Need recommendation for good MP3 encoder program - free-er, the better.

[kexodusc]

Been a busy week here...I've inherited 2 year old and 1 year old CD decks for my vehicles. This will be first forray into car audio (BTW: Checked out the sister site, not exactly a hotbed of activity). Worked out good, I've had some Infinity Kappa speakers for this Accord since the day I bought it that I never bothered to install, and the lady just inherited 4 speakers for hers.
Cost me nothing for both decks and the speakers, but I had to build 4 subwoofer boxes and for the kids down the street and help them install their stereos...saved them a ton of money. So, a few hours, and a sheet of MDF later they were happy, I was happy (can't believe what stores charge for subwoofer cabinets for cars). We even custom fit them to the hatchback and trunk shapes to save space. Man, when I was 16, my Mustang didn't have triple-decker spoiler, chrome wheels, 50,000 watts of stereo, or blinky lights all over it. How much is minimum-wage these days?

Anyway, great way to meet my neighbors - well, their kids at least, not too sure how popular I'll be now...got the decks installed and speakers installed just fine, they're a far cry from the crap Honda sticks in the cars. Lo and behold, they both play MP3 files, and one plays WMA's.

There's more. My soon-to-be wife wants me to build her co-worker a small home theater and teach them how to work a computer so they can play MP3's right through the receiver or make a bunch of MP3 cd's so they can use them in their DVD player.
Ohhh boy...

This is kind of the dilemma for me. I prefer WMA, or OGG at bitrates below 192 Kbps. I don't have a program that can create MP3's...in fact, I haven't used an MP3 in probably 3 or 4 years now.

So I'm looking for a decent program that will convert all my cd's to the archaic MP3 format(what a boring, laborious process that will be - again). I assume these aren't all created equally...Windows Media doesn't offer variable bit-rate, which I assume is the way to go for preserving the most sound quality and the most space with MP3's?
If memory serves, Joint-Stereo, VBR is probably the best route?

Any recommendations and/or tips would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Woochifer]

Yah, I can do free!

Just download the Real Player, and that will work fine for generating MP3. Some of the reviews I've read indicate that the Real Player is one of the fastest programs out there for creating MP3s, faster than a lot of other programs that you have to purchase. On my system, it typically takes about five minutes for the Real Player to convert CD tracks to MP3s. If you use the Real Player to play a CD, and it hasn't already been recorded to you hard drive, the player will prompt you whether or not to save the disc to your hard drive. And because it connects to the Gracenote online CD database when you insert a CD, all of the album, artist, song title, and genre information is automatically written onto the files.

The other application that I use for MP3 conversion is Cakewalk's Pyro program. I use that program only I want to do crossfading, audio file editing, and CD burning, because that program definitely takes a dive with the sound quality. The MP3 encoder that comes with Pyro produces noticeably inferior sounding MP3 files compared to the ones that I create with the Real Player at the same bitrates.

For my listening, the 192k bitrate will more than suffice for creating MP3s that sound reasonably transparent to CDs when played on a car audio system. (Even 160k might be good enough for a car system, and that's what I use with my computer desktop speakers [CSW SoundWorks sub/sat]) While the Real Player allows for variable bitrate MP3s, in my experience, they don't really save you a lot of disc space since you have to select an approximate bitrate anyway, so I typically go with the fixed bitrates.

[kexodusc]

Thanks a ton Wooch, I thougth Real Player had it in there somewhere...fought with it briefly and kept getting Real's proprietary format...swallowed my pride and clicked the help button the 2nd time though.

All is good.

Back to the shop I go to make a few more cabinets for the Corolla. The great thing about compact cars - 10" subs actually perform BETTER than 12" subs...

[kexodusc]

While the Real Player allows for variable bitrate MP3s, in my experience, they don't really save you a lot of disc space since you have to select an approximate bitrate anyway, so I typically go with the fixed bitrates.

Oh - It's my understanding that space saving isn't the goal of VBR...Sound quality maximization is...you pick an approximate file size and it gets the most quality.
With other formats I use it's noticeably better, but that doesn't necessarily mean much...I'll experiment with a few of each on the first disc.

Thanks again.

[mixadude]

I've been using Audiograbber (http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/) for years now. It's free and easy to use.
Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd's. It copies the audio digitally-not through the soundcard-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. It can even perform a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also automatically normalize the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3's. Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from freedb, an Internet compact disc database. You can even record your vinyl LP's or cassette tapes with Audiograbber and make wav's or MP3's of them. There are a lot more functions in Audiograbber, but to put it simply: Audiograbber has the most features one can wish from such a program!
Pretty much sums it up :)

I abhor all the carp that "Real" anything comes with.