Choices for ripping and archiving my CD's

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aloke Prasad
  • Start date Start date
A

Aloke Prasad

Now that I have a PC with a fast CPU and tons of hard drive space, I'm
thinking of ripping my CD collection and storing them on my PC in MP3 (or
should it be AAC or WMV?) files. I have over 1500 CD's so this will be a
big collection. The advantages will be in being able to play any song in
any collection, collecting songs according to my playlist, being able to
upload then at will to portable MP3 players etc.

The question is, which software should I use to rip, encode and archive the
songs? I could choose between

1. Media library features of Windows XP media player
2. Creative labs MediaSource (that comes with Audigy 2 Platinum)
3. ATI Multimedia Center (part of Radeon 9800 Pro All In Wonder)
4. Roxio AudioCentral (part of Creator 6 suite)
5. Other combinations of software like Winamp 5, EAC, various jukeboxes

Do you folks have any suggestion on which would be the best way to proceed?

Thanks.
 
I've personally used AudioCatalyst for years now to convert to mp3. I know
there's other codecs besides mp3, some possibly with better compression
versus quality ratio, but that's what I decided on when I started and see no
pressing need to change now. I like AudioCatalyst because it provides it's
own encoder with no limitation on kps, joint stereo etc. selections. The
fact it's fast, has never crashed on me and creates a reliable result helps
:)

As you mention mp3 player, seems you've already more or less decided as you
don't really want to be converting one encoded file to another format (for
another device etc.) as there's a loss of quality.

One additional note ... do your own tests to determine what compression you
"like". For example :I definitely notice the difference between 96 and 128
kps with only a marginal improvement going to 160 kps when encoding mp3's. I
therefore decided (I'm 53 and ears aren't what they used to be) that 128Kps,
joint stereo is the "sweet spot" weighing quality against file size.
Obviously your tastes may vary.
 
I used to use AudioCatalyst until they stopped updating it as a product.

What library software do you use to keep track of your multimedia files?
 
I don't subscibe to updating just because a new version is available. The
version I use does everything I need/want it to. I also don't need/use any
type of library. I've insured the files are named "artist"-"title" and am
very organized in where I store them, e.g. tree structure. I use an early
WinAmp as a player and find using playlists fills my needs no problems.
 
JRiver's Media Center is supreme. I ripped my entire 6000+ track CD
collection to 320kbps mp3's but MC also supports lossless ape and
other formats. It has excellent tagging capability, dsp
playback/burning options (including crossfade, gapless, omit silence,
etc) and search/filter capabilities plus great support on their
Interact forum. They have a 30day free trial:
http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/
 
Back
Top