people would say. MP3 format is a compressed file that is a lossy algorithm. When you encode with MP3 and decode it afterwards, it is not the same as the original source due to the bitrate at the time it was encoded. A certain amount of information will always be lost when encoding to a MP3 format. The file size depends on the original music source and its characteristics. When saving to MP3 format, it is up to the individual preference as to their individual determination what they deem is music quality. Therefore, when it comes to MP3 and quality recordings, it is soley determined by its bit rate size. MP3 uses a constant Bit Rate or CBR to determine its file size and quality. The important factor to know is the higher the bit size the more accurate the output is. Keeping that in mine, high end audiophiles will encode there MP3's at 256 kbps rather then at 128 kbps. The trade off is that it will use more space on your hard drive or devices.
A file's bitrate is how many bits per second are used to represent the audio source. Bitrate determines the size of a file, so a "three minute song at 32,000 bits per second,, you know that the file size will be about 704 kilobytes (32,000 bps x 180 seconds / 8 bits per byte / 1,024). You also know that the bandwidth required to stream the encoded content is about 32,000 bits per second," see Microsoft site explaining bit rate encoding at this address, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384782.aspx.
Most of the response on this forum in regards to MP3 have stated when using MP3 encode at 128 kbps stereo. Frauhofer, a leading international research instituion states this at CD Quality, but they also have stated that variable bit rates "always provide superior quality to Constant Bit Rates," see http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/amm/index.jsp.
Some people are using Lame MP3 encoder at vairable bit rate and claim at 196 kpbs it is quite close to perfect. Tracks come out at about 4-6 MB for use with a 40GB iPod or laptop.
Preymantas gave good advice on this forum by stating,
"Those who fail to plan, plan to fail...
With that in mind, get your system infrastructure right before you even start. Make the modest investment in a set of good high speed(7200rpm minimum with 16MB cache), reliable 500GB drives(minimum) because you have to think about down the road and need room to grow. I've lost count of the number of mp3's I have amassed over the years ripping my collection, etc. but I can tell you I have a dedicated 500GB drive." He also stated,
"So for me MP3 works in all worlds, although it is a LOSSY format, I've discovered that ripping at a CBR (constant Bit Rate) of 224 bits, straight STEREO not JOINT STEREO, produces a good balance between file size and audio quality. Some folks like 256bits, but I found that I couldn't tell the difference in my home or car, but I wouldn't rip at any lower bit rate than 224," which means that some can hear the difference in sound when crossing over from home stereo systems to car stereo systems and vice versa.
Preymantas also said, "You have to think about the future because you only want to do this once! Did I mention backups???"
Whatever you decide you must determine what equipment you have now and its future use, and what upgrades you plan on doing. You must determine how you plan on storing and saving your library. Some say the future may change in using a different format other then MP3. It seems like most audiophiles agree that for archiving music files using Flac encoding format is the best way to go even though it takes up more drive space, plus it supports information in tags including album covers. I'm told that when encoding with Flac the compression levels should be set to medium, but I'm still researching this out to see what works. One can convert Wave files to Flac files due to its open source that uses an OSI-approved license, which means it is free of restrictions, and you do not lose any information when you encode using this format. A file encoded with Flac represents the original source exactly without any loss in quality. Audiophiles have stated that ripping CD's to a lossy format such as MP3 will take at least 50% longer than ripping to a lossless format. But the lossless format means one must dedicate a big enough hard drive to accomodate the files. S0, it boils down to what you value more time or space.
As far as software, quite a few have mention Winamp 5.52, which PC World rated the best Media Player in 2007. The link for download is http://www.winamp.com/player, along with Audiograbber, Can't find the link for that but it should be on CNet, Exact Audio Copy here is the link for them http://www.mp3-converter.com/exact_audio_copy.htm and MediaMonkey which seems to be in an developmental stages and has its own forum for help.
I have downloaded Winamp 5.52 and it does give you the option of using different encoders such as FLAC, MP3, WMA, WAV, and others. My origianl parameters for a software was as follows.
1. Volume Leveling of all songs.
2. Ten band EQ, or using my own ten band EQ with the software.
3. Maximum Bandwidth to 20 KHz for recording
4. Choice of Format - MP3, WMA, Wav, Etc.
5. Choice of Processing or encoder used
6. Choice of Burn speed
7. ID3 tag or file tagging for file names, etc.
8. Tag editor and Artist/Album lookup.
Winamp 5.52 seems to fit these parameters. You can download the free version, but you must purchase the pro version in order to burn and rip at some of the other formats. I'm in the process of testing this out. Winamp is good at organizing your music files.
Preymantas stated, "Here's where WinAMP shines. It is totally configurable how you want to structure your folder and file naming
and like the others uses FreedB for inserting ID3 tag info and file naming. I recommend the following folder structure for future ease of maintenance and finding what you want.
ARTIST-|
|
ALBUM-|
|
TRACKS
Next file naming. I recommend and found this to be the best naming convention because it sorts well in most Os's and makes searching easy:
Artist - Album - Track # - Track Title.mp3
Here are my WinAMP custom setting options strings you can cut and paste into preferences. It creates the folder structure and naming conventions above during the ripping process.
Advanced Song Title Display string:
[%artist% - ][$abbr(%album%,18) - ][%tracknumber% - ]$if2(%title%,$filepart(%filename%))
CD Ripping Naming Convention:
<Artist>/<Album>/<Artist> - <Album> - ## - <Title>
I have done what Preymantas has suggested here and like the organizational structure.
I hope this helps some with the decision making process, but one must test and prove if it will bring the desired outcome. It would be helpfull to others when mentioning software to add the web address link so we can access the site for more information.
Reply to Dan & Lee on Ripping CD Collection
by Preymantas - 1/22/08 10:16 PM In reply to: Reply to Dan & Lee on Ripping CD Collection by ingeschThanks. I'm glad that it was of some aid.
As a side note I use Tag&ReName as my ID3 tag editor of choice. It's very powerful, mature, flexible and well supported although after getting used to it through exploration of it's capabilities, I think I've only ask a few questions in the 4 years or so that I've been using it.
Softpointer has links to a few other great utilities for media management that you might want to implement. http://www.softpointer.com
Cheers,
Prey
Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection
by nivlac126 - 1/22/08 4:40 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a smaller collection of 200 cds it took 48 hours to rip all of them to my computer I timed it so I would know cause my brother like you has more than 1000 cds and he wanted to know how long it would take. I used windows media player to avoid any drm issues. 200 cds takes roughly 12.5 GB of disk space in mp3 format. The sound quality is good enough that I haven't pulled a cd out to play one since I did this. I just use my rca lyra mp3 player. Now I can carry my 200 cds in the palm of my hand on 7 - 1 & 2 GB sd cards. Definitely cool.
Ripping
by djjammaster - 1/22/08 9:07 PM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I personally use dbpoweramp to rip my CDs. I have over 500 CDs with most of the fully ripped to my computer. For my 12" singles and LPs (over 2300 total), I use a program called LP Recorder to record from my mixer straight to my computer, then I use LP Ripper to break up the recordings into individual songs. Both programs work great.
Ripping Vinyl
by Preymantas - 1/22/08 11:42 PM In reply to: Ripping by djjammasterHi djjammaster!
I was helping to get my father in law up to speed on ripping techniques so he could get his out of print, never released on CD albums digitized and one of the things I taught him was to play the albums wet during ripping. We picked up one of those dust-bugs (1/2" felt roll on a separate arm assembly) that follows the needle and wet it with clean tap or distilled lukewarm water. So in essence there was a 1" wide stripe of water centered on the needle tracking path as it played.
If you experience a lot of popping and clicking, try it. You won't believe your ears.
Cheers!
Prey
audiosoftware
by nonkelmarc - 1/23/08 1:18 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hello,
You should take a look on the site from Illustrade.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
"Music Convertor" is a complete audiosoftwaresolution; CD ripper, recording from line-input, converting files to differant types...(first install the codecs you need)
When you rip a cd, you can make a connection with a database; if your cd is inthere, all the names and ID-tags will be made. (goes very quikly, you don't have to type anything!)
Unfortunately are the nicest features included in "the power pack", wich isn't free. Also you have to pay for the use of the mp3-codec.
Just try it, and later you can still decide to buy it or not.
Greetings,
Marc
iTunes + some tweaks! Amazing.
by aprncn67 - 1/23/08 2:35 AM In reply to: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Read this article. I started using iTunes to rip my cd and the sound is exactly the same as the original but size is 128.
INTRODUCTION
My wife got herself a 4GB white Nano iPod like the one here or here. I was volunteered to fill it with her CDs.
In a former life I worked in audio for a living and even wrote an engineering paper on audio data compression. Back in the 1990s it didn't sound very good, even at 384 kbs. I wasn't expecting much from an iPod.
I had never bothered with these little players or compressed digital audio since I presumed the sound quality was awful. WRONG! The little things sound great for serious music listening, presuming you click a couple of the right buttons in iTunes' preferences. I'll explain these in this article.
iPod and iTunes sound completely transparent (identical to the source CD) at the right bit rate! Most studio audio recording today is done with outboard converters on Mac computers anyway, so 99% of our favorite albums are recorded and mixed with Pro Tools on the same Mac G5s and firewire drives I use for my photography. Have a read of Mix magazine and see for yourself.
Of course all the original production is done uncompressed, but in talking to a noted audio icon, whose name you'd recognize instantly, I discovered he just imported his entire 2,000 CD collection into iTunes at 160 kbs and then gave away the CDs. I won't mention his name since he's widely associated with audio quality standards and this comment was private, but it does substantiate that compressed digital audio is fine today for critical listening.
I realized I could have all our CDs on my Mac for critical listening if I used the right bit rate, but didn't want to get carried away so we could still get plenty of music into my wife's iPod. I only wanted to transfer each CD once. I decided to invest a day in listening tests to see what worked best. I now have our entire music library on my Mac, and it sounds identical to the original CDs, even on planar electrostatic audiophile loudspeakers like the Quad ESL-63s. This sounds even better than CDs, since I can find all our music in an instant instead.
iTunes is Apple's free software used to copy all your CDs into an iPod. It also allows you to play and manage your entire CD library from your computer, and it sounds great for serious listening.
Today the AAC coder in iTunes sounds great at 128kbs, and that's for serious listening on high-end audiophile systems with your eyes closed and your full attention on the music. Just plug in a set of professional headphones that cost more than the iPod, or plug the one ounce Nano, which is smaller than a business card and 1/4" thick, into a 400 pound classical recording studio monitoring system and you'll have the same epiphany I did. Actually I used the analog outputs from my Quad G5 and my classic Beyer DT990 headphones, through which I can hear more than through my Quad ESL63 or B&W 801 monitors. I've also played CDs burnt from compressed iTunes files through these monitors, as well as through a Krell / Martin Logan electrostatic system and it sounds exactly like the original CDs.
Most critical listeners from outside the recording industry don't realize that most audible artifacts are part of the recordings they buy, not the gear used to reproduce them. These folks, often called audiophiles, spend their lives trying to work around the nasty things we audio engineers do to the audio before it gets to you. Do your own tests if you prefer. Beware that many of the defects many people blame on data compression are in the CDs they bought in the first place. I listened for differences between the original CD and the iTunes rendition. Hearing no difference is perfection, and I got that at 128kbs variable bit rate. Better compression schemes can't get rid of defects already recorded into your CDs. For that you need something like a dBx 3BX I use when listening to over-the-counter recordings, but not for today's tests.
iTunes also allows recording music without any data loss and also at 96kHz sampling rates to save more space. I'll get to that later.
This documents what I learned in a day of listening tests. In one day of listening I only got to compare the formats I mention below. Others spend lifetimes worrying about compression formats. A day was all I wanted to invest, and I'm quite happy with the results. I'd rather listen to music than algorithms.
I eventually imported my 600 CD library, which took a month and 36 GB, and it sounds great.
ERROR CORRECTION
I'm amazed that I caught Apple in a technical faux-pas. If you use iTunes' default importing options you will probably get an occasional click in your sound. That's because under PREFERENCES > ADVANCED > IMPORTING Apple left the "Use Error Correction" box unchecked. This means when any inevitable invisible speck of dust covers a couple of bits on your CD that you may get a click or short dropouts. It drove me nuts at first thinking I had a dirty connection on playback. I never thought Apple could make such an obvious mistake.
CDs always need error correction. Without error correction you'll always have problems. Every CD player and every CD-ROM reader always applies error correction without you ever having to ask. CDs don't work without it.
CHECK THE "USE ERROR CORRECTION" BOX under PREFERENCES > ADVANCED > IMPORTING. Once I did I've never had a problem.
Apple cautions that checking this may take more time to import. So what? It takes no longer from what I can see. If it does take longer that sure beats having to throw away the imported files and starting over!
LONG and CONNECTED TRACKS: CLASSICAL, PINK FLOYD and MORE
Serious music often involves longer compositions which span several tracks.
Good news: As of iTunes 7 Apple claims to have fixed this. You may no longer need to jack with the tricks below. I hope so!
Classical music often has several movements which flow into each other without stopping.
Pink Floyd divides their albums into tracks, but each side is often one complete work. Heck, if you really pay attention, the last thing you hear at the end of of "The Wall" is actually a clip missing from the very start of the album! The whole four LP sides / 2 CDs are actually one long ring cycle.
It's not just old music which does this. Annie Lennox' 2003 "Bare" has a chord which continues between tracks 7 and 8 (Loneliness and The Saddest Song I've Got). Sting's "Sacred Love" (2003) has sound that runs between tracks 1 - 3 and 7 - 8. Most people might not notice it, but LPs and CDs preserve this musical integrity and iTunes can, too. I'm sure there's a lot more; these are just what I've noticed while stocking my wife's iPod with tunes.
Importing
iTunes and iPod add slight breaks of silence between tracks by default . This is fine most of the time. This sounds awful if you get a blank in the middle of two tracks that are supposed to play thorough the track change.
Trick 1: Uncheck the crossfade on playback in iTunes under iTunes > Preferences > Playback > Crossfade. Leave it on to get segues similar to DJs and radio, uncheck it for classical music.
Secret Trick 2: Even with trick #1 you'll always have a moment of blank silence between tracks. Once you've imported your music there's no way around this. Trick #2 works on import, only. Now that I've discovered this trick I'll have to go back and reimport some of my music to take advantage of this.
You can tell iTunes, only on import, that certain tracks are supposed run into each other. It then will import them to play properly. It s easy but hidden. Highlight the tracks which should play as one. Now go to Advanced > Join CD Tracks. You'll see them now have just one blue "play" checkmark for the lot and be linked together on your screen with a little vertical line.
For classical music it's easy to identify which pieces belong to each other because they are called out as movements.
Popular music usually requires you to audition the transitions between tracks and join them accordingly. Pink Floyd's Division Bell runs together tracks 1 - 5, 7 - 9 and 10 - 11. Tracks 6 and 9 are independent.
Once imported these tracks now appear as 5 tracks instead of 11. Each song is now named as a concatenation of the songs inside. Instead of three songs with name of Song One, Song Two and Song Three, you'll have one song names "Song One - Song Two - Song Three." This is fine for the classics, but darned if I know how to cue to any particular movement or song inside one of these. The Track Number field in iTunes shows the correct track number that correlates to the first of each series. You'll see the other track numbers not listed.
Playback
iTunes has a setting to crossfade tracks (iTunes > Preferences > Playback > Crossfade Playback). This segues music together just like the radio. It sounds great for popular music, since it turns your computer into your own radio station programmed by you and your favorite songs.
I believe this crossfading is set by default.
This sounds awful when it segues together two movements of a symphony! When I first heard it jam together two movements I thought "What the ????" and later realized what was happening. For classical and long-form music you'll want to uncheck this.
iTunes needs this setting to apply differently for each playlist. I have to reset it when I swap between my popular and classical playlists.
ENCODER SETTINGS
After finding Apple's error correction blunder I decided to spend the day experimenting on myself to hear what I could hear for encoder quality. I used my reference Beyer DT990 headphones, since I can hear more through them than my Quad ESL63 electrostatics or B&W 801 studio monitors. I compared results using a stack of our favorite commercial CDs. I used the headphone output of my Quad G5, which sounds transparent to me.
I was struck with how great this all sounds today. Even the distortions introduced by crummy digital audio compression are nicer than the distortions in previous consumer distribution media like LP vinyl records and cassette tapes. The great thing about CDs is that they offer consumers the same quality we took for granted from master tapes, but never heard outside a studio until CDs came along. Even master tapes are gone today. Today music is recorded uncompressed on hard drives. Back to the story:
At the lower rates the audible distortions were swishy phasing effects, especially audible on choral backgrounds during percussive events. These are also called "swirlies." I knew that. These are the same weird sounds one hears over cell phones. At the bit rates used for music these only happen if you really listen for them.
The most surprising and annoying defect is alteration to the stereo image. I first heard this with a true stereo (two-mike) choral recording. The natural reverberation decayed normally, and depending on the data rate would eventually decay to mono! At higher rates it's fine and at 96kbs it sounded weird when I first heard it. There's an obvious explanation for this. Data compression is all about eliminating redundancy. The more uniform the sound the easier it is to compress. Music compression takes a lot of advantage that most music is similar in both channels. Natural stereo reverberation becomes completely random with zero correlation between channels. Therefore it's much tougher to compress a reverb tail than the program sometimes, which is why the lower rate encoders gave up and summed it to mono at low levels.
The biggest audible defects at lower rates today aren't obvious things to which you can point a new listener, like clicks or pings. The degradation is a loss of stereo space and image. This becomes much more obvious on headphones. You'd probably never notice on speakers, and never if you're doing something else while playing music.
128kbs AAC
iTunes 6 uses 128 kbs AAC as default. This is fine. I really have to use my imagination to make myself think I hear any difference between audio coded that way and the original CD.
I could almost hear the ends of reverb tails in one classical recording sum to mono and that was about the only defect.
This default is fine, especially if you have an old iPod which can't handle the variable bit rates which sound better below. With a newer iPod I use:
128 kbs Variable Bit Rate (VBR) AAC : My Choice
For only about a 5% penalty in file size I use variable bit rate encoding for better quality. This lets the coder use more bits when it has to. I set this by clicking, at least in iTunes 7.3.2 as of August 2007: iTunes > Prefs > Advanced > Import > Import Using: AAC Encoder, Setting: Custom. In AAC Encoder box that opens after you hit Custom, check Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding and OK. Apple has this pretty well hidden. I leave the rest at default of 128kbs, auto and auto.
VBR sounds better for the same file size. As far as I can see the only reason Apple doesn't default to this is for compatibility with old iPods. Having a new iPod Nano, no problem!
I couldn't hear any defects. 128kbs VBR AAC sounds the same as my CDs. Any defects I heard were accurate reproductions of flaws in the original CDs.
96kbs AAC
96kbs AAC sounds fine for normal use while not paying rapt attention to your music.
It sounds worse than the others listening carefully. It got a little bit swimmy, phasey or flangey if you compared it to the original, and the ends of classical reverb tails would sum to mono if you were paying close attention.
I'd not use this unless you're stuck on an old iPod which can't handle VBR.
96kbs VBR
96kbs VBR sounds better than regular 96kbs. It's not much bigger, maybe 5%, in file size. I can hear a slight difference between regular and VBR at 96kbs.
I can't hear a difference between 128kbs standard and 128kbs VBR. The reason I chose 128kbs VBR over 128kbs standard is because I can hear the difference at 96kbs. This way I've got some extra, although inaudible, quality improvement over 128kbs standard with almost no file size penalty.
Since 96kbs VBR is about the same size as regular 96kbs I'd suggest 96kbs VBR if you're really trying to cram in as much music as possible. I wouldn't notice anything wrong if I was doing something else while listening, which is how most people listen.
160kbs VBR
I also tried this. It makes bigger files and I couldn't hear any improvement over 128kbs VBR. 128kbs VBR sounded identical to my CDs.
WHAT IS AAC?
AAC is one of many ways to compress audio files. MP3 is another. There are many people with PhDs who spend careers developing and comparing them. Many thanks to these people whose work has given us transparent audio quality at 128kbs.
I didn't go off and try to compare all these systems. It took a day just to compare a few bit rates of AAC. My research was trying to find an optimum setting for getting my wife's CDs into her iPod with the best possible quality at the smallest file size.
I'm a music lover who prefers listening to music over comparing coding schemes.
Encoders get better every year. That's why 128kbs sounds better today than 384kbs used to sound.
MP3, actually MPEG-1 layer 3, was OK several years ago. It became popular for illegally copied music. Sadly young people who should know everything changes each year have adopted "MP3" as a generic phrase for music files, even though MP3 is already obsolete. AAC works better today.
Better means better sound for the same file size, or smaller files for the same quality. You have to ask yourself if it makes sense to re-encode all your stuff every couple of years for better sound and smaller files. Today I'd skip MP3.
I'm not going to explain AAC itself, sorry. I already explained all this in a paper I delivered some years ago. You can find this and info on all the other compression systems elsewhere in the Internet.
CONCATENATION
These tests were made compressing (importing) uncompressed material. Each item was compressed only once.
Concatenation is taking a compressed file and compressing it again. This adds artifacts to whatever is already there. Artifacts add up. A second pass through a compression scheme which sounds perfect the first time might not sound perfect the second time. Any artifacts that are inaudible today could become audible when added to any new artifacts if you recompress things in the future.
Playing, copying, storing and transmitting files is not recompressing. There's no problem. Make three backup copies of all your music. If yo lose one, all the others are still perfect copies. Recompressing and concatenations is if you burn them back to audio CDs and import them again. Concatenation happens if you convert your files to different bit rates. Even converting a compressed file to a higher but rate will lose quality since the higher bit rate file is created by recompressing the first file.
People who import all their CDs and then throw them away no longer have originals. They could be screwed in five years if they want to re-convert their music to some newer format.
These tests were made compressing (importing) uncompressed material. Each item was compressed only once.
Concatenation is when you take a compressed file and compress it again. This adds artifacts to whatever is already there. Artifacts add up. Two passes through a compression scheme which sounds perfect the first time might not sound perfect the second time. Any artifacts that are inaudible today could be come audible when added to any new artifacts added if you recompress things in the future.
I haven't experimented with what settings are needed to survive more than one compression pass. You will most likely need to use higher bit rates if you intend to retain quality over more compression passes. They will want to import at a higher rate, if they plan to dispose of the originals and then work from the compressed versions in the future for any future compression schemes.
FUTURE RESEARCH
These tests were run primarily with contemporary popular music, like the Celine Dion to which my wife listens and for which I was doing this research. Popular music is usually recorded with numerous mono tracks pan-potted into stereo, which means that there isn't as much random phase difference between left and right channels as with true stereo recordings used sometimes for classical and other acoustic music. Pop music is simple; it doesn't usually use more than a dozen performers at a time.
Thus future work will involve true stereo recordings of natural classical music. As I heard above, the stereo stage information was the first to go before other audible artifacts, so I suspect natural acoustic stereo recordings might require a few more bits. A Brahms Requiem may be a different story to encode than a female pop vocal.
The good news is from what little natural music I did use in my testing, 128kbs VBR sounded great as well. Even if reverb tails sounded weird at lower rates, even at 96k the music sounded fine.
For classical I was too lazy to do more tests. I use 160 kbs VBR and I'm perfectly happy.
HOW ABOUT THOSE AUDIOPHILES?
Audiophiles are people more in love with equipment and algorithms than music. They prefer listening for artifacts over enjoying music. They, like most people, hear things based on what they expect to hear. Tell them something was data-reduced and it really will sound worse to them, even if you play them an uncompressed selection! Most people don't worry themselves sick about the oxygen content of their power cables or green magic marker on the edges of their CDs. Audiophiles oddly are deaf to the clicks, pops, scratches, horrendous inner groove distortion and speed and pitch changes caused by eccentric pressings of the vinyl records they still hoard.
An audiophile is not to be confused with a music lover. The semantic key is that they love audio, not necessarily music.
For audiophiles there is lossless coding which preserves each and every bit of audio data. They would select Apple Lossless Coder under PREFERENCES > ADVANCED > IMPORTING > Import Using & Setting > Custom.
This lossless coder makes big files, about five times as big as 128kbs VBR.
I find 128kbs VBR transparent. If I was really worried about things I can't hear I'd use a higher rate AAC VBR setting, like 160kbs or 256kbs.
You may also be able to use AIFF, or the actual uncompressed data from the CD.
iTunes Hijacking Your System Every Time You Insert a Disc
iTunes will hijack whatever I'm doing and bring up the iTunes window whenever a new CD is inserted. I want iTunes to recognize my CD for import, but I find it a severe violation of my time to have it swap active windows on it's own while I'm usually in the middle of something complex, like saving a file, for my website.
Other than disabling the auto CD recognition in Preferences I have no idea how to right this. The iTunes product manager shouldn't have such hubris. I'm doing as lot more at ne time than just using iTunes.
SUMMARY
The beauty of iPod and iTunes is that you have the flexibility to use any of these schemes, and that it sounds great if you leave everything alone so long as you remember to check "Use Error Correction" as I warned at the top.
Audio has come a long way. Again.
REPLY TO aprncn67 in regards to Audiophiles
by ingesch - 1/23/08 11:56 AM In reply to: iTunes + some tweaks! Amazing. by aprncn67Not neccesarly true, what you are saying that "Audiophiles are people more in love with equipment and algorithms than music." I've been in the music bussiness working with musicians for 20 years. I've known musicians who are audiophiles because they were forced to learn the business inside out in order that no one would take advantage of them. I am a vocalist, and I also play several instruments. I'm from the old school of training as most of the older musicians are, including rock musicians, had classical training. We were taught to listen, or have a critical ear. Electric gear that we use is a sample sound that has either been compressed, equalized, or modified in some form. I'm somewhat a purest when it comes to classical music and Jazz. Artist such as Branford Marsalis, Cal Tjader, Dave Crusin and Pat Metheny are diverse in what they do and how they capture sounds. Even Neil Finn and West Indian Girl are using older equipment and bringing back old sounds in a new and innovative way.
I myself had to learn what electronic equipment does per spec sheet and know the freguency response of what transistors are doing. Believe me when I say that not all microphones work the same. As a vocalist I have had a hard time finding a mic that is flat in freuancy response, and believe me one can hear the difference.
I am concerned about music and love music and appreciate the gift that artist have, but I am disappointed at the way the music industry has gone especially in regards to doing live gigs. Why revert back to mono sound when we can do stereo live gigs? Also, we forgot about James B Lansing, a pioneer in sound equipment and home Hi-Fi Systems. Read about his history at http://www.jblpro.com/pages/history1.htm. Many of us musicians have used his equipment.
I consider myself to be somewhat of an audiophile. An audiophile is a person who is dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music. With that in mind, I used to buy vinyl records direct to disk by Sheffield Lab recordings. Sheffield Lab is the premier audiophile label that set the standard for high quality reproduction of music. I had a copy of Lincoln Mayorga, Dave Crusin, LA4, and others. Unfortuealy, I lost my collection in an house fire. I have just downloaded Dave Crusin, Discovered Again! Plus!, talk about a tight punchy mix. Town Hall Records is offering some of Sheffield Lab recordings at http://www.townhallrecords.com/. I downloaded my from VCAST music. I was surprised to see it.
Speaking of lost collections due to a house fire. I lost my studio, recordings, computer, everything. Has anyone address this issue? I'm thinking I should save to an external drive that can be put in a fire proof safe. If one is going to go to the trouble of saving their individual music library, what the issue of fire and water damage.
Would like to hear your thoughts.
Inge
Safeguarding Your Valuable Collection of Data
by Preymantas - 1/23/08 2:13 PM In reply to: REPLY TO aprncn67 in regards to Audiophiles by ingeschHi ingesch!
I'm truly sorry for your loss and I can relate. I have the only 4 pictures of my father that I'm aware of who died a month before my birth, so you can imagine how precious they are to me.
I have been pondering this for about 6 months now. Currently we're scanning (digitizing) all important paperwork that we can and recycling the paper. The computer has long been a multipurpose piece of equipment in our home and more of a valuable tool then a toy anymore. I am a HUGE advocate of responsible backing up and the thought had crossed my mind as well. I too lost everything in a house fire when I was only 5 and although the house and contents can be replaced, the photos and other media are almost impossible to replace and the most important items of all, personal injury aside.
Fortunately, I have a newly constructed building on my property that I have wired up with everything. 
I have decided to build a backup box and put it out there and start backing up to it so that its off-site. I lot of folks can't do that so I was thinking; "what if I didn't have this option, how could I reasonably safeguard my important data?"
That's a tough one. There are off-site backup companies popping up all over the place, but they cost $$$. I think that money would be better invested in your own system that you can manage and insure that it is being administered competently and is reliable. If you are a home owner, you could build a fireproof storage area for paperwork, photos CDs and DVDs that contain important irreplaceable information if you know you are going to be there for the foreseeable future.
That gives you many more options than a simple firebox although I think most folks will opt for that solution and it is portable. Just don't forget about possible water damage.
Cheers!
Prey
Adding codecs to WMP11 possible??
by brian619 - 1/25/08 9:29 PM In reply to: iTunes + some tweaks! Amazing. by aprncn67I've just come across this tremendouly informative form; types of codecs, how to organize. I still have about 25GB left to organize but now that I know more about the differences of codecs is there anyway to add more codecs to what WMP can do? I like the organization that WMP has done for my library so far but now I'm concerned about more hi-fidelity in the music?
thanks
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