That’s right, the capital “A” Audiophile in me made me reconsider how I rip CDs into the digital MP3 format. At lunch today I did a little looking around at the current ripping/encoding systems available for the PC. After a little deliberation, I have found that there are two tools that are considering the audiophile standard for digital music. First is Exact Audio Copy (EAC), a ripper that I find better than they venerable CDex, due in part to EAC’s sophisticated error checking and error recovery methods.

Further, I found that the choice encoder is (as it has always been) LAME (LAME Isn’t an MP3 Encoder). However, earlier this year someone tweaked version 3.90.3 of LAME for ever finer audio reproduction. There are a couple of presets in LAME now called “Alt Presets”. The most popular of these presets is “Alt Preset Standard”. This makes a stereo, approximately 256kbps variable-bit-rate MP3 file of exquisite quality. The filesize is a little larger over that of my previous modus-encoderi of stereo 192kbps constant-bit-rate, but the quality of the music is much better (at least in headphones).

I did a little comparative testing with my brand-spanking-new copy of Interpol‘s newest album, Antics. The results were, to my ears, astounding. I’ve heard stereo 256kbps VBR and I ain’t going back!

On a side note, I should mention that Antics is a really awesome album — much like their previous hailed effort Turn on the Bright Lights, it might require a few listenings for it to sink in. However, after it has sunk in, you’ll be hard pressed to not hum their solid rhythms to yourself, while secretly wishing it was snowing outside. File under: Winter music.