best format / software for digital music?

CD is a digital format . If you want another one, the one to use depends on what you want it for. If you're keeping it on your PC and have a very large amount of space - certainly in the 100s of GB (and aren't ever so bothered about compatibility with lots of things), I'd go for TTA or (more compatible) FLAC. If you don't have so much space I'd go for Musepack or ogg or (more compatible) MP3 (encoded by LAME). If you're putting it on a portable DAP then you might well be tied to whatever format it supports.


However, for any of the formats I've mentioned, you can use http://members.home.nl/w.speek/multi.htm plus a small .exe in the same folder (ttaenc.exe for TTA, flac.exe for FLAC, mppenc.exe for Musepack, oggenc.exe for ogg, or lame.exe for MP3, NB it might take a little trawling around the web for these, although I can get links if you want any in particular) All of these formats should play in Windows Media Player, although I've never tried with TTA or Musepack.


I guess there's always WMA and AAC, but installing a full media library/player is a bit of a waste of space if all you want to do is encode...

Edited by goose

Thanks for advice!

kirklott wrote: Greetings. I'm about to rip all my great prog cds to digital format. What format do you recommend, and why? What software do you recommend?

 

Well if you want exact copies,burn the files into WAV format. But they take up alot of hard drive space.

 

If you want to store alot of songs on your computer,burn MP3's.

goose wrote: CD is a digital format . If you want another one, the one to use depends on what you want it for. If you're keeping it on your PC and have a very large amount of space - certainly in the 100s of GB (and aren't ever so bothered about compatibility with lots of things), I'd go for TTA or (more compatible) FLAC. If you don't have so much space I'd go for Musepack or ogg or (more compatible) MP3 (encoded by LAME). If you're putting it on a portable DAP then you might well be tied to whatever format it supports. However, for any of the formats I've mentioned, you can use http://members.home.nl/w.speek/multi.htm plus a small .exe in the same folder (ttaenc.exe for TTA, flac.exe for FLAC, mppenc.exe for Musepack, oggenc.exe for ogg, or lame.exe for MP3, NB it might take a little trawling around the web for these, although I can get links if you want any in particular) All of these formats should play in Windows Media Player, although I've never tried with TTA or Musepack. I guess there's always WMA and AAC, but installing a full media library/player is a bit of a waste of space if all you want to do is encode...

WMA Lossless is still my favorite ... if you're using the Windows Media Player, it will automatically convert the data to a compressed format if you want to transfer it to a mobile player.

kirklott wrote: Thanks for the advice. The ultimate goal is to rip my entire collection, and not have to bother with CDs anymore. But I want to rip it at high quality, and in a format that will be valid and useful for as long as possible.

You should definitely go for a lossless format. Which one you use depends solely on which media player you prefer ... the audio quality is exactly the same for all the formats, as it is an exact copy of the data on the CD:

• iTunes: Apple Lossless.
• Windows Media Player: WMA Lossless
• Generic Players: Use CDex to rip CDs, it supports FLAC, a free Lossless format.

Important: When ripping, make sure that the ripping software rips digitally and uses error correction and detection. In CDex it's called "ripping mode full paranoia", and in WMP you just have to check "error correction" in the drive settings. If you don't do that, you risk that CDs with scratches will result in dropouts in the ripped files.

Apart from sounding best, the other big advantage of the Lossless formats is that any other format can be created from them easily. For instance, the WMP can create mp3 from WMA Lossless on the fly when transfering audio to mobile devices.