Audio CD Ripper: Supported
Audio File Format Converter: Supported
Audio CD Creator: Supported
MPEG Audio Layer 3
MP3 is the de facto standard of audio coding. MP3 provides significant compression from the original audio source with very little loss in sound quality. The compression up to 12:1 produces a very little loss in sound quality. Tighter compression can be achieved, but it will result in worse sound quality.
To obtain certain compression, we must adjust the bit rate. Higher the bit rate - better the sound quality - larger the file and vica versa.
There are many different formats you can choose from:
Near CD Quality: Predefined setting that creates near CD quality constant bit rate file
CD Quality: Predefined setting that creates CD quality constant bit rate file
CBR 8 kbit/s - 320 kbit/s: Creates constant bit rate file with the selected bit rate
ABR: Variable bit rate format where you can set the targeted bit rate. ABR should always
give results equal or better than CBR.
VBR: Variable bit rate where the quality of the output is selected from 0 to 9 where 0 is the highest quality and 9 is the lowest quality. The actual bit rate of the output is unpredictable, it depends of the type of the music encoded
Presets: Predefined high quality settings. Slower encoding but the quality of the output is usually higher. Presets always use variable bit rate encoding.
MP3 is lossy audio format.
More information about MP3 at http://www.mp3dev.org.