Ripping a music CD

[watermill]

Hello !

I have a question regarding ripping music CD. As far as I understand the best music format (in which the least amount of sound details are lost and which is supported by many manufactures, in my case by Alpine) is MP3. However MP3 is limited to 320 kbit/s. So if I download a music file with 3450 kbit/s (vinyl rip) then in order to play it on my head unit (I have Alpine 9887R) I need to compress it to MP3 and write it on a CD, in which case I loose 3130 kbit/s of data. So my question- Am I limited to 320 kbit/s sound quality if I want to listen music in my car (considering I have one of the best head units available) ?

If so then, in my opinion, the best head unit is the one which can play lossless sound formats, like URAL ConceRt CDD, that can play Ogg FLAC.

Also I have heard that original music CD, the ones that are 50$ and up have very good sound quality. If so, then in what format are those songs ?

Thank You.

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[gunz4me2 10+ year member]

If you download a 3450 kBit vinyl rip, why not just burn it to the native CD format if you are concerned about quality?

 

[watermill]

Thank You for answer. However I'm not sure I understand what You mean by- native CD format ?

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

The human ear can not hear any audible differences in music 240kbps and up. 320kbps MP3's will be fine and save much more space. That all depends on the original quality of the music and the process used to encode it though. You cant up convert a 192kbps song to a 320kbps song and expect the same quality as a native CD down converted to a 320kbps MP3.

Apple also has a lossless file called AAC. If you rip a CD with iTunes and convert to AAC you can play lossless files on your HU. Its very similar to Flac.

 

[watermill]

Thanks- whitedragon551.

I have always thought that the more Kbit/s music file has, the more sound detail it has, and when I have listed to song that are 120kbit/s and 3000Kbit/s I have heard huge difference in terms of sound detail. The music files with more kbit/s ratio aren't so flat like mp3 files that I have heard so far. However according to your post- The human ear can not hear any audible differences in music 240kbps and up... I doubt that I am right. Can You please comment on my understandings about kbit/s and sound quality ?

Thank You

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

MP3's are a lossy music format meaning parts are taken out when you compress them. The less kbps the more compressed the music is and the more flat it will sound. The higher kbps the less compressed it is and the better it will sound up to a certain extent. That extent is 240kbps. Anything 240kbps and up will be good. I generally go with 320kbps.

 

[watermill]

But how does it come that almost anytime I rip a music CD from lossless music files which I downrate to mp3 so that I could my head unit could play them, it sound better- more detailed then when I rip music files that originally were mp3 ?

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

CD's are lossless formats. When you go from a lossless CD to MP3 thats the proper way to encode it. When you go from a low bit rate MP3 to a higher bitrate MP3 you have crappy quality MP3's. The source you got your MP3's from must have had low bit rate or improper encoding and it caused the quality issues your experiencing.

 

[watermill]

Thank You for answer is very useful. You mentioned that CD's are lossless formats, I don't get it, if they are lossless then why when I put music CD in my computer they are recognized as MP3 file not as flac or other lossless format ?

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

A CD you buy at a store is lossless. If you burn a CD from MP3 the CD will have the quality of those MP3's you burned. They dont just magically up convert to a lossless format.

 

[watermill]

However if I have a lossless music file, lets say .flac, that I want to burn to CD, can I achieve the same results as CD bought in a store, if I don't convert those file to MP3 but rip them as flac, or maybe the burner convert them automatically to mp3 and then burn to CD ?

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

You can, but most players cant play Flac files. I believe they use .wma. But if you want to burn them to a CD as Flac for archive purposes for later then yes you can burn as Flac, and later rip them to MP3 at 320kbps.

 

[watermill]

Thank You for answers they were very useful.