I’m currently in the process of transferring my CD collection into digital format for use with my Squeezebox. This is a major project when you own around 300 CDs..

Ripping CDs, but to what format? ================================

I did some thinking and evaluation before choosing format for the storage of my CDs in digital format;

Ogg Vorbis

Ogg Vorbis was one of the alternatives. It is patent free, which would fit my free software background. There are a whole bunch of devices supporting it, but with the SO buying a new mp3 player that didn’t support Ogg, and the Squeezebox only half-supporting it, Ogg was unfortunately not an alternative.

FLAC

FLAC were another alternative. Free, and also lossless - the thought of actually storing the CDs without loss of data was tempting. Again, it fell on compatibility. Finding devices such as mp3 players and car audio equipment.

One option would have been to store as FLAC and then recode everything to mp3, possibly on demand, but I demeed that out as too much work with little gain.

MP3

So, as you might have guessed, for compatibility, I choose to rip my CDs to mp3. I’m using the LAME encoder with the best quality variable bitrate (VBR) encoding. According to the Hydrogen Audio Wiki, LAME has the best VBR encoder out there.

The resulting MP3’s play directly on the Squeezebox hardware without problems, and works as intended in the SO’s mp3 player as well.