I have been saving my CDs to my hard drive, and I just noticed that I have been copying them at bitrates anywhere from 96kbps to 192 kbps.  So for a test, I copied a jazz vocal track from one of my CDs three different times at 320 at 192 and at 56.  I listened to them back and forth, and honestly, I didn't notice any difference, so I figure I might as well save everything at 56 to save space, especially when I use them in my mp3 player.  Is there any other reason to save the music at a higher kbps if I can't hear the difference?

I have been saving my CDs to my hard drive, and I just noticed that I have been copying them at bitrates anywhere from 96kbps to 192 kbps.  So for a test, I copied a jazz vocal track from one of my CDs three different times at 320 at 192 and at 56.  I listened to them back and forth, and honestly, I didn't notice any difference, so I figure I might as well save everything at 56 to save space, especially when I use them in my mp3 player.  Is there any other reason to save the music at a higher kbps if I can't hear the difference?


Usually you don't do anything less than 128 Kbps if you want the quality to be close to the original. If you want to save space you could go with 128 Kbps, but for better quality 160 Kbps or 192 Kbps.

256-320kbps is near CD quality (Also takes up alot of space)
128-192Kbps is most common. Very minor quality changes, yet takes up considerably less space than the above 2 bitrates.

I'd go with either 256 or 192.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate#Audio

Yeah, you probaly need a high end HiFi system and speakers to hear the difference as well as a audiophile ear.

I use a program called CDex that does all that for me.  I just pop in the CD, click the tracks I want to make as mp3, and automatically they are made into top quality mp3's :)

It also turns my wav files into top quality mp3's which makes going from cassette to mp3 really easy :)