MP3 Capacities

[YamaGeezer]

Those of you who use MP3 players on your bike - could you answer a question for someone (I won't mention any names, but, yes, it's actually me) who doesn't know anything about this new-fangled electronics stuff.....

 

I bought a 8G MP3 player. I understand that they sound best if you rip your music straight from CDs at a minimum 160 Bitrate. I own approx. 115 CDs, and according to the info I got with the player, it should hold them all.

 

I've started ripping the CDs to the computer using the highest quality, constant bitrate of 320. I'm approximately half way through and the computer says my music file is already well over 10G!

 

Do I have to rip the CDs at something less than the highest quality? I figure with the speakers on my Venture, I'll need the best sounding music I can get. Is using a Constant Bitrate the problem or is the 320 the problem. I don't want to have to delete everything I've already ripped because it's been extremely time consuming.

 

Thanks for any info.....

[BradT]

I guess you should have oght one of those 20 or 80 gig units.

 

I have not ripped any CDs but I assume it was because of the quality you ripped them at. That is a lot of music which will take you all year to listen too.

 

Sure someone else will pipe in, with a real answer.

 

Brad

[dray]

i did the same thing but when i was done i deleted all the songs i didnt want and then i made up playlist i have a few thousand songs in mine and its only half full its an 8Gig. that i have good luck with it

[Freebird]

I'm not sure what quality I used but it must have been less. I have about 100 complete CDS and used a little less than 8 GB. It sounds great.

[friesman]

I have an 8 gig mp3 player I just bought from circuit city. Most of my music is at 128 mb and almost cant fill my 8 gig player up. the size goes up exponentially with the bitrate and on the bike I figured you wouldnt be able to hear the clarity of a higher rate anyway with the wind and traffic noise. If I remember correctly, (and at my age I may be wrong) most cd's are around 140 bitrate.

I listen to my mp3 player thru a cassette adapter which gives me quite a lot better sound than when I used an fm transmitter to my radio.

 

Brian:cool10:

[Sunman]

Those of you who use MP3 players on your bike - could you answer a question for someone (I won't mention any names, but, yes, it's actually me) who doesn't know anything about this new-fangled electronics stuff.....

 

I bought a 8G MP3 player. I understand that they sound best if you rip your music straight from CDs at a minimum 160 Bitrate. I own approx. 115 CDs, and according to the info I got with the player, it should hold them all.

 

I've started ripping the CDs to the computer using the highest quality, constant bitrate of 320. I'm approximately half way through and the computer says my music file is already well over 10G!

 

Do I have to rip the CDs at something less than the highest quality? I figure with the speakers on my Venture, I'll need the best sounding music I can get. Is using a Constant Bitrate the problem or is the 320 the problem. I don't want to have to delete everything I've already ripped because it's been extremely time consuming.

 

Thanks for any info.....

 

If I may suggest, ripping at anything over 128 kb, is a waste of space. CD quality is approx 44,100 khz, ripping at higher than that, serves no purpose. Think of it this way, if you take a cassette tape, and record it on a CD, does it become CD quality? No, it is just a CD copy of a cassette original, preserving a cassette quality sound, on a CD, using much more space. With the limitations of analog speakers, my personal opinion is, recording at 96 kb, is more than sufficient. The signal loss will be negligible, but the reclaimed space will be very noticable. What I may suggest, if you are finding quality issues with your CD's is to run them through one of many sound processors to remove clicks and pops, hiss etc. On average, most MP3's of excellent quality, are "approx" 1 meg per minute, with an 8 gig drive, you should be able to fit around 8000 min, or 2000 average songs. That is alot of music. To put it in perspective, if you had 2000 songs on your MP3 player, and hit play, you could listen to it for 5.5 days STRAIGHT, and never hear the same song twice!

:dancefool:

[rjmalizia]

If I may suggest, ripping at anything over 128 kb, is a waste of space. ...you could listen to it for 5.5 days STRAIGHT, and never hear the same song twice!/quote]

 

 

Agreed...i dont' know about your ears, but going down the road at anything more than 20mph...the bit rate really isn't going to matter. So unless you have some fancy Bose head phones, I woundn't waste the disk space.

 

Oh...and another point, as in my case, my 2 gig nano, may hold 20+ hours of music...but the battery will only hang in there for 8 hours (and that was went it was brand new).

 

Good luck in your quest.

 

[KeithR]

I use a program called Sonicstage by Sony....they use a compression method called ATRAC (http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/overview/index.html) and they claim no loss of quality with compression.....any time you see an ad showing that their players can hold a large amount of tracks is with the use of ATRAC compression

 

You can change the bit rate but I use 64 and have no problem with sound quality at all. Ripping at 320 will use up a lot of space and I believe 128 is suppose to be CD quality.

 

You can download the program at this link....you will have to try it with your player I'm not sure if it works with all types

 

http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7

 

Its a fairly simple program to use but if you need any help get in touch!

Edited May 9, 2008 by KeithR

[spear]

Some good advice here. I rip using Windows Media Player @ 128.

I have a 4GB clone of an Apple iPod that I clip on to my key tag, and plug into the auxiliary socket next to the tape deck. Ride for hours and hours and listen to some damned good rock. Lotta Pink Floyd and Deep Purple in there.

Damn - I feel like another ride just to listen to that rock again.

[DNBoll]

I have a seperate hard drive that I down load all CD's & photos on. I use full settings or original. Anytime you compress a file, you will loose info. What you intend on using the file for is a different issue. If you just want something to listen to while cruising down the road at a deceint clip, mp3 format is perfect (industry standard). If you are sitting in front of the stereo or producing a DVD, you'll need the higher quality. I just convert the files to what ever I need. All my ipod music is mp3 and works well. Better than your normal radio sound. I performed the cassette removal "post" with a dedicated aux cable so that my ipod fits nicely behind the closed cassette door. DNB

[firewalker]

I rip all of mine at a variable bit rate setting that way you still get good quality but it does not take up as much space....I did all 400+ of my CDs, used 2 CD drives in my computer and still took a week or so, luckily I was on Christmas Break and had the time....averages around 100MB or less per CD.

[jarrejx]

I use a program called Sonicstage by Sony....they use a compression method called ATRAC (http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/overview/index.html) and they claim no loss of quality with compression.....any time you see an ad showing that their players can hold a large amount of tracks is with the use of ATRAC compression

 

You can change the bit rate but I use 64 and have no problem with sound quality at all. Ripping at 320 will use up a lot of space and I believe 128 is suppose to be CD quality.

 

You can download the program at this link....you will have to try it with your player I'm not sure if it works with all types

 

http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7

 

Its a fairly simple program to use but if you need any help get in touch!

 

I can attest to the compression quality of the Sony Sonicstage program. I have a 40GB Sony Vaio which I have currently downloaded exactly 150 CDs onto. (a total of 1297 songs). The ATRAC compression program has only used 4.17 GB on the player and the sound quality is slamming. As Keith said, you will have to determine if the program is compatible w/ your MP3 player, though.

[GigaWhiskey]

using variable instead of constant should get you a smaller file size. I would not think that you would loose enough quality to matter. You can always rip the same song both ways and then take a listen.

 

Oh, firewalker already hit this, oh well.

[stardbog]

I have iPod Nano 1 GB and hold about 240 songs in AAC format wich is compare to mp3 192 bit, put those songs on shuffle and you'll never notice to some song is playing twice a day.

[YamaGeezer]

Wow - great info here. I'm liking this Zen player alot. Now that I've been edumacated, I'll get all my music on 'er.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Carl "YamaGeezer"