Ripping your CD's

Now you have chosen a player, the next task is to rip your CD's into an appropriate format.

For those that support it, lossless offers the best sound quality, for others MP3 is the most popular format with 320kbps offering the best quality.

The options available are:

Name	Type	Adv/Dis	Size (roughly)
WAV	Lossless	No tag support, large files	40Mb
AIFF	Lossless	Tags supported, but large files, Apple version of WAV	40Mb
FLAC	Lossless	Open source, tag support, slightly smaller files	35Mb
MP3 320	Compressed	Tag support, most supported, best quality	8Mb
MP3 192	Compressed	As above, but lower quality	7Mb
MP3 160	Compressed	Lower quality again	6Mb
MP3 128	Compressed	Low quality, not recommended	3Mb
AAC 128	Compressed	Apple Proprietary, slightly inferior sound quality to mp3, works on an ipod though Note: This only applies for non-purchased music, songs from the itunes store only work with the Apple Airport Express	4Mb
OGG	Compressed	Decent quality, but not supported by as many players	4Mb
WMA	Compressed	Slightly smaller files than mp3	4-6Mb

VBR vs CBR

Constant Bit Rate (CBR) encoding means that you encode a file at a fixed rate, such as 128 Kpbs. For many people this is a common method of encoding MP3s. You can usually tell CBR files because they have consistent file sizes and sound quality. OK, file sizes aren't the kind of thing most of you will look out for. We know that.

Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding is a method that ensures high audio quality bit-allocation decisions during encoding. The encoder allocates an appropriate amount of data per second, depending on the complexity of the audio file.

If there are very complex parts in a song it will use a quite high bit rate and a lower bitrate for something such as silence. The average bit rate may not be as high as the bitrate of an MP3 of the same quality with constant bitrate.

You should use VBR encoding when consistent audio quality is the top priority.

Source: MP3Machine.com

Software Options

There are a number of software options available for ripping music, however we favour two currently available programs:

CDex:

CDex supports VBR, has error correction and offers excellent resultant files.

It can be difficult to set up, so we have saved you the effort, the Setup program asks which format you want to rip to and then configures everything for you.

Instructions for use: Insert CD, press RipCD on desktop, wait for CD to eject and press RipComplete

iTunes:

iTunes offers slightly inferior quality files, but is easy to use and has an excellent library manager

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