What bitrate should you rip your CDs to?

I just had to check this in iTunes. I use the AAC encoder with the iTunes Plus preset which is 256kbps VBR with a 44.1kHz sampling rate. And it’s plenty good enough.

I use the popular Lame preset V0, which leads to VBR MP3s of around 260kbps in bitrate. More efficient than 320kbps for file size yet with no further loss of audible audio data. I do however have some of my music encoded in the lossless Flac format, more for preservation incase of CD damage in the future than anything else.

As for Jeff’s conclusion, any audiophile or sound engineer ought to be able to tell somebody that what they can hear is dependent on the equipment, the track at hand, the encoder used, the individual’s hearing, and so on. There are individuals that can tell the difference between a lossy and lossless audio encode on ‘high-end’ equipment (just as there are those that can’t tell a 96kbps MP3 from a lossless encode), so his conclusion seems to be incorrect to me.

320KB/s CBR.

It is interesting that in another thread, it was suggested that bands submitting material to radio stations should not send MP3 files. Now that suggests that radio sations do not like or want to hear compressed files. I have noted from other discussions on here that many stations use flac/lossless format to preserve as much audio quality as possible. I guess, in a way, it depends on two things, where you will use the produced audio files, and also but how much storage you have. Though I suspect that is not such an issue nowadays with very large hard drives avilable at modest prices.

When I digitised my collection in the early 90’s, hard disk capacity was an issue, so I chose 128kbps. Now disc capacity is not and issue I normally do 256 or 320 kbps mp3. I can definitely hear the difference between that and 128.
For radio stations, they need maximum quality because the transmission chain (particularly the processor) will amplify any audio issues, hence why they will prefer lossless.

I do 192 CBR. Beyond 192K I find that the tracks begin to sound artificial and start to deviate from the sounds used on the original recording and how they were meant to be heard. In other words, the compression seems to to want to push certain noises and instruments forward and others are a little more overlooked. It happens less with 192K than it does with 256 or 320K.

As capacity isn’t really an issue these days, why compress music at all? For a personal collection, put it all in FLAC. You can compress it later, or keep a mirror image copy, in an MPEG standard if you need to put it on an iPod (or other!).

The other benefit of keeping it uncompressed is that you might have, or might at some point have, a device (say, a tablet) with lots of storage so you might want 128kb/s AAC and another device (say, a smartphone) with a bit less storage and you might want it at 64kb/s AAC+. All fine if the master is uncompressed, more of a problem if you compress.

Good theory James (H) but these devices are all about convenience, and that sounds like a lot of faffing about.

Using and ripping CDs in the first place is a lot of faff!

I do 192 CBR. Beyond 192K I find that the tracks begin to sound artificial and start to deviate from the sounds used on the original recording and how they were meant to be heard. In other words, the compression seems to to want to push certain noises and instruments forward and others are a little more overlooked. It happens less with 192K than it does with 256 or 320K.

I’ve honestly never heard of this phenomenon before. I could understand it the other way (as in, a lower bitrate), but surely a higher bitrate is going to deviate less from any original recording by virtue of retaining more audio data? It sounds like a potential placebo effect to me.