On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 00:03:29 +0000, pmailkeey wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:55:48 -0000, "Tumbleweed"
wrote:

[snip]

What recommendations would people make for formats? MP3. WMA, Real
Audio? I only want to convert my Cd's once so I'd like to pick the
best format.

.wav - but it ain't compressed ! I'm currently favouring MP3 over WMA.
The latter being produced by Windows Media Player and not so good. Of
course there may be quality options to tweak in each format. I've a few
.wav files - for when I feel like it.

Or FLAC http://flac.sourceforge.net/ which is as lossless as the
original CD.

If you want greater compression rations, then Ogg Vorbis
http://www.vorbis.com/ is generally regarded as better quality than MP3
for the same bitrate.

However, hardware players for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis are limited in number,
so you may wish to resort to MP3. Bitrates of between 170-210 kbps usually
result in transparency, but your ears and music may vary.

Personally, I use 192-256 kbps VBR MP3, as this is where I stop hearing
artifacts on things like cymbals.

Best Regards,
Alex.
--
Alex Butcher Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950 http://www.assursys.com/