I bought the clarion 835 for the 24bit DAC's now I am wondering if I rip my CD's into MP3's at 320kps is there a noticeble decrease in SQ. Can I get away with 190 or 256? I'm not intereseted in downloading crap of the internet I just wanna fit more music onto one disc. What is the best software to rip quality mp3's? Is WMA better? Thanks.

[ March 30, 2004, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: JayDawg Supafly ]

Any time you compress media you will loose SQ
you are taking a 30 or 40 meg file and compressing it to 3 or 4 meg.
I am guilty of using mp3's in my ride too but I still enjoy the music if its a good quality rip

I enjoy MP3s in the car too but I never fool myself into believing I am getting the real deal.

Many people consider 256k very hard to tell from the real cut - especially in a car, definitely if it is moving.

How do you convert 128k, 160k or 190k mp3's to 320kbps ? Is there a program that allows to do this ?

Is 320kbps the nearest/best/closest sound to the real cut ?

[ March 30, 2004, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Rob ]

This can not be done once your have ripped the song into a mp3 you have stripped away layers, mostly inaudable stuff but important none the less to SQ

As far as 320kbs being as close to cd quality you wont find these to often in P2P downloads you will have to rip them yourself. They wiil sound a lot better though

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it all depends on the quality of the download, i have downloaded tunes at 320 that reek. i took my moster jazz cd ripped it onto my computer at 320kbs. made a new cd a/b back to forth and there is a definite difference in dymanics, but like dukk said not nticable at 130k down the road but definitly different sitting in my garage

Even if you could, there would be no point in converting them to a higher bit rate. Since the quality has already been compromised for a reduced size file, if you were to expand it back to a larger file, and higher bit rate, the quality would remain the same. Kind of like recording a cassette tape to a CD, the quality would only be as good as the orignial cassette tape.

for true SQ, record from vinyl onto 1/4" tape....

Vbr's are the closest to CD quality as you can get, and there is plenty of empiracle evidence out there for support. I doubt you can burn a Vbr onto a disc for 12V use, though. I'm not sure.

I do not think MP3 was ever designed to be a high performance musical reproduction medium. A great fear in the audiophile crowd is if MP3 becomes the musical medium standard (CD’s are currently king of recorded media). The MP3 medium was not designed to be better at storing musical information, it was designed to be a more convenient way to transmit music over the internet and to make even smaller music playing devices. MP3, like 8-tracks and most cassettes are inferior storage mediums. I do not want the limit of my stereo system to be the MP3 media.
Satisfying sound and MP3 can certainly coexist, hi-fidelity... not yet, maybe not ever.
To answer the 'dog’s' question: the sound is "good enough" for you, when it is good enough for you G. I am not sure there is a universal answer to the Q.