I use a program called EAC which rips my audio CD’s to the hard drive as an .wav.
Then I use a program call LAME to compress the .wav into an .mp3

For a more detailed explanation and for all those who are interested in audio compression (mp3, m4a, ogg etc) check out

www.hydrogenaudio.org

How does everyone here compress their music?

I just rip my CDs to WMA files using Windows Media Player.. Then burn them to an audio CD using Nero... I tend to find as well that the burned WMA files actually work in a normal CD player as well which is good.

My MP3 player plays WMA (Windows Media Audio) files as well, so no need for long winded MP3 conversion, as WMAs tend to be better quality in the long run.

Originally posted by chri5
I use a program called EAC which rips my audio CD’s to the hard drive as an .wav.
Then I use a program call LAME to compress the .wav into an .mp3

For a more detailed explanation and for all those who are interested in audio compression (mp3, m4a, ogg etc) check out

www.hydrogenaudio.org

How does everyone here compress their music?

Yes, going to .wav first is much nicer.

I now encode using 320Kbps (MP3), not using VBR.

HDD space is not an issue for me, so I refuse to use crappy 192 (which I used to use). However, the real Kbps for CDs is around 1,411, way off the maximum setting of 320.

When I 'really' want to listen to music, I'll do it on my CD player through my AVR.

However, if at the computer, then the 320Kbps MP3s sound adequate, but by no means perfect.

BTW: I never use a CD burner to copy music CDs - as transfering them to MP3 make the (soon-to-be-new) CDs sound compressed - even at 320. I use the CD Recorder that we got a while back.

:)

whats the big deal about ripping to wav first, it's just an intermediary step that can be skipped.

I use audigrabber, it has an option to compress on the fly and modern pc's are more than capable of doing that so I use it.
I go with joint stereo variable bit rate 192kbs average.

I agree that ripping to wav first is a pain but EAC rips differently to Audiograbber. The results are IMO more accurate and it tells you if it had trouble with any sectors on the CD and exactly where they occurred.

The process isn't that painful though as EAC calls the external compressor from within while it rips so it's all done in one take.

in what way is it different?

Mainly in the error correction system. EAC can be tuned to your particular CD-ROM drive. More details and arguments can be found on hydrogenaudio.org.