CBR OR VBR?

Which is better for ripping music? Quality matters.

are you one of those faggy audiophiles?

if so, use should be ripping to flac.
if not, it doesnt matter.

VBR.

CBR is dead and buried. Welcome to 1999.

if not, VBR

Fixed

VBR

Use OGG. It's FREE as in FREEDOM. It plays absolutely everywhere save for a few exceptions.

VBR doesn't really do much for quality, it varies the quality so that parts that can get away with low-quality are encoded in low-quality, thereby attaining a COMPROMISE between quality and speed (usually a very good one though).  A high-bitrate CBR (320kbps) will be better quality, if that's all you care about.

However, you probably don't have supersonic hearing, and don't own professional audio reproduction equipment, so stick with VBR and GTFO.

>>1
Just make sure to use CBR if you're going to use the track as a stream for a video. It keeps my tools from getting all pissy on me.

thereby attaining a COMPROMISE between quality and speed
No, dumbass, it has nothing to do with speed. It uses a lower bitrate in some places, so that it can use a higher bitrate in other places.

320kbps CBR is complete overkill; 224kbps CBR is usually more than enough, and a VBR file of the same quality will probably be at least a quarter smaller in size.

>>9
i meant size, not speed lol

although if quality is all you care about it's best to leave it as .wav or try .flac.

It need not be a compromise. Many codecs nowadays achieve transparency on average around ~190kbps VBR. Anything beyond that is a waste, including 320kbps CBR.

What's the point of those bits if they won't make a perceptive difference?

In conclusion, encode using LAME and --alt-preset-standard.

As of LAME 3.97 (recommended version by HA), it's better to use --preset fast standard

See here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=28124

LAME is an impressive piece of work. It managed to produce mp3s that best or equal many better formats for a long time simply because of its maturity.

>>11
Depends on your hearing ability, and how much quality you want.  That was my point.

A lot of professional digital recording equipment has sample rates way above 44100Hz (which has a top frequency of 22050Hz, close to the upper limit of human hearing of 20000Hz), like 96kHz and beyond.  Many say that even though people can't hear any waves that might be recorded at that frequency, such waves contribute to the total harmonic of a recorded sound. 

It's funny though, because sometimes a lower sample rate can actually give a sound more personality.  A lot of rap used drum machines in which drum sounds were recorded in 22Khz and below, in 12 and even 8 bit samples (the ubiquitous TR-909's hi-hats, extensively popular even today, are 6-bit) and these sounds have created some of the most popular songs ever.

>>12
I use -V 2 -q 0 --replaygain-accurate. Slow as shit (takes about an hour or so to rip a CD) for bitrates close to APS, but it gives one important thing - peace of mind. That's why people rip in higher bitrates than they need.

Unless you're an audiophile phag, Vorbis VBR averaging some 220 Kbps will be enough.

>>16
What if you actually want a format that most people - that is, including the ones who aren't competent enough to handle the whole 'installing a new codec' thing - can actually use?

>>17
People can actually listen to OGG Vorbis without installing any codec. Just use Winamp (the most popular player); Foobar2K supports it out of the box as well I think, and its support in Linux is widespread. So stop being a faggot luser, you don't even have to do anything except cure for being a faggot.

What is this faggotry?
Just use a lossless codec, like FLAC.

>>19
this is faggotry.

WTF is this digital faggotry, vinyl have infinity Kbps and infinity kHz

AAC -.-

>>21
Only the first time you play them.  Then, the needle permanently damages the record each time you play it, since it physically scratches the vinyl surface.  Each successive play reduces your kHz until you're basically listening to sounds that sound like "rrbrbrprbrprrrbrrr"

>>23
YOU CANT REDUCE INFINITY KHZ

>>24
Infinity - Infinity = 0

>>25
wrong

i use LAME, with --vrb-old -V 0 -q 2
it doesn't encode that slow and the quality is just fine

if i need ABSOLUTELY HIGH quality FLAC is the solution, being also really fast in encoding

Why vbr-old? Tests indicate that old and new, at least in 3.97, is comparable. You're going slow for nothing.

Infinity - Infinity = -Infinity

burn your audio to piece of vinyl

Infinity - Infinity is 0 as long as both pieces of infinity are equally as big.

>>29
That depends on which infinity is bigger.

My infinity > your infinity