From: "Dave Ings" 

My two cents:

I believe the real world difference between variable and fixed bit rates
disappears as the bit rate increases. At low encoding (storage constrained)
rates there may be some audible merit to using variable. But since I favour
simplicity over complexity, and since storage is now so cheap, I favour
fixed rate encoding at reasonably high rates.

When I ripped my entire CD library, about 4 years ago, I used 192 fixed
rate MP3. If I were doing it again today, I'd use 256 fixed rate MP3. I
don't see any value in encoding rates higher than that, especially given
the ways in which I typically listen to music.

BTW I used 192 because I could definitely hear the difference between 128
and 160, and although I couldn't hear any improvement with 192 it gave me a
margin of error. Similarly I'm not convinced 256 is actually audibly
different in most circumstances, but disk is so cheap these days why the
heck not?
--
Regards,
Dave Ings,
Toronto, Canada

"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:4421b08b{at}w3....
When ripping an audio CD to MP3 file format is it better to use constant
bitrate or variable bitrate?  What about if you are ripping to WMA file
format.  Is it better to use constant bitrate or variable bitrate?

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