[cromag]

Back when I got my first MP3 player in 2002 memory was expensive. In order to make the most of the available space I ripped my CDs to MP3s at 128kbps. At that rate the song files were fairly small and sound quality was good, but I could hear the difference between the MP3 and the original CD.

These days space is less of a concern. I usually rip MP3s at a variable rate of around 256kbps. The song files are larger but the music quality is very, very good. I have a very difficult time telling the MP3 from the CD -- if I can do it at all.

I also rip CDs to an external drive. I rip to the uncompressed, lossless WAV format -- mostly because I always have, and WAV is still a little better supported than FLAC. FLAC files are smaller than WAV files, and both are lossless, but large capacity hard drives are much less expensive than they used to be.


I use Firefox and I'm interested in seeing how FLAC will be supported. I don't think it's going to make any difference to how I store music, but I'm assuming it will offer better quality streaming music -- at the cost of additional bandwidth.


BTW, just to keep this semi on topic, I also listen to spoken-word podcasts. For these, MP3s at 64kbps is more than "good enough." I assume that would also be the case for most audiobooks. So, if you listened to a streaming audiobook, FLAC would give a much higher quality sound, but I really think it would be overkill.