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General discussion

ripping cd's to prepare for tranfer to mp3 player question

Aug 13, 2009 5:43AM PDT

I just ordered a zen mozaic(4gb) and i'd like to start ripping cd's in preparation of it's arrival. I only want to rip the cd's once so i'd like to put them on my computer at the most common and highest quality audio file, i'm assuming .wav. I guess if i'm using the supplied headphones and built-in speaker it would probably be overkill
to put the same .wav file onto the zen by i'll eventually buy good headphones and play the zen through my av system. I guess i'm asking is what's the norm for this process. TIA

Discussion is locked

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Re: CD ripping
Aug 13, 2009 5:51AM PDT

Ripping a CD to a .wav file is easy. Free CDEX, for example, allows you to do it in .wav-format. But Windows Mediaplayer (I checked version 11) does that also.
But with 600-700 Mb per CD, you'll get 6 CD's in .wav-format on your 4 Gb Zen. So you'll have to convert it to mp3 (with CDEX or WMP) or wma (with WMP) or any other compressed format recognized by the zen to make this device really useful.

Then the easy way is to rip it to a compressed format directly, not to .wav on your hard disk in between. That's much faster then having a 2-step process as you propose.

Kees

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like to keep the audio file high quality on computer...
Aug 13, 2009 6:20AM PDT

than downgrade for mp3 player. Didn't think about the time it will take to do this. Thanks for the reminder. I'm learning. What's a happy
medium? Somebody was saying 320 mbps when using good headphones with mp3 and plugging the mp3 into a/v system. TIA

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(NT) oops correction, i meant kbps, sorry
Aug 13, 2009 6:25AM PDT
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What's your reason for the high bitrate files?
Aug 15, 2009 3:27AM PDT

Are you planning on using the files as part of a media server that will ultimately distribute the music to an external audio system?

If that's the case then you should be ripping your music to a lossless format. WAV (RIFF) is the most universal. Even the highest bitrate MP3 files encoded with VBR will still be lossy quality, and if you have good ears and decent gear being fed this stuff it will be painfully apparent. Some newer audio gear is able to digitally compensate/mask much of the deficiencies with lossy audio files, but unless you've got a budget for new audio equipment it's just easier to work with lossless to start with. That said, a 4GB media player isn't going to allow for much room for a variety of content.

Unless your software has a method of creating a lossy version of your music during the transfer to your DAP/PMP device, you'll probably be looking at keeping TWO versions of each of your songs on your computer. I occasionally use MP3s ripped to 256Kbps VBR on my portables, and generally the audio quality has been quite acceptable. However if you want even more songs stored on your player, you may want to consider ripping to 160Kbps WMA for your lossy files. The SQ is as good if not superior to 256Kbps MP3 files (some might even argue that it's as good as 320Kbps MP3 files). The KEY issue with WMA is that if you ever decide that you want an iPod, your going to be doing a LOT of translating because Apple doesn't support WMA.

From a space-saving/SQ compromise standpoint, the OTHER option for others would be to rip to AAC (m4a), which generally sound as good as comparable bitrate WMA files, is definitely iPod-friend and also supported by a number of alternative devices (Walkman, Zune, Creative Zen/Zen X-Fi...among others), but your Zen Mozaic sadly doesn't support that format. MP3 is the most universal lossy format, but in order to get the audio quality there is the tradeoff on the number of songs you can load onto your portable.