Best Audio Codec (MP3, WMA, AAC, etc.) To Upload Music

[gregpod9]

I have the Sony NWZ-S639 and I would like to know what is the best audio codec and bit rate to upload to music to my S639?

[dfkt]

I moved your thread to the relevant forum..

AAC gives you the best compression/quality-to-filesize ratio, MP3 gives you the best compatibility with any other player (in case your next player doesn't read AAC files, for example). Current versions of the LAME MP3 codec are excellent, they sound more or less transparent at as low as ~170kbps. I personally would use LAME MP3 for compatibility with any other device.

WMA is a Microsoft thing that's neither here nor there - certainly not recommended.

[Dreamnine]

Whatever sounds best and is easiest for you. I have a lot of wma files from CDs I ripped ages ago and can't rip again. When I'm ripping now I use mp3 with the latest Lame encoders at a high variable bit rate setting. This averages out at around 240kbps VBR.

With my P3 and players before that I experimented with FLAC and Ogg but I couldn't tell the difference between those and well-encoded mp3. The Sony is a bit limited in that it will only do mp3, wma or wav.

[gregpod9]

What is the best software to convert cds to high quality mp3's and transfer them to my S639?

[Dreamnine]

A lot of people use CDex or EAC (google them) they are free and give great results. I use BonkEnc as it's really simple to use.

For transferring music you can use free software like WMP, Winamp and others to manage your music, or just drag and drop the audio files using Windows Explorer on your PC. This last method is by far the easiest.

[CDMP3PlayerFan]

Originally Posted by gregpod9

What is the best software to convert cds to high quality mp3's and transfer them to my S639?

I've had great success with CDex for ripping tracks from my CDs. It provides excellent results and is very easy to use.

As far as loading music on your player, I've had great success with MediaMonkey. There is both a free version and a paid version, the paid version adds features not available in the free version.

One limitation of loading songs using drag-and-drop via Windows Explorer is that the song's year will come up as "Unknown" (unless Sony has fixed this limitation with their players). To get around this, you can use the program Content Transfer (CT) (a free download from the Sony website) to allow you to drag-and-drop files on to your player.

Once installed, all you have to do is start CT, connect your player, and then drag-and-drop the files/folders into the CT window. CT will take care of putting the files on your player in the right location. CT works with music, photos, and videos but doesn't do format conversion.

[faileas]

I tend to use bonkencode for ripping cds. It supports quite a few formats (mp3/aac/flac amongst others) and once set up correctly, rips and tags disks, and puts them in folders based on artist, album and such. For the truely lazy it can also do all this automatically on disk insertion ;p