darrell.net - MP3 Encoders

MP3 Encoders

 
 
 

bulletMP3 CD Rippers and Encoders

This page also contains screenshots of many of the encoders. I have the REGISTERED VERSION of Audiograbber 1.4 and also full version of the MPEGDj as well as many other encoders/utils.

The rest of this page contains informaion about which encoder is best for what job and what the performance specs of each. The encoders featured in this review are:

bulletXing/MPEGDj/AudioCatalyst codecs
bulletBladeEnc.exe
bulletPlugger+
bulletFraunhofer MPEG Layer 3 - Radium codec

  • Xing/MPEGDj/AudioCatalyst codec

The most recent Xing codec (used in AudioCatalyst) is the fastest - it will rip straight to mp3 at 2x speed. This encoder doesn't sound that good at higher bitrates though.

It's the easiest to use all round and is available on my downloads page as MPEGDj Encoder. This version also rips cd's and is fully registered! However, it can sound thin and tinny.

  • Fraunhofer/Radium codecs

The Fraunhofer codecs give the best sound at low bitrates 128k or less, when using the high quality option. The DOS version is rather clumsy to use and is very slow.

The best codec is the Fraunhofer/Radium codec, which is an optimised version of the .dll used in MPEG Producer Pro. This is my favourite encoder and I use it for most of my MP3's. The codec itself isn't much use by itself so you need a program called Audiograbber which rips cd's and supports .dll encoders.

Once you have Audiograbber, you can customize and control the encoder .dll in the program. This is brilliant because you can then rip cd's, normalise and dynamically compress them, and finally encode them to MP3 in one step!!!

Download Audiograbber

If the bitrate is set too low, they give an underwater shimmering effect.

  • BladeEnc

BladeEnc gives the best sound of any encoder at 256k or higher.  It is several times faster than Fraunhofer but way way slower than Xing - it takes about 10 minutes/song on my Intel 166. It comes with some good front ends with decent interfaces - see the home page below.  It also has pretty rich sound.

All encoderz seem to lose the low end for some reason.

If you are concerned about the best fidelity and don't care too much about the smallest size, BladeEnc is the way to go.  If you want the very best sound at 128k or less, you have to use the Fraunhofer/Radium codec in Audiograbber.

Download BladeEnc

  • The comparison!

The differences between BladeEnc and Fraunhofer's most recent codecs at 128k, 44khz, stereo is definite, but not extreme.  The same is true at 256k.  If you don't have half-decent speakers, you won't notice a difference.

AudioActive makes some sophisticated front ends for Xing codecs aimed at low bit-rates, and they have free trial downloads on their web sites.

AudioGrabber is one of the best ways to rip the *.wav files off your cd.
It's not the best front end for the codecs,
but it supports BladeEnc.dll acceptably, as well as the Fraunhofer/Radium codec. This is what I use because it is a higher quality ripper as well as a very good encoder.

BladeBatch is one of the best front-ends for BladeEnc.exe

The followinf text is an extract from the Audiograbber help file. This includes links and information about encoders and how to set them up for use in Audiograbber.

Another good encoder that works good with Audiograbber is BladeEnc. This encoder is totally freeware so it won't cost you a dime! It is far from as fast as Xing's encoder but many people thinks this encoder produces better sound quality. The author Tord Jansson has also released a DLL that is very good to use with Audiograbber and highly recommended! Download his DLL, unzip it and simply place it in Audiograbbers program directory and you will have internal MP3 encoding options.

http://home8.swipnet.se/~w-82625/

Another freeware MP3 encoder is called Plugger+ and works fine with
Audiograbber. It's fast too! http://members.tripod.com/~mp3nkoder/

There has also been a general Encoder plugin released by Alexander von Gostomski. With his plugin you can use both AAC, VQF and a Real Audio encoder! See this homepage for more information:

http://www.login-net.de/jugger/ag_vq/

Fraunhofers L3enc was previously used to create MP3's. It can no longer be downloaded from http://www.iis.fhg.de/audio but I keep the link here anyhow. They have also made a CODEC for MP3 creation that can be used by Audiograbber.

Cool Edit is one of the best programs for general editing of audio files and. It can be found here: http://www.syntrillium.com/

Download Encoders

One of audiograbbers screens

Audiograbber 1.4
The best ripper and when used with the radium Codec below, the best encoder/ripper suite available. 

You will need my decoder to use these files. Password is daznet

Download Audiograbber1.4

MPEGDj
An all in one piece of software. Based on the Xing codec.

Download MPEGDj

The main mpegdj screen

Radium/Fraunhoffer Codec
The best codec available. Fast and high quality. Use with Audiograbber.

Download Radium Codec

  • BladeEnc

BladeEnc gives the best sound of any encoder at 256k or higher. 

Download BladeEnc Codec

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