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Sunday 27.7.2025 / 12:39
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afterdawn.com > forums > digital audio > audio > creative x-fi and the "best sounding mp3"
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Creative X-Fi and the "best sounding mp3"
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malushi88
Newbie
_ 		15. June 2007 @ 11:45 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I know a co-worker who owns a creative x-fi sound card, and they claim that it rips cds in "high quality mp3". listening to his mp3 files, they actually sounded very nice. they were 320kb/s but they sounded better than my files ripped at the same bit rate. he says its due to the creative "crystalizer", but i know that is basically just an audio DSP, and there are many like it. Searching for a solution, i ripped a cd in .wav format at 44100hz and then imported it to FL Studio, then from there exported it as a 320kb/s mp3 with 64bit sampler interpolation. the result: good sounding mp3 files! better than i could ever get from itunes and wmp11 at least.

so the question im getting at is, will any old mp3 ripper do miracles such as this for me? the whole FL Studio process takes too long, and i want something that gives me really great sounding mp3 files (itunes and wmp11 both suck in my opinion)

any suggestions as to a program i can use to rip high quality mp3s, new methods to getting my mp3s sounding better, or anything of that sort would be greatly appreciated. i now know that bit rate is not the only factor in a good sounding mp3, and whatever i can do to add as much detail to the audio frequencies is helpful. btw, im getting an 80gb ipod soon so space isnt an issue; i just want good sounding files
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malushi88
Newbie
_ 		30. June 2007 @ 11:50 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
bump
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skippyg
Newbie
_ 		17. July 2007 @ 23:26 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
may be a bit late, but i really havent heard anything like Creative's Crystalizer.

hmmm would those updated files that you ripped work in normal mp3 players? id like to try that.
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malushi88
Newbie
_ 		18. July 2007 @ 05:21 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Well I posted this question on another forum as well, and recieved an interesting answer.

So first, the sound card has nothing to do with the quality of the mp3 files you rip. In fact, EAC rips your cd's digitally (bit for bit) so it is pretty much 100% accurate.

Also, the Creative Crystalizer is basically just a real time equalizer that attempts to extend the frequency of your files to make them sound "fuller." There are many audio DSP plugins that do this for WMP, iTunes, and Winamp.

So what I came up with in order to get the best quality possible was use Exact Audio Copy to rip my cd's to wav. Then I downloaded LAME 3.97 Final and used a simple front-end called RazorLame to encode my ripped wav files to VBR mp3's.

Of course, it is possible to configure Lame within EAC so only one program is needed. I have been toying with Lame to figure out what the best command line is for my tastes, and once I do I can just put that command line in EAC and BOOM!!! The best sounding mp3 file possible :D
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skippyg
Newbie
_ 		18. July 2007 @ 10:15 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
haha yeah i use EAC with Lame also. at the highest VBR-0 or something cant remember, about Creatives Crystalizer it really doesnt extend them, it actually uses an intelligent algorithm that takes an intelligent analysis and guesses of which frequencies were removed, and trys to refill them, i actually found one that did something similar but not as good. the DFX plug in for WMP and Winamp, it was supposed to be the best plug in that did something similair, it was ok. but not good, too much distortion and really made the sound sound too sharp and the bass thing was horrible and just made it sound artificial.

do you use VBR or CBR to rip your audio? i like VBR better.
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malushi88
Newbie
_ 		18. July 2007 @ 10:33 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Well I have used DFX in the past, but I dislike how you could not edit specific frequencies. I agree it distorted my music way too much.
The reason I started this topic was because I was re-ripping all the CD's I own to VBR as I am about to upgrade to a nicer set of headphones (Grado SR60 :D) and the low bit-rate files I had were going to sound like crap on those babies. So yes I am now using VBR with no intent to go back to CBR.
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