Well first off, a very happy and healthy new year to you all... have a great 2009!

I know there have been a number of posts on Beoworld about the various formats to choose when ripping music from CD. I just wondered if any particular format was favoured as I am now in the process of converting my entire CD collection (and that of my family) onto our PCs?

Having read around the subject a little it seems that raw PCM (.wav) is the best in terms of keeping the quality in the unchanged optimum state when first recorded. However, this is not an option I am happy with due to the rather large file sizes and general playback options. Having said that, data storage is not a problem these days so I could go down this route if required.

I have decided on the mp3 format at a bit rate of 320Kbps (non-lossless) but this is purely a guess on my part as to a safe and reasonably future proof solution. What are people's opinions about this? Would be interested to know how others are tackling this and indeed what current and future hardware/software platforms are most likely to recognise and play in terms of file formats and bit rates etc.

Simon.   

Hi Simon

 

Happy New Year to you.

 

In short, 320 mp3 is the minimum bit rate you should use. Why spend all that money on a good sound system and beolab speakers to listen to compressed music!  Where i download my sites I will only download 320 as anything less sounds terrible on my beolab 9's. When ripping from a CD i use losssless. Yes it takes up much more storage but sounds so much better. I haven't yet ripped my entire collection (much of it I'll probably rarely listen to.... and if i do, can just put the CD on). Sure i may have the occasional urge to listen to 'our Cilla' or Boney M, but they can really stay in the cupboard for a longtime!!!  I'd however invest in more hard drive space on your computer so you can listen in a higher bit rate.

To my ear i can still tell the difference between 320 bit and lossless. Some people argue they can't! Between lossless and the actual CD itself i can be fooled either way, i.e no real difference. Technically there should be no difference, but i guess using the itunes platform with mac sound card then to beport, then to beocentre 2 socket box then to beolab 9's..perhaps there is some slight deterioration of the signal. I could of course be imagining that.

In short, I'd rip them once at the highest bit rate you can, and buy the extra space on your computer. Then you are guaranteed listening pleasure into the future.

Regards

David Coyne

Sydney, Australia 

post script..

My partner has suggested that as the signal is all digital from itunes right through to the speakers..there shouldn't be any deterioration of the signal at lossless...  (however Im thinking logically, that if you have a poor sound card on your computer that would effect the final result?)

There are various lossless formats about, however the problem i finding a suitabpe player, not all of them will support every format.

Look them up on Wiki where you will find infrmation on Encoding, and the all important decoding - ie playing.

Names of such formats FLAC, WavPac, Monkeys Audio(this is one of the better ones), and of course there is the ALAC - which is the Apple format.

It depends upon wehter your player can support the format, you mich have issues if it is Linux based but Windows based players will probably be ok.

You will probably also need to download the correct CODEC, for example Winamp

Opps, hit a wrong key,

.........You will probably need to donwload the correct CODEC, for example Winap, which is a very popular media file player, has loads and loads of add ons that were written by third parties, and in among them is the Monkey Audio plug in.

In my experience, you will find that the program that yuou use for ripping your files has a big influence on the sound, not all MP3 rippers are the same, despite having the same bitrates and settings. The best CD ripper I have come across is called CDex.

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=features

It can rip to several differant formats including Apple, and many others. If you are of the inquisitive types, try using a differant CD ripper, and then rip the same track using CDex - all at the same settings, and then listen to them both, you will find there is quite a differance in dynamics.

CDex is good enough its worth making a contribution, it is donationware but I generally will pay something for stuff I find useful.

Personally, I love Windows Media Center (which you'll have if you're using Windows Vista), so I rip all my cds to the only lossless format that understands (WMA Lossless).  I also have an iPod, so lossless would not only be impractical, WMA is incompatible.

To this end, I essentially have two music collections:  WMA Lossless and MP3 192k.

A program like Ripstation Micro can rip to both at the same time, tag them, and put them into their respective folders.  e.g. S:\Music\Albums\Lossless\Artist\Album\01 - Track.wma and S:\Music\Albums\MP3\Artist\Album\01 - Track.mp3.

Very easy ripping - if you're using Windows I'd recommend it!

Lossless is certanily the way to go now, given the cost of bulk storage. Make sure your system is automatically backed up using whatever method you favour, you certainly wouldn't want to go through the whole paining of re-ripping everything more than once!

iPods are also now of a size (memory wise) where you could conceivably use the lossless format in you iPod too, preventing the need for a "portable" copy of your music collection however the problem remains of a lossless format that can be used by both your Apple and Win/B&O equipment without this need for conversion/duplication.

Puncher:

iPods are also now of a size (memory wise) where you could conceivably use the lossless format in you iPod too

Maybe this has changed, but I was always under the impression that you need to keep your audio tracks under 9MB for your iPod? Reason - the iPod can buffer the track from it's internal memory, whereas anything over 9MB in size is spooled from the internal hard drive. Result is that the drive is always spinning and battery lifespan is vastly reduced.

Of course, this applies to the iPod Classic, but then the Nano only ships with 16GB, which may not be enough to store all your lossless tracks.

moxxey:

Puncher:

iPods are also now of a size (memory wise) where you could conceivably use the lossless format in you iPod too

Maybe this has changed, but I was always under the impression that you need to keep your audio tracks under 9MB for your iPod? Reason - the iPod can buffer the track from it's internal memory, whereas anything over 9MB in size is spooled from the internal hard drive. Result is that the drive is always spinning and battery lifespan is vastly reduced.

Of course, this applies to the iPod Classic, but then the Nano only ships with 16GB, which may not be enough to store all your lossless tracks.

I was indeed referring to the Classic however even the 16GB Nano, if you use it in the "change music when you want to" mode as was common when mp3 players had small memories, can carry ~40 albums worth of lossless music. 

Re. the 9MB limit, I didn't know this, you learn something new every day (or I could start a long and arduous thread disputing you claim). This of course will make a difference.

Is this true of movies too, I had always assumed the difference in run time between audio and movies was solely due to the screen being active all of the time, maybe this is the reason.

I believe the buffer size in the latest iPods is now 64 mb, or at least it was in my video iPod. It may now be even larger in the latest iPods.

I personally find 256 kbps AAC or 320 kbps MP3 to be perfectly good quality, and while I would prefer not to, I have listened to music at 192 kbps AAC. 128 is frankly awful but it's better to enjoy good music at low quality than bad music at good quality IMO!

It seems like there is a real issue with codecs almost more so than rip quality. I suppose it's pretty easy to figure out whether you want lossless or not and I would guess many here do. However, it seems that when adopting your format of choice, you could potentially limit what devices you can play music on. FLAC has come up a few times, as an example, which is not currently supported on the BM5 or many portable players. 

I'm wondering two things here.

1. If you rip in a lossless format, is there a reason that you could not use a program like Switch (I use this on my Mac) to switch to either another lossless format or even a compressed one. In other words, is one format more or less "lossless" than others or have some qualities which would make them sonically desirable. 

2. I'm wondering whether you can't make the BM5 support whatever codec you want. I'll have to try this out when we get our models in (the US won't get them until the very end of the month). On my BeoMedia I was able to boot it in Windows and download video codecs, like divx, from the web and once installed on the underlying OS, BeoMedia played them perfectly. I never tried it with audio, but can't imagine why it wouldn't work the same way. 

TripEnglish:

1. If you rip in a lossless format, is there a reason that you could not use a program like Switch (I use this on my Mac) to switch to either another lossless format or even a compressed one. In other words, is one format more or less "lossless" than others or have some qualities which would make them sonically desirable.

Lossless is lossless.  You can convert from one to the other with no loss in quality - or decompress to WAV file and end up with the original PCM as was on the disc.  This is one of the reasons I've chosen lossless over high-quality lossy - as I can change formats or create a lossy file without deteriorating the sound any more than it should.

True enough - you can, for instance, download a FLAC codec/plugin for Media Player and you can if you wish translate any format to any other, either lossy or lossless with free apps from the web (of course you can't go backward from lossy to lossless). My point was really about the inconvenience of doing this, now that we are in sight of being able to use one lossless collection everywhere (media server and iPod) the fact is we can't (with a Win/B&O media system and an Apple iPod) without mirroring you music collection in two different formats to accomplish this, the mirror being either a compressed version or not. However, while you need a mirror for incompatible codec reasons it makes little sense for the "portable" mirror to be lossless.

It's just not as seamless as it should be just yet!

TripEnglish:

 less "lossless"

Phrase of the year so far Trip!  Love it.

Andy T.

PS.  Sorry we haven't spoken since your return Simon.  Nice to have you back mate.

Hi everyone,

Its all about the Codecs. Lossless is always going to be the best - but make sure you do not get stuck down a proprietary route like WMA. The problem there is with the 'W' and even that said company, who live and die by their operating system is moving towards open standards with their playback technology - realizing that they need to support AAC and H.264. 

AAC is the successor to MP3 and was designed to fix many of the performance flaws in the MP3 format. And by encoding at 256 kbits you are getting sound quality at pretty much parity with CD. Depending on the AAC profile and the MP3 encoder, 96 kbit/s AAC can give nearly the same or better perceptual quality as 128 kbit/s MP3.

The AAC format is also supported natively within the BeoSystem 3 since its an open standard.

Being an ISO standard, AAC should give you the best long term bet for playback compatibility and portability across multi brand systems. 

Just my 2 cents. Mark.

 

Jandyt:

TripEnglish:

 less "lossless"

Phrase of the year so far Trip!  Love it.

Andy T.

PS.  Sorry we haven't spoken since your return Simon.  Nice to have you back mate.

Cheers Andy, it was really nice to read your comment, thanks. Its great to be back. If I can be completly honest, I wrote to Lee recently and said I had made a mistake in leaving several months ago - I left because I felt provoked and threatened by someone on the forum. The truth is that I really missed BeoWorld a lot. I love the community of this site and I really look forward to commenting and debating about all sorts of issues. When I wrote to ask if I could have my membership reinstated (to which Lee and all other moderators agreed) it also turned out that the person I had originally felt provoked by sent me a really nice email and we have exchanged some very positive emails since, so I personally am looking forward to a very happy and positive 2009. I think the moral here is that life is too short and everyone's opinion is valid and important, no matter how different it may be from your own. I hope to meet many of the forum users in the new year, particularly if there is a trip to Struer which I will certainly make sure I am on as I really wanted to be part of it last year but couldn't for personal reasons.

All the best,

Simon.

ciao ragazzi,

i have to "computerize" my home for all the common use but also for rip my cd collection. all this talking about the right format makes me a little bit confused so my question is: what hardware i have to buy ( apple or pc/windows) to avoid problems with a future beosound5. iwould like to have a wireless solution like airport...

all the threads on this great forum are very interresting but the more i read the more i get confused..

grazie

 

Hi there,

It sounds like you want portability of your music collection across multi-vendor products and guaranteed support for the BS5.  The BS5 is basically a Windows XP embedded system with the most common codecs installed (a follow on the the BeoMedia if you like), including Microsoft's own propriertary formats which you'll often see start with a W - in this case WMA. It also supports MP3, AAC and a few others. It would seem to default to 196k MP3.

My suggestion above is to encode to 256k AAC. Of the formats supported by the BS5, this should give you the best quality, file size and portability from this to other systems like mobile phones, iPods, different operating systems, TVs, computers etc - now and in the future. The sound quality is technically equal to CD, however some HIFI buffs will say they can hear a difference. I am sure B&O have licensed a decent quality set of codecs for this to be the case.

Hope that helps, Mark.

 

What about the ID tag?

If I convert my cd to mp3, then there's automatically an connection to a database, which has the relevant information for the converted track

Does all the programms and formats do that?

For instance, if I want a lossless format like .WAV, then there is no room for the information about the album, track , artist etc.

All formats can have ID3 tags (or similar) embedded, except for WAV.  But there's no point using WAV when an identical result can be achieved using less disc space using a lossless compression format like WMA Lossless, FLAC or similar.

I think the only answer in this case is WMA Lossless if you want an archival quality direct replica of the original CD. With the BS5 system being based on a Windows XP embedded operating system, I believe the opportunity to expand the system with additional codecs is more limited than with the BeoSystem 1, which is essentially a Windows Media PC in a B&O box and a skinned interface. So I'm not sure FLAC is an option on the BS5 - it would take a down the wire upgrade to perform.

If open standards are important to you, then you might want to look beyond the BS5.  Just remember, for the most part WMA will hold you into a Microsoft stack. Fancy a Zune anyone? Most third-parties and developers are moving towards the open standard as it reduces their contracts and licensing fees on the BOM for a new product and makes them more favourable to customers.

Mark.

 

 

 

I agree.  Beosound 5 is a windows machine and wma lossless is the way to go.  It is more of a dilemma for those of us that are users of iTunes and iPods.  I have several hundred albums ripped in Apple lossless format and have decided not to change.  I use a good quality DAC and play the music through an airport express either from Apple TV or an Apple laptop.  I also enjoy lossless playback on my recently purchased iPod touch which also is a two way remote for iTunes.

A few days ago I received a really cool brochure from my dealer with a letter explaining that they are taking orders for Beosound 5.  I am afraid that I will forgo the Beosound 5 and buy Beolab 9's later this year.  As an avid fan of B&O, I hope they do well with the Beosound 5. 

I stay out for now as well. My ripped music collection is all done in 192kbs which is way not good enough for listening to my BL3/BL2 but was the way to go when ipods had limited capacity which they sort of have again with Iphone and Touch.

 

I can not get myself to maintain my single library, i.e fishing for missing coverart or categorization and description of movies so myself maintaining a 2nd libary with higher quality wont happen anytime soon. 

 

I would be interested in the MOTS more of the same technology though, I am hoping I can but Beomedia without BS5 but with a 2 way remote down the line. That would make much more sense to me and my setup.

While the BeoMaster 5 is a Windows machine, the software is not Windows Media Center, and, as I've said, I've had good luck simply installing codecs on the underlying OS and having the BeoMedia interface play them as if native support existed. I'd be surprised if the the BeoMaster 5 is different in this regard.