I am using Audio Catalyst to rip and encode my CD's . But I have the feeling my mp3 files sound worse than the CD's , no , I hear they sound worse ! Because I also have a Alpine Cd player next to my Empeg in my car.
I use ASPI mode , buffered burts copie and VBR highest level.
I want the best quality mp3's possible and I don't care for file size. Will using CBR sound better than VBR ? I did try some different settings , but that didn't help. Any hints on good software.

TDI

I want the best quality mp3's possible and I don't care for file size. Will using CBR sound better than VBR ?

If you truly don't care about file size then you can use 320 kbit/s CBR (the maximum). Whether that will produce the best possible audio quality is not very clear - there've been some tests (click the "analysis" button) showing that lame produces better output at 256 kbit/s than at 320 kbit/s.

If you don't go to the extremely high bitrates, it's generally agreed that VBR produces better quality than CBR at the same bitrate. The idea is that you put your bits where they matter. On the other hand, VBR uses psycho-acoustic models that decide which bits of the music you can hear and which you can't (to decide what to throw away). If these models are wrong, then VBR may be reducing quality.

Recommendation: Exact Audio Copy for ripping, LAME for encoding. Use 320 or 256 kbit/s, or the highest VBR rate.

Borislav

I've begun the task of re-ripping my cd's after upgrading my speakers in-car to MB Quarts and noticing the HORRIBLE artifacts that XING left in my rips previously (at the next to highest VBR setting). I can definitely second Borislav's recommendations. I've been using the following settings for LAME:

-V 1 -b 128 -m j -h -q 1

and have been amazed at the difference.

Xing's encoder is MUCH faster than LAME and their ripper is MUCH faster than EAC, but the extra time spent has been worth it so far. Rip a song with a few of the settings and then compare to the CD... 'tis what i did! =]


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Thanks Borislav and Loren ! Did some reading and downloading on the Lame and EAC sites. Still I don't really know how to use the different programs. AudioCatalyst made me lazy , I knew it was to good to be true , a all-in-one program with high quality. More tips and trick are welcome !!Just as Loren did , I also noticed bad quality rips with my car audio system . I use a Alpine CD player and Empeg to Soundstream 604 amp on 2 Boston Pro 6.5 satalite systems. And a Soundstream 302 to drive a Phase Linear Alliante 10 sub. Amps are backed up by a Brac's 1 Farad . I am very pleased with this setup , clean and powerfull till the end ! But unforgiving to any bad signal either bad quality CD's or Mp3's !

One thing you need to be certain about before you go much farther is:

What is the exact nature of the quality problem you're having, and which "stage" is causing the problem?

For instance, it could be something really simple, like bad rips from AudioCatalyst or your CD drive. If the original WAV file isn't landing on your hard disk intact, no amount of bitrate increase is going to help it. There's some non-obvious errors that can creep into a rip, such as a screwed up stereo image. See the FAQ entry on this subject.

Next, there are the obvious choices about encoder and bit rate. In my experience, even the Xing (Audiocatalyst) encoder can produce great MP3s. Then again, my ears aren't golden. If you're really hearing troubles with the Xing encoder itself, then you've got really good ears, because the differences between Xing and LAME at high bit rates are very subtle.

Finally, if you're comparing a CD to something played through the Empeg, you need to understand that the Empeg is equalized differently from the CD. Perhaps your complaints about quality are simply because the Empeg is playing "flat" and the CD has certain frequencies pre-boosted for you. Most consumer CD players boost the bass a bit to increase warmth (even if your bass and loudness are set flat on the CD player's control panel). Try playing with the Empeg's loudness and EQ a little.

___________
Tony Fabris

Here's a good LAME and EAC site for tips on how to use 'em:

http://users.belgacom.net/gc247244/index.html


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Simple....
Radium Enhanced Fraunhofer 1.263 Codec or 1.063 - USE CBR only.
Codaxe as the frontend for the encoding process.
Exact Audio Copy is simply the best ripper.
and Works the Best with Plextor CDrom Drives.
Hope this helps.

12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

Hi Tony , thanks for your advise. I don't know yet what the problem causes. Is it the ripping or the encoding. I feel that it might not be the ripping , because pop's and klick noises are very very rare. The reason why I am looking for better ripping / encoding software , is that the music sounds not ''clean" , there is extra noise and it's not "a live" , sparkling. Know what a mean ?? That's why I thought , maybe I should use CBR highest setting instead of VBR highest setting. Don't know if this is right , but I will try a few albums and see. Let me know if you have any other tips. I will check the FAQ now . Thanks !!

I feel that it might not be the ripping , because pop's and klick noises are very very rare.

Pops and clicks are the most noticeable, overt indications of a bad rip. If your computer/drive/ripper are working correctly, you should never, ever, in any circumstances, get a pop or a click. The incidence of pops and clicks in your rips should be absolute zero.

It's possible to have a bad rip that does not pop or click. I discovered that, at least on my drive, you could get files that sounded "OK" on cheap speakers, but their stereo image was completely screwed up, with instruments suddenly shifting between the left and right channels. Other users have experienced it, too, check out this FAQ entry.

So if you're getting any pops/clicks at all, I'd say start investigating the ripping stage. Before you bother to encode them to MP3, just rip raw WAV files and have a close listen on a pair of headphones before assuming that the MP3 encoding process is at fault.

is that the music sounds not ''clean" , there is extra noise and it's not "a live" , sparkling. Know what a mean ?

No, I don't know exactly what you mean. It sounds like you're trying to describe two separate, unrelated problems.

The first one: extra noise. Can you describe the noise in more detail? Is it part of the track itself, or can you hear the noise when you press the Pause button? What are the characteristics of the noise?

The second one: lack of "sparkling" detail to the sound. This could be a high-frequency loss due to MP3 encoding, or it could be a simple case of needing to add a little high-end to the EQ.

Are you only listening to these on the Empeg, or are you previewing them on your computer first? Do you notice a difference between the Empeg and your computer with regard to the sound? And what volume level are you listening to the Empeg at? Is it just a question of tuning your amp gains properly so that the Empeg runs closer to 0db?



___________
Tony Fabris

Tony , let me put it this way . When I listen to a CD in my car on my Alpine cd player it sound mind blowing . Very nice high and mid range . When I listen to the same track on the Empeg there is a loss of high-frequency and the signal seems dirty , just like you say , there is noise with / in the music. I never did notice the stereo shifting or other stereo problems. I don't listen to music on my computer , I would never keep up with my car system . I do listen to mp3 with my Empeg hooked up to my Musical Fidelity amp and Dynaudio speakers , same problem as in my car . I will work on it , learn a thing or two and see if I can fix my problem. Thanks for the support.

I know that I use Lame at high settings and I also use the -k option, which turns off the lowpass filter, which is normally on by default. To tell you the hones truth, I can't even hear the difference with or without the -k option, but I want all the frequencies, even though the file size is slightly bigger. At lower bitrates this would result in some "swirley" sounds by using the -k option, but at higher bitrates I have not noticed any swirleys. Also, specify a higher minimum bitrate. I use the following LAME options, some of which are supposedly implicit in VBR mode, but I set them explicitly anyway:

-V1 -b160 -k -mj -h -p --id3v2-only

I have been very very happy with the results. I have not, however, done an AB test between the CD and MP3 on a killer system. I have a Meridian Home Theater system that I plan on using for this test pretty soon.

However, I must say, that if you are getting ANY noise at all in the signal...then something is wrong somewhere in your ripping/encoding process because I have never noticed this kind of noise in my encodings. If you are really trying to say that it sounds less sparkly...that could very well be due to the lowpass filter that most of the encoders impose by default. Some of them don't even let you override it. Lame however, does.

Definitely keep trying different settings with your ripper and encoder until you get it right. I'm confident you will get it right. It may be that if you have truly Golden ears you will be able to hear a very subtle difference between the CD and the Empeg...even after you fool with the EQ settings to optimize the Empeg. However, I can't impress upon you enough that these differences should be oh so subtly minute, that it starts to become academic after a point. And the fact remains that using the Empeg to play back MP3's is about a thousand times more convenient than playing CD's...which is why most of us got our Empeg's to begin with. I personally do not have an expectation for my MP3's to be absolutely as good sounding as my CD's. They are darn close though...which is good enough for me. The MP3's sound pretty darn good in fact. I know people using MP3's in dance clubs...big ones..through massive sound systems and you can't hear the difference. Ok, that's not exactly high fidelity, but the fact is, when you're driving down the road...you notice the difference even less than when you're doing your GEB test in the garage or in your home studio. And if you listen to the Empeg all the time, your ears will adjust and you'll never miss subtle differences that may or may not exist between CD and MP3.

Frankly, most people can't hear those differences anyway. I drive myself wacky trying to hear the difference between a CD and an MP3 that is well encoded. Sometimes I think I'm hearing something different and sometimes I think I'm just hearing things...and tricking my own self. Its so subtle...that its not really worth worrying about when you look at the convenience advantages of MP3.

All that being said...there are TONS and TONS of badly encoded MP3 files floating around out there...and it is most definitely easy enough to create badly ripped/encoded MP3 files.

So keep working on it... I'm willing to bet that you will get them close enough to be happy. You might even get them to the point that you can't hear the difference (like many other people). But even if you are a true GEB, then I believe you will get them so close that they will not bother you like they seem to be now. They should not be blatantly worse, or horrible to listen to. We're talking....VERY VERY subtle.

ps - I use Audiograbber and lame 3.88

cheers

I did some testing with EAC and Lame software last night and I can really hear a difference between my Xing rips and the ones with EAC/Lame. The CBR 256 and VBR 256 sounded both very good . But I still have some questions. Should I use Razor Lame or Lame tool ( one seems more easy in use then the other) and how do I use EAC together with Lame ? Now I first make WAV's with EAC and than MP3's with Lame . I then end up with both WAV and MP3 files on my HD. Isn't it possible that lame turns the EAC WAV's into MP3's , so I will only end up with the right files. It's a lot of fun experimenting and tweaking this software. I feel that I'm getting much better quality MP3's allready. But both these programs are very slow, quality doesn't come cheap ! Thanks to all who wrote a reaction to my posted messages , I learn a lot this way !

This site i posted before has great instructions on using LAME with EAC (click the "encoding" menu item). Basically you go to "compression options" in EAC, then the "External compression" tab. Select "LAME MP3 encoder" from the "Parameter Passing Scheme" menu. Then tell it where the LAME exe is on your drive, give it the command line parameters to pass to LAME, tick "Delete WAV after compression", and bam... you're done. You won't need Razor Lame or Lame tool if you go this route. Good luck!


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

I don't use either of those versions of lame. I use the command line version of lame which is obtainable from my website right now: http://www.bstage.com/Lame/ and you can find it with some digging (also the very latest version) at the official Lame website: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/

Then I use audiograbber ($25) that will let me specify the lame command line tool as an external encoder and I can configure audiograbber to rip the WAV's and then delete them after encoding them with the external encoder. It has a lot of other handy options as well. EAC is *supposed* to be the most rock solid accurate CD ripper out there right now, but I have had no problems with audiograbber, probably because I have a good CDROM drive, and its WAY fast. It rips an entire CD in about a minute prior to encoding to MP3.

Audiograbber also encapsulates the CDDB information into the WAV file and knows to stuff it into the MP3 (or Lame does) so that the ID3 info is prefilled out completely ahead of time. I love this combination.

good luck, glad to hear you're getting better results..

-steve

I'm definitely not trying to argue with you on this one, cause i used Audiograbber for a while and it works great, i just wanted to note some things.

Both the programs he mentioned are just front ends to the LAME.exe, the command line version. EAC just passes the wav off to it same as Audiograbber. Good thing about EAC is that it's free and it also includes the ability to get CDDB info (which i wasn't aware of until recently, and was the main reason i stayed away from it until now). Problem is it can be damn slow if you have a scratchy CD, due to it's amazing efforts at reading the CD exactly. If you're CD's are in prestine condition, i'm sure Auidograbber does an equally fine job grabbing the data.




|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

I have been to the site you posted before and it is / was very helpfull . I just didn't see the "delete wav" function , must have been too late last night !! If I don't use Razor lame or tool , were am I going to do all the settings for encoding ? Will this pop up after EAC is ready ripping ? Well I'll try and see what happens . Does anybody know when version 1.1 will be released ? See ya !

you pass the paramters for LAME through EAC. Go to the Compression options i mentioned above... see where it says additional command line options? That's where you do the settings for encoding.


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Steve , do you know how Audioactive Production Studio performs ? Audiograbber sounds great to , a minute for one CD is really fast compared to EAC ! It takes about 10 to 12 min. for EAC. And then about the same time for Lame . Is this normal ? I tried several CD's , new and old ones.

Could I just copy a command line from Razor or Tool and then use it ? Because I don't know all the commands . Will work I guess . GREAT FORUM !

I've never used Audioactive. Performs depends a lot on the CDROM drive you have, available memory and CPU speed, etc.. I happen to have a 1 mHz machine with a 40x CDROM drive and 750 MB ram. Audiograbber will let you rip entirely to ram and then flush to disk at the end, which helps to speed things up...along with the 40x CDROM drive. As its ripping, it commonly displays 30x speed being acheived while ripping from the CD. Then lame typically takes about 1 minute per song. All in all, it takes about 10 minutes to rip and encode each CD. However, what I usually do is rip a whole bunch of CD's WITHOUT encoding to MP3. Audiograbber has an option to put all the wav files into one flat directory. Then after I have say about 300 songs ripped to wave in this directory, I drag and drop all of them onto Audiograbber and it automatically encodes them all, one at a time, using lame. As its encoding them, it automatically puts them into folders by artist/album based on the ID3 info stored in the wav files and fills out the ID3 tags. Then I just let that run for a few hours and go away from the computer. It typically takes me about an hour or so to rip 300-400 songs into WAV and then it takes maybe 5-6 hours to encode them all. For lame, this is very fast I know. I have a fast machine. Other encoders are way faster, but I like the quality of lame.

later

ONE MHZ - wow that's slow, is it running an 8086 processor too? (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

TDI, can I ask how the signal is routed in your car system?

For example, does your empeg go straight into the amplifiers, or does it go into the aux-in of another head unit?

Also, what volume level does the Empeg usually run at during your "crank it" listening levels? Is it close to, or at, 0db (maximum non-distortion volume)?

___________
Tony Fabris

Hi Tony , my Empeg signal goes straight into my amps via Zero point cable from Phoenix Gold , routed away ( other side of the car) from the powercable and car wires . My Alpine is connected to the aux on the Empeg , so the volume adjust for both units is done over the Empeg . I usually play music between level 15 and 10 . Having both the Empeg and the Alpine , one can really notice a rather big difference in output signal voltage between the two . The Alpine's voltage is much higher ( 4 volt) Empeg says the player has 3 volt , but I'm not so sure about that. Hope this will answer your question. I'll do some ripping now !
Later ?!

I usually play music between level 15 and 10 .

I assume you mean "between -15db and -10db". That's usually a decent level to get reasonable quality out of the system. The reason I ask is because I wanted to make sure the "noise" you described wasn't system noise from running the empeg too quiet with the amp gains set too high. Technically, you should be able to crank the empeg all the way up to 0db, and still be able to listen to the system. If not, your amp gains are set too high and should be decreased so you can get the maximum signal-to-noise ratio out of the empeg.

However, something you might want to try. If you like the way that the Alpine sounds through your amps, then you might want to re-route it so that the Empeg goes into the Alpine's aux-ins instead of the other way around. If you do, make sure to run the Empeg at 0db. You might prefer the way things sound that way. It's probably just a case of needing to EQ the empeg to sound more like the alpine did, but a quick work-around would be to plug them in the opposite order so that the Alpine is your tone controller.

___________
Tony Fabris

IT WORKS !!!! Did some great rips with EAC/Lame 3.87. Got the commands from the documentation sheet, this is what I use -b 192 -m s -h -V 0 -B 256 --resample 44.1 -k . Up and running in two days with great quality sound. I've set EAC to use Lame as ext. encoder. But what if I want to make a bunch of wav's first and than encode them with Lame ? Tony, I will try to switch the Empeg for the Alpine as main headunit , but I don't think it has a aux-in ? W'll see. Now my Golf not only drives great ( 150 bhp and 340 Nm torque, who says a "diesel" is slow ) it also sound super ! Thank you all for helping me , it has saved me a LOT of time and stress. Isn't internet great ? See you all soon , probably tomorrow.
Sebastiaan.