Im sure people asked this a few times, but I was looking for an actual advice...

I downloaded MusicMatch Jukebox and was disappointed by its file naming options (artist, album, etc) when you rip a cd, as I think its a pain to go through file by file renaming them the way you want. I remember an older version where you could place tags (%a, %n) to sort out the names. The other options seemed fine.

Then I got Media Jukebox, which has some better naming options, and the possibility to choose between CDDB and YADB databases. Its a 30 day trial software, then you have to pay U$25 for a liscense, or find a way around it. It placed the ID3v1 tags fine, but it didn't place any ID3v2 tag (composer i think). It doesnt seem as professional as MusicMatch Jukebox, though.

Are there better options than those two? Any feedback would be appreciated.

There are quite a few... try these links
Download.com
Nero
WinAmp
Real One

Ogg is not lossless.

I recommend...

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

... setup to use the Lame binary as an external encoder.

[edit]
Of course if you're worried about the recent speculation about the licensing changes for MP3 decoders..,

You can always setup EAC to encode to Ogg. Quality level 6 (-q 6) seems to create transparent copies.
[/edit]

Very good choice.

1) Lame and EAC are both 100% free.
2) EAC gives much better quality than MusicMath or any other ripper.
3) Lame is the best quality and one of the fastest encoder.


I recommend to use --r3mix preset with Lame to produce high quality VBR mp3 files.

Very bad choice.

But, no offence, that's just my personal opinion. I've "trained" my ears so that I am able to notice the difference between it and --alt-preset standard.

FYI, in the next version of Lame, --alt-preset and several of the other switches will be merged into --presets.

I won't go into the "r3mix switch and website" are outdated stuff again. Just a link to a list of alternative settings, so that everyone can pick which best suits them. Read here.

Thanks BPMax and Antaeogo
for your suggestions... I have downloaded both products and will be checking them out

Why don't you try to rip your music in to the ogg vorbis format. The files will then have the extension *.ogg.

Ogg Vorbis is better than the mp3-format in some ways. I find three reasons for this:

* Convenient size of the files.
* Better sound quality.
* Ogg Vorbis is free. The source code is free, therefore it is difficult to stop Ogg Vorbis or implement licens fees.


See more at www.vorbis.com. Where you also can download software.

To rip CD:s I use linux and the software called GRIP. I can set all necessary parameters for filenames etc.

thanks guys for the input

ive been using EAC + Lame high quality, but i didnt like the size of the files very much. i still need to make some tests to see whats the best options for my ears.

i used to think 128kbps was a fine rate, but reading some posts here i found out that it isnt true. but its a shame to see 3mb musics suddenly turning into 6mb using the high quality combo above (the r3mix one). i noticed something strange when hearing the musics later, the kbps rate shown in winamp kept changing, and i have 550kbps mp3s now O_O (the kbps rate that WinXP shows in the folder). is these things normal? they sound way better than they did, despite some clicks (very scratched cds).

ill do some tests with this ogg too , lets see if i can notice any difference.

If file size is a concern, and you're willing to sacrifice quality or are unable to notice the difference, consider using a different switch. APS is designed to achieve transparent quality. r3mix was designed to make mp3s that sounded "perfect" to its' creator. Both with little regard for saving disk space.

--alt-preset standard -Y and --alt-preset fast standard both offer slightly lower bitrates in comparison to plain old --alt-preset standard. I've not done any comparitive tests, so I can't speak much about the resulting file sizes.

Or you can create mp3 files with an average bitrate (ABR), using the --alt-preset switch. Example:

--alt-preset 160

This will usually produce an mp3 file with similar/equal quality but uses less disk space than it's CBR counterpart.

That's because your making MP3 files with a variable, instead of a constant, bitrate.

That's just Windows Explorer/whatever improperly calculating the bitrate.

Yes.

Please do share how things turn out for you. Especially with ogg.