Audiophiles, take note: Did you know that there is a world outside of iTunes when it comes to ripping your CDs? Instead of simply using iTunes to import your music, you can download LAME (the worst name for the coolest download). I can't say I've ever noticed, but apparently you lose a bit of the sound quality when you rip to iTunes, whereas LAME is a "loss-less" encoder, so you retain the sound quality when you convert your tunes to MP3s.
Available for Linux, Windows, Mac, after you download LAME, you'll have to open it when you want to rip a CD, but you will still be able to use iTunes to listen to it. Sit back with your favorite album and a glass of wine to enjoy this generation's version of snaps, crackles, and pops!
Shudoo
Calvin Klein
Nuovegioie
i've heard about LAME. i'll give it a try, not that i have any CDs to rip. but whatever.
1FYI, LAME is *not* lossless. In order to be lossless compression, it has to be able to be converted back to an uncompressed file identical to what you started with. That leaves Apple Lossless and FLAC (for the most part). LAME is an MP3 encoder, and all MP3 files are lossy compression. However, the virtues of LAME are that it seems to do a much better job not getting rid of things you want to keep and still shrinking file size. In other words, a great MP3 encoder - but not lossless by any means. MP3 is roughly 5:1 lossy, FLAC and ALAC are roughly 2:1 lossless. For a LAME MP3, you'll get smaller file size but lose some of the original quality permanently. FLAC and ALAC will retain all of the original quality, but the file size will shrink only by half instead of 80%. Hope that is helpful...
2Downloaded, will try it out.
3dude i always forget to do this, i always do cruddy aac or mp3. looks like i need to re-encode liza minelli's greatest hits.
4I'm lame! LOL I downloaded this a long time ago and never figured out how to use it!
5If you are really concerned about backing up the music with the highest quality (think classical music, rare etc), you should use FLAC -- Free Lossless Audio Codec.
6You could use any of the umpteen CD ripping tools to get the raw wav out and then encode them to FLAC -- save space and not lose quality.
If you want to learn more -- http://flac.sourceforge.net/
too bad i ripped all my CDs years ago and haven't bought one in about 4 years. this is cool though, for when i get an album from Folk Fest next month.
7Thanks for the tip nidgood.
8Lame and iTunes both encode mp3. All mp3's are lossy regardless of encoder. It is generally accepted that Lame can encode more efficiently at lower bitrates thus yeilding better quality sound per bit rate than iTunes mp3 encoder.
9Also, there is no need to go and re-encode your entire CD collection because this article tells you to. If it still sounds just as good as the CD to you then leave it as it is. Mp3s from about 224kbps using most encoders (Blade excluded) will sound transparent (same as the CD to most ears).
For lossless audio, none of the original audio signal is lost and on playback, they are bit for bit perfect reproductions of your CDs.
Flac and Apple lossless (encluded in iTunes) are lossless.
Mp3, AAC, Wma etc are lossy, yield smaller bit rates and removes small components of sound information to achieve their small size.
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