Windows 7 - Question about getting best quality files off a CD

so i have a really high quality CD with .cda files on it.

windows media player lets me rip them as WAV and high quality mp3s at 192kbps.

can these .cda's be ripped to anything genuinely? like if i had a program that could rip to FLAC, would it really be FLAC?

i know you cant convert these things to anything genuine except for what it was from the start. except in a declining order of quality.

whats a good program to get FLAC files off this CD?

WAVs are every bit as good as FLAC. Both are lossless.

You could convert them from WAV to FLAC, but I don't know why you would other than to save space.

I'm not sure what you mean by "I know you can't convert these things to anything genuine...". If you convert a WAV to an MP3, it's a genuine MP3, etc.

I can't name a program that will rip directly to FLAC, but there may be some. The easiest thing for you is to rip to WAV and then convert to FLAC if you must.

When you rip as a wav file, that is "full fidelity" and "CD Quality" the same as what the commercial red book CD audio quality is.

what i meant was you can't convert like, lower quality to higher quality ... like it would have the extension but none of the other properties.
Ok im probably going to rip the .cda's to .wav, but i want a higher bitrate than what windows mediaplayer offers...

awesome! thank you, i like the term "full fidelity" so is bit rate the same way?

since in windows mediaplayer i only the option for 190kbps does that mean that THATS the bit rate of the file on the CD?

or is bitrate variable. ... like here i guess to put it in understandable terms (i'm new to this stuff)

uhh if you raise the bitrate of a .wav from 190kbps to 320kbps is that... a real/genuine/same qaulity as a 320kbps .wav?

is the bitrate of the .wav the bitrate of that .wav forever? the bitrate it was recorded in?
or will bitrate differences be noticeable if raised using a program.

analogously, if you (idk why anyone would) take a .wav with a bitrate of 320kbps and lower it to 190kbps .... what happens? lol nothing?

thanks guys.

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so now i am okay with just ripping the .cda to .wav, but i just need a higher bitrate than 190kbps. will look up a program.

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where can i see these statistics of a file??? like the bitrate, obviously the type in the extension. how can i see the bitrate?

okay sorry, answered some of my questions, but in this picture... what is sample rate? what effect does that have? and what sample rate should my media player have.

the picture is of a mp3 converter program and of a mediaplayer

sample rate of 44100 is the same as a standard audio CD.

in simple terms, when the music file gets converted from analogue to digital, a measurement of the volume is made 44100 times a second, which results in a very accurate digital representation of the original sound file.

keep this figure as it is - making it any higher won't make your music sound any better - making it lower will make it worse!

your screenshot shows the data rate of 320 kB/s, which looks wrong - i think the programmer has made an error here, it should say 320 kb/s. 1 kB is a kilobyte which equals 8 kb (kilobit).

strictly speaking, you will lose a little bit of fidelity here as you're ripping to mp3, which is a lossy format - although saying that, i strongly doubt if you will hear any quality difference, as 320 kb/s is a high data rate, and you aren't losing very much.

looking at your equaliser setting, it doesn't seem as if you're that interested in fidelity anyways!

yeah lol i think the program is foreign... or something i'll make sure thanks for pointing that out, also NOO i do care about fidelity lol... im just messing around with the EQ.

whats a good EQ setting? i know its highly up to the user but whats good? or high fidelity? all leveld?

You can always Compress.
Say FLAC or CD to 320 MP3.

But you can not add quality. In otherwords, taking a 320bit rate MP3, and converting it to 1000 bitrate FLAC will still sound like the 320bit version, maybe slightly worse.


So just remember, compressing is a one way thing. You cant add bits back once they been removed.

Rip it "flat" with no EQ adjustments.

After you get it ripped, then experiment and see what EQ settings you like. Make the adjustments in an audio editor such as Audacity and resave as another WAV.

If you are going to convert to mp3, do that as the final step, after all editing and EQ adjustments.

what's a good eq setting? whatever sounds good to your ears!

every piece of music, every set of speakers, the room that they are in, and the listener's ears and preferences are all different, so it's impossible to recommend a set setting. personally, i leave my eq flat, then add a bit of bass on my hifi amp - it's definitely a personal thing.

*edit* i had to edit my first post above - i may have misled you about your 44100 sample rate - i meant to say making it lower will make your music sound worse - oops! keep it at 44100.