Audiophiles: When digitising your music library.....?

B0bbyEwing

So I've gathered if you want to convert your shop bought audio CD to be stored digitally & you want lossless then you're looking at FLAC.
Personally if I convert to reasonable bitrate mp3 (say 192 rather than double figures) my ears can't really tell the difference between that and the CD itself but I've learned there'll be a loss if you're using the .mp3 format.

My question is regarding backing up/digitising songs that were obtained in .mp3 format in the first place.
Now probably somewhere along the line I'll be told, just get the songs again, on a CD or download them from Apple/Amazon/somewhereelselikethose. Many of the songs I'm talking about can't be got again so I'm dealing with what I've got.

I know some of the files remain in their .mp3 format as the day they were downloaded as they were all dumped on a CD/DVD in data format.
Whereas others were burned so that it became an audio disc & I no longer have the 'original' .mp3 files that I downloaded when obtaining the songs.

So what I'm asking is....in each of those two instances, in case there's a difference, how do I pull these tracks across to be part of my digital library WITHOUT having further loss in quality?

* I'm guessing with the .mp3s as data disc, I just simply drag over & leave them in their .mp3 format as they stand. But the ones burned as an audio disc....?

Neil_Jones

The way music compression works is by tossing away parts of the sound that you can't hear, and that's how the small file sizes come about.

Note that MP3 is already compressed with this fluff data thrown away so there won't be any point remaking an MP3 file at 128kbps to 192kbps - you'll just end up with a bigger file and no other gain.

Audio CD bitrate is 1,411 kilobits per second, so even at 192 you're only 10% of the space.  320Kbps may be the sweet spot.

Re: backing up - you can just drag and drop the actual MP3 files.  The audio disc you can rip to FLAC or MP3 or whatever with your favourite ripper.  MP3 will play on anything, but FLAC has (allegedly) better audio quality to the original tracks, but isn't universally supported in the playability stakes.

Heedtheadvice

You are asking for Audiophiles to comment, but can I assume you do not want responses from those audiophiles who go to extreme measures that are nonsensical? If you do, copy everything on equipment worth thousands of pounds in FLAC format ( or one or two other similar lossless formats) in at least 196kbits data rate and at least 24 bit audio depth......but you will just be wasting your time!!

Now I do not want to be picky Neil but

"The way music compression works is by tossing away parts of the sound that you can't hear, and that's how the small file sizes come about."

If that were strictly true then those really highly compressed audio tracks would sound just as good as uncompressed originals! They do not.

Mildly compresses files sound almost as good as the originals unless one has really good ears and studio quality reproduction.( my ears are no longer that good!!!)

"Audio CD bitrate is 1,411 kilobits per second, so even at 192 you're only 10% of the space.  320Kbps may be the sweet spot."

I assume that is a typo. ...44.1kHz and  16bit audio depth is standard CD quality (there are a few CDs sold with higher rates and depths mainly to those audiophiles...)

Short answer along the lines of Neil's response....

As it is a personal archive you might want to aim to not Introduce any further losses of what you already have. Flac is a lossless format but is not worth using if the original is already lossy. Copy files in their current format or if extracting from audio disk use WAV or that 320kbs mp3 depending upon what was made originally onto the audio disk. Not much to choose between them and if in doubt use wave. It is a bit better quality wise.

Set bit depth to 16bit. There is no advantage in going higher and is perfect for final recordings.

Both those file types are in very common use.

km1500

the audio disks previously created from .mp3 files should be ripped as flac to preserve what quality you have there.

If you rip them back to .mp3 you will lose even more quality.

The data .mp3s can be simply copied off.

Sea_Shell

On reading this...I've often wondered if "audiophiles" have ever had their hearing professionally assessed by an audiologist?

😉

B0bbyEwing

Heedtheadvice said:

You are asking for Audiophiles to comment, but can I assume you do not want responses from those audiophiles who go to extreme measures that are nonsensical? 

When I said audiophiles, I probably used it incorrectly. In fact I certainly did. 
What I was meaning really was - people who have an interest in backing up (again, that can be a phrase to debate, so digitising or whatever) their music collection.
As for people who have hearing that a dog could only dream of having - that's certainly not me, as the subtitles on my TV will show (I don't need-need them, they're just there as backup so that I don't annoy my wife by constantly rewinding). 

Heedtheadvice said:

Short answer along the lines of Neil's response....

As it is a personal archive you might want to aim to not Introduce any further losses of what you already have. Flac is a lossless format but is not worth using if the original is already lossy. Copy files in their current format or if extracting from audio disk use WAV or that 320kbs mp3 depending upon what was made originally onto the audio disk. Not much to choose between them and if in doubt use wave. It is a bit better quality wise.

One of the problems I have is - for the audio CDs I have where I've made a music CD from mp3s and no longer have those mp3s ... the bitrate will vary wildly. Most will be either 128 or 192 but some will be either side of these or even 160 in the middle. I've no way of remembering which file was which.

So I take that in this situation, you're saying just go with the 320kb .mp3 for everything as a play-safe.
Or .wav.


I don't see anyone having asked what equipment I use for playback but as I'm sure it'll matter - nothing fancy, at least not at the moment (& probably never).
In the car via the head unit.
On the iPod
Through the soundbar (Sonos Beam at the moment).

I don't have gatherings where I invite people to see who can hear the most different notes or whatever else. 

As for what I want - 

1) A backup, in case any of the CDs go to carp. 
2) Just all my music collection in one space (well, technically wouldn't be one as there'd be a backup but you get me)

Do I need this? No not really but how many of us only have things we need?

km1500

So I take that in this situation, you're saying just go with the 320kb .mp3 for everything as a play-safe.
Or .wav.

as I said, you should rip them to flac

Miser1964

I hope I've understood what the OP is asking! Copying .mp3, .flac, .aac files from CD/DVD into a music library won't make any changes to file so the audio quality won't change either. Typically you'll find that the artist/album/track info (metadata) encoded into the files is poor, so a music library will show loads of "Unknown" until you update the metadata and re-index.

If you're 'backing up' CD, then I strongly suggest ripping to FLAC files using a Windows program like Exact Audio Copy. FLAC is lossless so you can us it to burn an audio-CD which is an exact replica of the original CD. If you rip to MP3 then you'll lose quality which can't be recovered.

Having said that, a few years back I was quite a one for ripping CDs to a music library (circa 6TB on disk) but with unlimited streaming services like Amazon HD, I download a few dozens favourite albums to my phone to listen offline and stream music when at home. 

B0bbyEwing

Miser1964 said:

I hope I've understood what the OP is asking! Copying .mp3, .flac, .aac files from CD/DVD into a music library won't make any changes to file so the audio quality won't change either. Typically you'll find that the artist/album/track info (metadata) encoded into the files is poor, so a music library will show loads of "Unknown" until you update the metadata and re-index.

If you're 'backing up' CD, then I strongly suggest ripping to FLAC files using a Windows program like Exact Audio Copy. FLAC is lossless so you can us it to burn an audio-CD which is an exact replica of the original CD. If you rip to MP3 then you'll lose quality which can't be recovered.

Having said that, a few years back I was quite a one for ripping CDs to a music library (circa 6TB on disk) but with unlimited streaming services like Amazon HD, I download a few dozens favourite albums to my phone to listen offline and stream music when at home. 

It'll be dBpoweramp I'll be using (paid). 

Also, I'm not a fan of streaming services. I sub to Netflix but it's about the only one. When I say I'm not a fan of them - I'm not a fan of relying on them.

For content I have - I can watch or listen to whatever I want to watch or listen whenever I want to watch or listen to it.

There was something I was in to on Netflix. After being quite invested in it I noticed it was being pulled from Netflix very soon. I forget how many episodes but basically I had to cram in like 3x 1hr episodes per day every day for a good while. Addictive show but wasn't the way I wanted to watch it.

And now if I want to watch it ... I can't.

KingL2

>Or .wav.

FLAC is effectively just a (losslessly) compressed version of WAV. With FLAC, the files will be smaller, but still the same quality as the WAV.   Also, you can add tagging information to FLAC, but not WAV.

KingL2

...another option for your audio CD is to save it as an image file (e.g. .bin/.cue or .iso) - then you can play it as an audio CD in a computer without an optical drive.