"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise the
average bitrate used for sharing