Converting mp3 to Atrac3plus

[TriggerHappy101]

I hear Atrac3plus provides better quailty at a lower bitrate. I have a Mp3/atrac3plus cd player and I want to convert my music to atrac3plus. Know of a program that will convert my mp3s but preserve the sound quailty to a T? Thanks.

 

[0roo0roo]

space is too cheap to worry about a tiny change in bitrate. atrac is no better than say apples aac or windows media files. there is no conversion of lossy files without recompression. you are going to photocopy a photocopy. assuming both are from cd source sure, a 128kbs atrac 3 probably will beat out a 128kbs mp3, but its not really worth the trouble. its easier to rip the cd once at 160-192kbs or vbr and have it be universal in all players.

 

[TriggerHappy101]

The main reason why I want to convert it to Atrac3plus is because of the skip protection. I will be using my CD player while I working and its under alot of abuse of being bumped around. The lower the bit rate means less data has to travel from the CD to the player and can hold more in memory.

I also have about 30 CDs I am going to rip to atrac3plus...

But after reading this from wikipedia it makes me wonder...

"Tests conducted in-house by Sony found ATRAC3plus at 64 kbit/s to be equal in subjective sound quality to MP3 at 128 kbit/s. However, this testing may have been biased in the choice of test material. Double-blind tests have generally found other versions of ATRAC to be inferior to most modern codecs (MP3, AAC, Vorbis), raising even more doubt about the validity of Sony's ATRAC3plus claims.

To convert audio to ATRAC3plus you need Sony's SonicStage software, which is provided with Sony digital audio players. It is also downloadable from Sony."

 

[TriggerHappy101]

I think ill just stick with Mp3's....

I havent converted CDs to MP3s in like 6 years. lol

Could someone give me a link to a free program that is really good at converting CD to Mp3?

Thanks.

 

[Slick5150]

Exact Audio Copy

Use the Lame codec @ Standard VBR quality

 

[TriggerHappy101]

thanks dude.

 

[Ika]

i've compared atrac3 and mp3 myself (both at 128), and I can tell you that they sound almost exactly the same. the atrac3 sound may have had a little better quality, but it was nothing noticeable at normal volumes.

 

[0roo0roo]

yup eac+ lame is the best
and yea 64kbs is "optimistic" to say theleast. mp3 pro(deadformat) claimed the same thing. converting 30 cds is work, and not something i'd want to do again anytime soon. no point tying yourself to sony, no one else is going to support atrac thats for sure. use one of the alt presets for the lame codec. google it up. i use -alt preset extreme http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusicclassical/vbr-encoding.htm#ch6

 

[TriggerHappy101]

I have some MP3s that are to high of bitrate (320.)

WHat program can I use to bring them down to 192?

Does "Exact Audio Copy" do it?


Thanks.

 

[Slick5150]

You do not want to recompress an MP3 to a different bitrate. Compressing it to MP3 the first time is going to lose a certain amount of quality, though if done properly, should be largely unnoticable. However, if you then recompress it again, you're going to be suffering.

Also, you don't want to be using ANY fixed bit rate (320, 192, or otherwise). You want to use VBR (variable bit rate), where the bitrate is constantly changing throughout the song based on how much bitrate that particular moment of the song needs to maintain the highest quality sound.

Just use the -alt preset standard (or extreme if you really want) keys within EAC + Lame codec

 

[TriggerHappy101]

oh.... will my portable Mp3 CD player like VBR bit rates?

 

[Slick5150]

Portable MP3 players should have no problem with VBR

 

[TriggerHappy101]

okay thanks.

 

[gorcorps]

It boggles the mind how some people can stand such low quality music just to save space. But I guess I'm just picky.

 

[TriggerHappy101]

First of all, 192 isnt "low quailty" for headphones. And the reason why I am going for a lower bit rate compared to 320 is because of Skip protection - not to save 5 cents on a CD-R

 

[0roo0roo]

you should really think about getting a flash/hd based mp3 player. they are so cheap these days
lugging around a huge cd player can't be fun

 

[BenSkywalker]

First of all, 192 isnt "low quailty" for headphones.

Depending on the cans it can be extremely low quality.

 

[TriggerHappy101]

you should really think about getting a flash/hd based mp3 player. they are so cheap these days
lugging around a huge cd player can't be fun

Why would I want to pay 100 dollars for a 1 gig Mp3 player when i can buy a 30 dollar CD player and put a 5 cents 700mb CD into it and change it out with other CDs? I use my CD player for 8 hours a day, I need varaitiy.

Depending on the cans it can be extremely low quality.

Cans?

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: TriggerHappy101

you should really think about getting a flash/hd based mp3 player. they are so cheap these days
lugging around a huge cd player can't be fun

Why would I want to pay 100 dollars for a 1 gig Mp3 player when i can buy a 30 dollar CD player and put a 5 cents 700mb CD into it and change it out with other CDs? I use my CD player for 8 hours a day, I need varaitiy.

Depending on the cans it can be extremely low quality.

Cans?

Cans are a term to describe headphones, usually the big ones that go over your ear but the term is used pretty much anywhere.

The hardware you're using has a ton to do with how much you can hear. If you use the headphones your cd player, or mp3 player, or whatever comes with you're screwing yourself out of a really good listening experience. You don't have to go out and drop hundreds on the top of the line to hear your music well either. Shure e2cs are great little earbuds that will show you the difference between low quality and high quality music.

 

[TriggerHappy101]

Im not using the headphones that came with the CD player.

I got some decent 20 dollar ones. Nothing special - but they are good enough.

 

[0roo0roo]

when he says "cans" he's talking 150+ dollar headphones. so don't worry about it. even with those most people would fail a blind A B test.