There is no doubt that the mp3 (MPEG I Layer III) digital audio compression format is the most universal and popular form of reducing large audio files to much more manageable file sizes. Since mp3 is a lossy compression scheme, our goal is to produce a compressed audio file that sounds as faithful to the original as possible. Encoding audio CDs is not difficult, but choosing the method and tools required to result in the best sounding mp3 can be a challenge. Let’s look at the easiest way to convert your CD collection to outstanding mp3s.

It is a fact that you will encounter lots of jargon when setting up various options in any encoding software. These include CBR, (Constant bitrate), VBR, (Variable bitrate), ABR, (Average bitrate), Stereo, Joint Stereo or J-Stereo, Encoder, Decoder and others.

There are two steps to converting an audio track from a CD to mp3. The first is to extract or “rip” the audio track from the CD to the hard drive. The second is to encode the extracted file to mp3. For our purpose, we will use an application that combines the two steps into one without any loss of audio quality.

CDex a free, open source high quality CD ripper, , has several mp3 encoders included in the package. The default encoder in CDex is LAME which is also open source and is considered to be the absolute best mp3 encoder available.

First install CDex.

If, during installation, CDex complains that it failed to load the wnaspi32.dll driver and asks to use another driver option instead, click Yes and continue until the installation is complete.

Now let’s configure our settings for optimal quality mp3s. Click Options on the toolbar, then in the drop down menu click Settings. This is the menu you will see.

First click the Filename tab. The two items to take note of here are the WAV -> MP3 field and Recorded Tracks field. Set the paths to the folder where your mp3 files will reside when encoding is complete. You may set the Filename Format as desired.

Now click the Remote CDDB tab. Enter an email addre4ss in the Your Email Address field. Anything with an @ will do. I used a@b.net. Next, put a checkmark in the Auto connect to remote CDDB checkbox. If you are online, CDDB will connect to it’s database site and automagically fill in the song titles and genre for each audio track when you insert a CD into your CD drive.

Now click the Encoder tab. Find the dropdown menu next to the word Quality. Select –alt-preset standard. For (possibly) slightly better quality with a larger file size you may opt for –alt-preset extreme. That’s it! Selecting one of those two presets configured all the rest of the settings on that page. Those presets instruct LAME to encode using VBR in Joint Stereo These presets have been finely tuned.

The Settings tabs that I covered here are the important ones. You may want to peruse the Settings tabs that I didn’t cover just to see what they are. Next click Ok and exit Settings

Next, insert an audio CD into your CD drive. If you are connected to the internet, CDDB will launch and identify your CD and fill in the track titles for you. Just select (highlight in blue) the tracks you want to rip and click the appropriate icon on the right hand side of CDex to start the rip/encode process.

Happy ripping!