What type of audio is on a store bought CD? (i.e. Mp3, OGG, etc)

[Snake2715]

OK,

So I am going to go to one of the many well known download sites instead of buying the physical cd.

Thats fine for my MP3 player and my car's cd player and even my in home DVD changer...

But my wifes Escape has the stock head unit and I honestly don't plan on replacing it anytime soon as its really just a winter car for her.

If I have a choice to download the music in different formats what one (if any) will work in my stock decks?

[sarausagi]

OK,

So I am going to go to one of the many well known download sites instead of buying the physical cd.

Thats fine for my MP3 player and my car's cd player and even my in home DVD changer...

But my wifes Escape has the stock head unit and I honestly don't plan on replacing it anytime soon as its really just a winter car for her.

If I have a choice to download the music in different formats what one (if any) will work in my stock decks?

Physical CD's, what you buy in a store, contain redbook audio, uncompressed digital sound...the file extension that shows up when you put it inside a computer is "cdda"

What I'm pretty much saying is that store bought CD's do not contain "encoded" audio like MP3 or OGG

The stock head unit at the most would play MP3, but most likely it ONLY plays CD audio

In that case, you need to take the mp3 [or ogg or whatever] turn them into WAV, and then write an AUDIO CD out of them in your cd authoring software [Nero, Toast, etc]

[Snake2715]

Wow cool I figured it was something like this. I doubt the stock deck even plays Mp3's

I suppose I couldn't skip the step of converting them to WAV files and just convert direct MP3 to Audio Cd in my software could I?

What programs work best to convert to WAV format if the above is not possible?

[sarausagi]

Wow cool I figured it was something like this. I doubt the stock deck even plays Mp3's

I suppose I couldn't skip the step of converting them to WAV files and just convert direct MP3 to Audio Cd in my software could I?

What programs work best to convert to WAV format if the above is not possible?

Well, your program will convert them, but it will probably be slower and less quality output, that or it will do it on the fly and that might introduce problems to the burn process

I prefer using Winamp's wave output program, load your playlist [what you'll put on CD] and select the wave out put plug in, then it will quickly output all files to numbered .wav

[Ugamer_X]

Wow cool I figured it was something like this. I doubt the stock deck even plays Mp3's

I suppose I couldn't skip the step of converting them to WAV files and just convert direct MP3 to Audio Cd in my software could I?

What programs work best to convert to WAV format if the above is not possible?
Itunes can burn audio CDs from MP3s easily.

[SneakyPenguin]

Itunes can burn audio CDs from MP3s easily.

I don't know if it was just my car, but my stock CD player could not play audio CDs burned from iTunes.

[sarausagi]

Itunes can burn audio CDs from MP3s easily.

And I-Tunes burned audio CD's wouldn't sound even half as good as CD's burned from .WAV via Nero

Also, EAC, Winamp, and Nero don't care a bit about copyrights..

It's not even about the sound, I assure you more CD players will play CD burned in Nero than CD's burned in iTunes...

Unless of all of a sudden iTunes is a full featured authoring program.

[obiwayne]

How old is the "stock unit"?
I had a factory radio that would not play any CD that I burned regardless of what brand CD-R or authoring program I used.
If it's an older unit, you may out of luck.

[Snake2715]

How old is the "stock unit"?
I had a factory radio that would not play any CD that I burned regardless of what brand CD-R or authoring program I used.
If it's an older unit, you may out of luck.

2001

[Snake2715]

Well, your program will convert them, but it will probably be slower and less quality output, that or it will do it on the fly and that might introduce problems to the burn process

I prefer using Winamp's wave output program, load your playlist [what you'll put on CD] and select the wave out put plug in, then it will quickly output all files to numbered .wav

I have never used Winamp... I am getting it around for free download now (the standard non pro version)

Also is the Wav output you mentioned come with it? I presume its not a plug in..

[Ugamer_X]

And I-Tunes burned audio CD's wouldn't sound even half as good as CD's burned from .WAV via Nero

Also, EAC, Winamp, and Nero don't care a bit about copyrights..

It's not even about the sound, I assure you more CD players will play CD burned in Nero than CD's burned in iTunes...

Unless of all of a sudden iTunes is a full featured authoring program.
I've never had trouble burning an audio CD on Itunes. I've also never had trouble playing burned CDs on all sorts of equipment, including car stereos, an old set-top CD player from 1994, and a generic boombox from 1996.

It's pretty simple too, just create a playlist and set your preferences to burn an audio CD. No need to jump through any hoops.

[sarausagi]

I have never used Winamp... I am getting it around for free download now (the standard non pro version)

Also is the Wav output you mentioned come with it? I presume its not a plug in..

Standard Plug In Found In the OUTPUT SECTION of the settings menu [under PLUG INS OUTPUT]

Just highlight NULLSOFT DISKWRITER

then make sure that repeat and shuffle are OFF, also make sure AUTO EQ and EQ are OFF

Press play and all your sounds should be saved as WAV files on the C directory numbered from first to last

Then just drag and drop those in your CD writing program

and burn!

For best compatibility, burn at a lower speed and select "finalize" if you can = ) also avoid CD-TEXT

[VanillaGorilla]

Uh, I've burned plenty of CD's from iTunes, played them in 4 different CD players, and they all sound great.

[urzishra14]

geez.. a "winter" car... and you're worried about burning cds... not being offensive but..

most of the time you can't "notice" a difference between when burning mp3s of high quality to a cd... just remember to download high quality source material and any means of burning it should be ok.. even the "on the fly" converters.. i always just used windows media player to burn cds.. what do i know heh..

[PhrostByte]

I have never used Winamp... I am getting it around for free download now (the standard non pro version)

Also is the Wav output you mentioned come with it? I presume its not a plug in..
Dude, decoding MP3/WMA/whatever to WAV doesn't result in any quality loss. Encoding, on the other hand, is exactly the process of packing the data into a smaller, more efficient, file container. You lose quality by losing disk space. Most burning programs can decode to WAV on the spot, meaning, you can load up a bunch of MP3 files and select that you want to burn an audio CD and the program will decode each file seperately as it goes down the list. This is the easiest way to do it. Just get Nero, select "Make Audio CD", and put whatever you want on it. If you want an MP3 CD though (to be played on an MP3 capable CD player), you just want to burn a regular data CD.

[PhrostByte]

Standard Plug In Found In the OUTPUT SECTION of the settings menu [under PLUG INS OUTPUT]

Just highlight NULLSOFT DISKWRITER

then make sure that repeat and shuffle are OFF, also make sure AUTO EQ and EQ are OFF

Press play and all your sounds should be saved as WAV files on the C directory numbered from first to last

Then just drag and drop those in your CD writing program

and burn!

For best compatibility, burn at a lower speed and select "finalize" if you can = ) also avoid CD-TEXT

This is an extra step that you don't have to take. You gain nothing by decoding all the files beforehand.

[Snake2715]

geez.. a "winter" car... and you're worried about burning cds... not being offensive but..

most of the time you can't "notice" a difference between when burning mp3s of high quality to a cd... just remember to download high quality source material and any means of burning it should be ok.. even the "on the fly" converters.. i always just used windows media player to burn cds.. what do i know heh..


What I was getting at is she drives a car with a sound system in the summer and I am not going to drop the funds to put a cd in the truck I use to kayak with and she uses primarily in the winter.

I wasn't looking for optimal quality (I want good quality obviously) but moreso looking for compatibility. I thought I had made that clear.

[sarausagi]

This is an extra step that you don't have to take. You gain nothing by decoding all the files beforehand.

Maybe it's just me..? The only time I used "burned" CD's is making back ups of my own music CD's, I am pretty obsessive about the sound quality of my CD's [even if they're just back ups] and find that doing everything externally just results in better sounding media.

And if you're making mix CD's, it helps a lot because it numbers the tracks automatically, I like to "think" about my mix CD's [well when I used to make CD's, I've been using MD for the past two years almost] so dropping them and moving them around in Winamp until I have the final order is a big help.

I admit it is an extra step, so you are right.