Looks Like I'll Have to Re-Encode My CD Collection Again

In the last month, I have been in musical bliss, listening to (and recording) tunes at my computer with my brand-new Behringer Truth B2031A speakers. Refer to my recent post when I unpacked the behemoths.

Though they sound spectacular for the money, I am suffering from a nightmare; the speakers are too damn good, as I can hear flaws in the music, attained when I imported my CD's into the computer. Being the audiophile I am, this painful.

I have always been conscientious about the quality of music I listen to in my home. Upon the purchase of my iMac in October 2004, I felt that encoding my music at 160kbps AAC (also known as MP4) would suffice. Unfortunately, it's not doing the trick for me anymore.

So tonight I decided to experiment, and import the same track at various encodings and bitrates to determine what would be the best codec for me to use -- without sacrificing boatloads of hard drive space. I obviously had to choose a well-produced track, one that I would enjoy listening to repeatedly, for the task. It didn't take long for me to determine that the candidate for the experiment would be Ginger's Solid Ground from their 1996 Suddenly I Came to My Senses Album. The following were the candidate encodings for the experiment:

1. 160 kbps -- The original encoding, and the lowest limit for quality, as far as I was concerned. File size: 4.9 MB;
2. 192 kbps VBR (Variable Bitrate Encoding). File size: 5.9 MB;
3. 256 kbps VBR. File size: 7.8 MB;
4. Apple 'Lossless' Codec. File size: 29.9 MB;
5. AIFF. File Size: 41.9MB.
   

I placed all the files into a playlist where I could locate the tracks quickly, and switch from one file to another, while listening for flaws, clarity, and warmth. I also took the file size into account when choosing the best quality codec.

At 160 kbps I could hear that the music wasn't as liquid or warm as the higher-quality counterparts. But after that, it became quite difficult to hear noticeable differences in the sound file at the higher bitrates. Using variable bitrate encoding is a fantastic way to have pristine quality recordings, without sacrificing a lot of hard drive space.

As for the AIFF file and the Apple 'Lossless' codec, they just took up too much space for them to be candidates. Furthermore, the AAC files at 192 and 256 kbps VBR were so good, I couldn't tell which file I was listening to. So once again, I tossed my subjective ears aside, and used file size to help me choose a winner. After some deliberation, I chose 192 kbps VBR as my codec of choice, as it was only about a 20% increase in file size, and I could barely tell the difference between the compressed file and the uncompressed CD-quality AIFF file.

With my CD collection appraching 600 CD's, it will take an incredibly long time for me to re-encode my entire collection. Thus, I think I might just re-encode select CD's, my favorites, including ones that are well-produced. There are still some 150 CD's that have not made it into my computer yet, and I don't have the spare time to invest in such an endeavor, solely to please my ears.

If you think I am anal about my music, you are likely right.