Because of all the HTPC projects hovering around, I'd thought I would share with some of you a wonderful program called Exact Audio Copy. If you take your music seriously, Exact Audio Copy (EAC) will give you the best results in ripping your music, period. Any mp3 encoded by say, iTunes doesn't hold a candle to the quality you could get with EAC. It may take a while to set up, but this guide makes it incredibly easy and is very detailed.
Link
My recommendations:
If you want to go the MP3 route (for compatability reasons) I would
highly recommend encoding all of your music at 320 kb/s. It's the last option they give in the guide for the LAME mp3 encoder named "CBR (best quality)"
I would recommend going the lossless audio route. Lossless audio files lose no quality whatsoever compaired to a CD. Some of you who use squeezeboxes, no go. You are going to need to use winamp as your mp3 player to play these files. It's arguably the best one out there, anyways. For lossless audio, I use a format called Monkey's Audio with .ape extensions. Kinda funny, but it is an excellent file format.
In anticipation for my axioms to arrive, I started to encode all of my music in 320 kbps format. I just switched to a lossless format and havn't looked back. Even with 320 kbps, you are going to lose a ton of high end. Cymbols will not have the crunchy, crisp sound they should have. I looked a software stereograph, and after a certain high frequency, the highs were litterally just lopped off after a certain frequency. In mp3 files, the high end is what gets comprimised.
Lossless audio is going to weigh in at around 20-30 MB per song, but it is very worth it.
I have no idea how many people will be actually interested in this, but if you are, I'm open for questions!
I didn't want you guys listening to inferior music on your HTPC's. Do your axioms a favor and feed them high quality music.
