what is the best music format(mp3,wav,etc)

i want to change my mp3's to something that might sound better but i dont want it to take like 5x as much space

I've always found MP3-VBR (Variable Bit Rate) to be the "best" format. Almost all music players support it, and it's simple to rip to (using CDex).

If you've already got MP3s, then converting them to another file format won't increase their quality. In fact, you'll probably end up with worse sounding music if you convert from one format to the other.

I've heard that Vorbis (.ogg) files will give you good quality for space. You might want to look into that.

i was thinking of ogg. what if i decompressed the mp3's to wave then encoded it to something else? or would that still not help

It still wouldn't help.

Think about it from an information (i.e. info = quality) point of view. The MP3s you have contain a certain amount of information. Putting that info into a larger storage container isn't going to increase the amount of information you have.

You're either stuck with keeping your collection as it is, or re-ripping it at a higher quality. With VBR settings in CDex, a 70min CD comes out at 80-100MB for me, and I've never been able to tell the difference between that and the CD.

A mp3 is a compressed music format. A lot of music data (mainly audio the human ear can't detect) was stripped and compressed when it was made into mp3. The extra quality you are trying to get back can only be achieved by getting it from an original uncompressed source (wav, cd , etc). If you change a mp3 to wave the lost data will not come back.

Bottom line if you convert to mp3... leave it alone. Like a VHS tape....it just gets worse the more you mess with it.

ya i understand now, i did some resaerch on it

what is the best music format(mp3,wav,etc)

i want to change my mp3's to something that might sound better but i dont want it to take like 5x as much space

I woud say use OggVorbis aoTuv quality 0.5 for possibly one of the best quality/ size compromise.

Otherwise try Aac or Musepack.

http://www.rarewares.org/ogg.html

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php

Of course converting from a lossy format will never improve quality.

Edited August 16, 200521 yr by eidenk

FLAC is good for archiving music collections but the files are probably too big and incompatible to play on a portable audio player. If you have a large hard drive have a look into using a lossless encoder like FLAC as they are much smaller than uncompressed audio but none of the quality is lost like it is with mp3.

Yeah, you are pretty much stuck there. You can't make them sound better. Try the FLAC encoding from the original CDs. ogg is also good. And if you do use mp3, try the LAME encoder. Highly recommended as the best. You shoud also use CDex or EAC

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/