Is the bit rate i`m using to rip my reggae tunes right?

[Dubs_West]

Ok my bredrins i`ve been transferring most of my reggae cassette collection to cd`s via the cd audio recorder and cassette deck method with jacks.Anyway im ripping my music into windows media player with a bit rate of 192kbps in mp3 format.I want to play my tunes on big sound systems do you think the sound quality will be good.Give thanks and praise

[Matthew]

"I want to play my tunes on big sound systems"
Go with 320 kbps then.

[Alhazred]

MP3 will cut frequencies over 16khz. If you want to play them on a big sound-system, keep wave files or convert to Flac but not mp3.

[rasdragon]

If you are compiling to CD, then the CD will cut the frequencies over 16khz anyways. I agree with alhazred if you are keeping them digital then fe sure flac or wav! I would if going to mp3 use the VBR settings of --alt-preset extreme in the razor lame gui. All are open source, so you can find it all on the net.

[matty]

don't put it on the net, keep it rare, if it's rare, if not it doesn't matter.

[kukuman]

the cutoff frequency for a CD (with a 44.1 kHz rate) is actually about 21 kHz, give or take a few hundred Hz. The cutoff frequency for an MP3 depends on the bitrate and whether it was encoded VBR (variable bit rate) or CBR (constant bit rate). The best quality/space ratio is with VBR rips, especially the V2 setting of the newer versions of LAME. However, you say you are ripping cassettes, so 192 kbits is just fine.

"Keeping it rare" benefits nobody but wealthy record collectors.

[bullit]

Make sure you make frequent backups on a seperate hard drive in case something goes wrong.

[leggo rocker]

Make sure you make frequent backups on a seperate hard drive in case something goes wrong.

Yes, agreed. In fact I keep multiple backups on external drives of anything I REALLY don't want to lose. HDs do fail, and CDRs are not very reliable as back ups.

[ACEtone]

Good question. If you're committed to mp3 for whatever reason i agree with Matthew - 320kbps which i think is as high as the encoder goes.
If you really want to match the quality of the tape stuff and have the hard disc space to save the files and work off I would say, please, wave, aiff, flac or whatever. From those you can make mp3s to your hearts content. But doing all of that work you should save to the best highest quality format.
So when you get all of those giant files ripped, burn archive CDs or DVDs and free up some disk space.

As to the 'keeping it rare' bit. Elitism in any form is nauseating. And wrong minded.

I'm sure Matty has his good moments, but this is not one of them!

here's a link to a bunch of 45s I ripped to mp3 - can't remember the details though...
Frankly I have no idea what is rare or otherwise. i know what I like...
http://acetonestudio.blogspot.com/2008/ ... a-45s.html

[Guest]

nice contribution ACEtone!I've checked your blog and appreciated a lot its consciousness contents.

nuff respect

As to the 'keeping it rare' bit. Elitism in any form is nauseating. And wrong minded.

we are the keepers of a culture, it means we have to protect it and spread it. I've never understood how someone can believe to serve the cause keeping secretly part of this culture.