What file format to rip to?

I'm getting ready to rip all my cd's and need to pick a file format. I've still got the stock head unit, but one of these days I'll upgrade. What is the best file format for sound quality and head unit support?

i would guess MP3 but that just me

ok..why are you ripping all your cd's? to put everything on one??

stock head unit won't play MP3's the burning program will have to convert to .wav format...an at that format youll only be able to fir maybe 20 songs on a disc.

I'm a big fan of MP3 because there isn't anything that doesn't work with MP3...

TType_Riviera wrote:

ok..why are you ripping all your cd's? to put everything on one??

stock head unit won't play MP3's the burning program will have to convert to .wav format...an at that format youll only be able to fir maybe 20 songs on a disc.

Yeah, I know the stock head unit won't play .mp3's. For right now, I want to have them all on my computer. My job lets me listen to music all day long and swapping cds ever 40-60 minutes is an unwelcome interruption.

I want to make sure I pick the right format so, when I do get an ipod or new head unit, I don't need to rip cd's again.

if you're riping them (going from cd to pc) then the best format is mp3. then when you burn them (pc to cd) they will be in a different format so it will play on an old fashioned cd player (its not .wav, but thats how a cd-rom is trained to rip/read audio cd's)
most new head units will play mp3's or have ipod jacks. with those you can burn ~200 songs per cd.

so the quick answer is .mp3 @ 320kbps 44.1khz

I'd recommend both AIFF and MP3. If you have a lot of songs like I do, you want to store them in a compact format so they don't take up lots of HD space. MP3s are best for storing tracks on a HD, and sound great if converted at 192kbps or higher. Note that not all converters are equal. Use something that's proven like iTunes.

When you want to make a mix CD for your car, you can form a play list and convert the selected MP3s into AIFF format, which is uncompressed (large files), but will play on your car's CD player. iTunes features AIFF conversion. Using this method, you do lose a small level of quality when converting to MP3, and you don't get it back when going to AIFF, but it's not noticeable to human ears, at least not mine.

If you want absolutely no loss in quality, skip MP3 and convert direct to AIFF, but you'd better have about 3 TB of storage if you want to keep a large collection.

Jack the R wrote:

TType_Riviera wrote:

ok..why are you ripping all your cd's? to put everything on one??

stock head unit won't play MP3's the burning program will have to convert to .wav format...an at that format youll only be able to fir maybe 20 songs on a disc.

Yeah, I know the stock head unit won't play .mp3's. For right now, I want to have them all on my computer. My job lets me listen to music all day long and swapping cds ever 40-60 minutes is an unwelcome interruption.

I want to make sure I pick the right format so, when I do get an ipod or new head unit, I don't need to rip cd's again.

ahhh, i understand... I always thought they got converted to a .wav format... and i don' know why..lol but yeah what they said!!

.wav is a less compleate conversion then mp3 mp4 is also a good conversion but good luck finding something that will play it both on your computer and car some mp3 converters alow the songs to be converted into the tracks they were recorded as usually 4-8 per song and also usually on more diy bands that dont compress the song into one main track at the end alows for editing and pulling sound bytes off the song (if your into that kinda thing)

I tried putting a CD-RW into my stock head unit and got the E20 error message. Do I just need to reformat the disk or will the old head units not play CD-RW?

I recently burned a cd-r with mp3s and it plays great on my rivs stock cd player.

It plays CD's that I have bought but trying to play a burned CD it comes up with the error. What burning software dis you use?

woggy wrote:

I recently burned a cd-r with mp3s and it plays great on my rivs stock cd player.

The software automatically converted your mp3 files into .wav (right before burning it) so that your cd player can play it. That's pretty much why Nero and other burning software even has the option of burning an "Audio" disc.

So is there anyway to play a burned CD on my stock unit or would I just have to put a new unit in there

Jack the R wrote:

I'm getting ready to rip all my cd's and need to pick a file format. I've still got the stock head unit, but one of these days I'll upgrade. What is the best file format for sound quality and head unit support?

This depends on literally how you'll be listening to the music. If you will solely be using the built-in mp3 player on the new head unit (via cd's that you've burnt), then like others said, 192kbps-320kbps mp3 files. Built in Windows media player can do this if you set it that way in the options.

If you have a decent collection of music on cd's that you want to listen to, however, I would recommend using a separate mas storage player like an iPod. There are others but the iPod is very solid and even more importantly to this case and mine, CONSISTENT!

I would use my IPOD right now but there isn't an Aux input on the stereo.

crosss3 wrote:

So is there anyway to play a burned CD on my stock unit or would I just have to put a new unit in there

It will play CDR's. I didn't have my stock deck in the car long enough to do a lot of experimenting with different discs but it may be picky about which brands it will read. It might just not like the rewritable discs.

I never thought of that. Thanks.

crosss3 wrote:

So is there anyway to play a burned CD on my stock unit or would I just have to put a new unit in there

I usually use the windows burning utility to burn mp3s. try burning a cd-r with it and see if it works.