I need a good mp3PRO converter.

XPCportables · Post by **XPCportables** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:24 am

I have a bunch of Mp3s that I want to convert to Mp3PRO because it is a much more efficient format. Unfortunately, my favorite encoder, SUPER converter, does not support mp3PRO. So I ask, what is the best possible free Mp3PRO converter. Thanks

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:40 pm

WMA seems to be just as efficient, why not just use that? Many more devices and programs play WMAs and not MP3pro, which means you can use it in many more places.

I haven't played with MP3pro in years, I think there was a Nero plugin that I used to rip to that format.

XPCportables · Post by **XPCportables** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:07 pm

My Sony Ericsson Mp3 player phone won't play WMA but it will play mp3PRO that's why.

I use musicmatch jukebox to rip cds to mp3Pro, but I'm sure that all of you can understand that I don't actually own a CD of every mp3 that I have. I am really running low on memory and don't want to buy a new memory stick right now.

Post by **bicostp** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:22 pm

Is there any sort of "virtual burner" software that will let you burn regular MP3s to an ISO, then rip them from the ISO to Mp3PRO?

I'm surprised Musicmatch doesn't let you convert directly.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:30 pm

You could always burn them to a CDRW and rip them.

Leave it to Sony Ericsson to support a format that pretty much fizzled right out the gate. Isn't there a Sony proprietary format and converter to get you to the same size as MP3pro?

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:11 pm

You CANNOT burn them back to audio, then re-rip them again. They will sound terrible. You lose musical information when you rip to a lossy format (like MP3) and that information doesn't re-appear when you burn back to CD audio. It's gone for good. And you'll lose more of the remaining information when you re-rip. It would defeat your whole purpose for trying to make MP3Pro files out of 'em.

FWIW, last year I re-ripped all of my CDs using Exact Audio Copy and the LAME v0 DLL and I'll never use anything else. EAC is a high-quality CD ripper, and LAME is a high-quality MP3 encoder. LAME v0 is roughly ~245 VBR (it uses more bits when it needs to, less when it doesn't). The result? MP3 files with EXCELLENT sound quality, and modest file sizes.

XPCportables · Post by **XPCportables** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:37 pm

Sony no longer supports their absolutly awesome ATRAC format, so the best thing that I can get as far as compression to audio quality ratio is mp3PRO. 64kbps Mp3s sound like FM radio or worse, where 64kbps Mp3Pros are almost indistinguishable from CD audio. ATRAC was my favorite audio format of all time. it sounded great at massive compression, but due to the fact that almost nothing but Sony products supported it, it was never popular and sometime last year Sony gave up on it.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:17 pm

jperryss wrote:You CANNOT burn them back to audio, then re-rip them again. They will sound terrible. You lose musical information when you rip to a lossy format (like MP3) and that information doesn't re-appear when you burn back to CD audio. It's gone for good. And you'll lose more of the remaining information when you re-rip. It would defeat your whole purpose for trying to make MP3Pro files out of 'em.

With direct conversion you will lose data as well. I doubt that the audio quality will suffer that much more if you burn then rip. I agree that re-ripping would be the best bet, but he has MP3s that he doesn't have CDs for (presumably from legitimate sources, like that artist's webpage or MySpace).

The goal of going to MP3pro was so he could put more songs on the memory stick.

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:44 pm

tom61 wrote:With direct conversion you will lose data as well. I doubt that the audio quality will suffer that much more if you burn then rip. I agree that re-ripping would be the best bet, but he has MP3s that he doesn't have CDs for (presumably from legitimate sources, like that artist's webpage or MySpace).

The goal of going to MP3pro was so he could put more songs on the memory stick.

I understand, and I realized after I typed all of that out that I'd gone WAY off the subject, but figured there was some helpful info there so I posted it anyway.

What do you mean by 'direct conversion'? If you're compressing to a format that's not explicity stated as lossless (like FLAC, WMA Lossless, etc.) then yes you will lose data. But you're losing that data twice over if you burn to audio and re-rip a second time. That's why many audio torrent sites are absolute hardasses when it comes to transcodes/recodes: The quality is terrible.

Try it for yourself. Rip a CD at like 128 (or whatever). Then burn it as CD Audio. Then rip it again at the same bitrate and listen to the resulting MP3 file. For drastic results, rip it a 3rd time.

XPCportables · Post by **XPCportables** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:47 pm

A lot of my mp3s are already at fairly low bitrates, like 96kbps, so quality is not really an issue, I just want those mp3s to be really small. The main reason is that one of my friends is borrowing my Iron Maiden Collection right now and I have run out of room on my phone, but don't want to delete any of my songs and don't want to wait for him to give them back for re ripping. This is only temporary so like I said retaining the quality is really not the main concern. unfortunately all of my CDRWs have gone bad so the CDRW idea is out, and I'm defiantly not going to burn a bunch of CDs just to get Mp3s off of them that I already have on my computer.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:26 pm

jperryss wrote: What do you mean by 'direct conversion'? If you're compressing to a format that's not explicity stated as lossless (like FLAC, WMA Lossless, etc.) then yes you will lose data. But you're losing that data twice over if you burn to audio and re-rip a second time. That's why many audio torrent sites are absolute hardasses when it comes to transcodes/recodes: The quality is terrible.

By direct conversion I mean transcoding. You've already lost data by turning it into an MP3, going to another lossy format you will lose more data, as the other format throws out data in other areas. It gets even worse if you use a format that uses tricks (like using two tones in it's range to simulate a third that's out of range). It's a lose-lose situation anyway you go about it.

I really wish I knew of a good converter to MP3pro, but it's almost as bad as ATRAC in third party support.