iTunes encoding quality

[shatfield1529]

Speaking of encoding a CD collection, does anyone have a good method for smoothly ripping a collection of about 130 CD's? I would like to encode my collection, but would like to also limit the amount of time I spend sitting and waiting in front of my computer.

I've heard of 200 CD and 400 CD, um, things that you just put the CDs on a rack like, um, thing and it automatically loads one CD, rips it, takes it out, and goes to the next one.

I've also heard of scripts that have been written that rips a CD into AIFF tracks, spits out the CD, and encodes it into MP3 as the next CD is ripping. Sounds smooth, but I haven't been able to find anything like it that worked with MacOS X.1.

[chemistry_geek]

I personally record all my MP3's at 320kbps. I know it may be overkill but I like the detail. A typical 5 minute-ish song/track is around 11 to 13 MB. I read many years ago that MP2 was a better sounding but lacked the compression of MP3. I think I could tell the difference before (listening through $150 german headphones), but now I don't think I can hear the difference between the 320kbps MP3 and 320kpbs MP2. Perhaps the encoding schemes are better for MP3 than they used to be, I don't know. I remember downloading a command line MP3 encoder for OS X that claimed to encode using better psycho-acoustics than current MP3, but I never used it, got filled under some directory somewhere and archived to a CD, probably never to be used, but nice to have "just in case".

I wouldn't recommend re-encoding unless you have to. For me and my CD burner, I can copy an audio disk faster than encoding MP3, but I only make my MP3 for my use and no one else's. I had hoped to connect my Mac to my home stereo but never did. I didn't for fear of being disappointed in the sound quality coming from the Mac. My home stereo cost about $10,000 and I expect to hear serious flaws, which I wouldn't be happy with so I didn't even bother. Incidently, you can hear the difference between an original audio CD and the burned copy of an audio CD - the difference is due to timing errors that are introduced into the CD and picked up by D/A converter.

My stereo system:
High-end Philips (Made in Denmark) purchased 10 years ago from Paragon Sound in Toledo OH.

FR930 Receiver/amplifier($550; 150W/channel, Dolby ProLogic [when it was new!]).

CD 950 Compact Disc Player ($640; Frequency range: 2Hz-20kHz; Dynamic range: 108dB; Signal to noise ratio: >115dB; Channel separation: >110dB; Total harmonic distortion: 0.001%; Bitstream conversion 128X oversampling, 1 bit, 3rd order noise shaper). This unit contains a commercial laser. I will die before the laser burns itself out. Optical digital output goes directly to the DCC digital input.

Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) recorder/player (records in MP2 format, sound specs not as good as the CD player). Cost $1000 - yeah, I know, waste of money, right after I purchased it CD-R were introduced on the market.

BostonAcoustics VR960 speakers (Made in America; $1000/pair, 50 lbs each with one 8 inch powered sub in each speaker, Dolby Digital inputs, 1 inch Lynnfield tweeter, 4.5 inch mid range. Speakers rest on 2 inch long spikes going into my carpeted floor. http://www.bostonacoustics.com
http://www.bostonacoustics.com/Produ...=1&SeriesID=16

Transparent Cable Music Link interconnects (Made in America; connects the CD player to the amplifier). These cables are approximately 3/8 inch think and are made with high purity copper with high pass and low pass filters that terminate at the cables end in a small black box($150/pair). Only frequencies in human hearing range are allowed to pass through the cables. http://www.transparentcable.com

Transparent Music Wave speaker cable (Made in America; connects amplifier to speakers). These cables are approximately 1 inch THICK, have high purity copper with high pass and low pass filters that terminate at the cables end in a large 7 inch black box($870/pair). Only frequencies in human hearing range are allowed to pass through the cables. Cables are only 10 feet long. http://www.transparentcable.com

Bang & Olufsen turntable. ($550 WITHOUT the diamond needle). For VINYL records!!! MM4 Eliptical diamond cartidge ($100). The MM1 diamond cartridge was $500 - too expensive for me.

Other components will not be listed. This is long enough.

When I listen to my music, I don't just hear it, I FEEL it, literally, the bass is incredible, but not overbearing - very tight bass.

chemistry_geek

[GadgetLover]

Originally posted by chemistry_geek (from another thread)
I get between 5.8X to 6.3X MP3 encoding. When importing, the computer does not do any other tasks.

iTunes MP3 Encoding direct from the Preferences:

Input Using: MP3 Encoder.
8kbps(mono) / 320kbps (stereo), joint stereo.

Smart encoding is checked.

Songs do NOT play while encoding.

The way I see it, why waste all that bandwidth for a mono-type audio file? Everything today is stereo.

1427 Songs, 4:09:14:17 total time, 10.46GB

You're just the type of audiophile that I wanted to hear from. I have a friend that has an even higher end system than yours (believe it or not) and he says some of the same things you have. So, I have been trying to figure out the middle ground between QUALITY and QUANTITY of my mp3s. Can you explain more about the mono v. stereo thing? Can you lower the mono part without effecting ANY of the sound quality in stereo?? I, too, could care less if my files do not have the ability to be played on a monoral system but I DO care that no quality is lost by reducing the mono channel to 8k (as you did) instead of (160k -- 1/2 of 320k). I can't believe that you can encode at 329k that many songs and have it only be 10GB. I have 2,000 songs encoded (at 128k) and it is 8GB. Does the mono thing affect it that much? Cool, if so. Also, can you explain the joint v. normal stereo thing?

[chemistry_geek]

GadgetLover:

A buddy of mine spent $20,000 ON A USED Proceed system (from eBay) after listening to the difference between Transparent interconnects and the cheap interconnect cables that come with every home stereo. His system at the time was Harmon Kardon purchased from Circuit City. He sold it on eBay and bought the Proceed preamp, CD-transport, a separate D/A converter, and a 100 lb Mark Levinson amplifier, with tranparent cables better than mine, piece by piece. His speakers cost $5000/pair and are made in England - forgot the name of that manufacturer. He too is a chemist in the polymer industry making bookoo bucks. His system makes mine sound like it was purchased at a K-mart bluelight special in Hicksville USA. It is a humbling experience to be out done by one-upmanship.

I cannot afford to keep up with the Jones's.

chemistry_geek

[chemistry_geek]

Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) Homepage:

http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/

The inventors of MP3 (according to MPegger author):
http://www.iis.fhg.de/

MPegger is currently listed on versiontracker under Mac OS.

chemistry_geek

[chemistry_geek]

MP3 encoding differences.

Direct from MPegger Documentation (credit goes to that author):

Stereo - Encodes each channel as a separate stream. For example, if you encode a 128kbps stereo file with this set, it will actually encode two 64kbps streams, one for each channel.

Joint Stereo - Looks for similarities and differences in the two channels, and encodes them as one stream. This results in better sound quality, although it may not work with some MP3 players.

Layer III Constant Bitrate (CBR) - Encodes the file as an MP3 with a specified amount of data per second. This is the most compatible mode.

Layer III Variable Bitrate (VBR) - There are 3 types of VBR encoding: Normal Quality (NQ), Extra Quality (XQ), and High Quality (HQ).

chemistry_geek

[GadgetLover]

Originally posted by chemistry_geek
Stereo - Encodes each channel as a separate stream. For example, if you encode a 128kbps stereo file with this set, it will actually encode two 64kbps streams, one for each channel.

Joint Stereo - Looks for similarities and differences in the two channels, and encodes them as one stream. This results in better sound quality, although it may not work with some MP3 players.

Chemistry Geek (read: God):

So are you suggestion that the best overall setting (considering size too) is 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo? And should I do CBR instead so it is compatible with my systems? My DVD player reads mp3s -- does it read VBRs? What about the Nomad JukeBox and iPod?

[chemistry_geek]

GadgetLover:

Well, I know that I've always used 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo every since I obtained iTunes. I had no idea what "joint stereo" was until I read about it from MPegger's documentation I downloaded 10 minutes ago. The only thing I changed as far as iTunes encoding MP3 from the default setting was to minimize the monoaural audio stream's quality and to maximize the stereo audio stream. This is the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps stereo setting. I didn't change any other settings for fear of messing up the quality in ways I didn't know about yet. Turns out leaving the joint stereo checked was better, according to MPegger's documentation. It would be nice if Apple actually provided COMPLETE documentation with their products so we would all know what these settings meant. I have yet to find a help file on my system that explains every setting in iTunes. In minimizing the monoaural audio stream and maximizing the stereo audio stream I (probably falsely) assumed that it would be less taxing on the CPU as it I thought it would / might be decoding audio I was not hearing or it was just throwing away. I was just looking to maximize the audio quality of my system while removing any inefficiencies from the MP3 decoding process. Who knows, I could be completely wrong about the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo setting, but it works for me. God knows Mac OS X is slow enough on my system I wouldn't want to burden the processor with any more worthless chatter.

Regarding the CBR setting, I don't know what you mean by compatibility with your other systems. Regarding your DVD player and Nomad Jukebox and iPod, you would have to check the documentation that came with your hardware. You may have to do some tweaking with encoding settings to get your MP3's to work with all those devices (if they don't already) with just one MP3 file type. As far as size is concerned, the 320kbps MP3 files can get large, and hard drives are cheap now so I'm not concerned with storage considerations. I'm after total quality when it comes to listening to my MP3 on my BeyerDynamic DT150 german headphones - I can still differentiate a 320kbps MP3 and the CD in the Mac.

The best advice I can give is that the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo setting works very well for me.

As an example, Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carole" narrated by our favorite Star Trek Captain, Patrick Stewart (Jon-Luc Picard) is a 2 CD set. Disk 1 is 48:07 and 110.2MB; Disk 2 is 58:51 and 134.8MB. BIG FILES!!! Even if you are into pirating MP3, which I'm not, it would be out of the question to share/ steal files of this size on LimeWire or other file sharing programs with a 56K connection. Your chances of getting disconnected from your ISP are greater than obtaining the file in its entirety. At 320kbps, I think this is purely an individual preference, you don't have to use that setting.

chemistry_geek