While I was reading throught this thread, I found a lot of the comments were innacurate.
Ratbastid got it right though. If you want the best quality and don't care about space restrictions, WAV format is the best. The fact is, it is the raw format that is digitally extracted from the cd (44,100 samples per second at 16bit).
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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Well, hang on. If you're interested in quality and space isn't an issue AND every device you want to play the music on supports it, I say go ahead and leave your rips in WAV format. That's totally uncompressed, raw audio data. It's pretty expensive in terms of disc space, but you're not making any compromises on sound quality.
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Speaking of digitally extracting music, it's important to go into HOW you get the music from your CD! I recommend using EAC in "secure mode". It's a bit slower, but well worth it when you know that the file will be an exact digital replica of the CD.
There is some debate if it is better to rip the individual tracks to separate WAV files, or the entire CD as one large file and use a CUE sheet - but that's more of a personal preference (unless it's a live cd!).
WAV format is also great when you want to have your music available in several different formats (ie: AAC for your iPod and MP3 for your car MP3 player, or WMA for your brother's PC etc...).
LOSSLESS ENCODING:
Usually, people don't have the luxury of having several hundred gigs to store their music library. This is where "lossless" encoding comes in.
As the name implies, you do not lose any quality by encoding your music in this format - you only gain space at the cost of processing power. Lossless compression works much the same as zipfiles, but are optimized to handle music. The waveform output from a lossless encoded song is IDENTICAL to the original WAVfile ripped from the CD.
There are several different lossless encodings: FLAC, APE etc... I personally like FLAC, and it seems to have a strong following.
The one gripe I have about lossless encodings, is that in order to encode it into another format (such as AAC for your iPod) you need to first convert it back to a WAV file. It doesn't take long, but it's just one more step...
LOSSY ENCODING:
As the name implies, lossy encoding DOES discard parts of the waveform in order to increase compression ratios. depending on the codec, it can range from unnoticable to sounding like total garbage.
There are a lot of formats for you to choose, but each has some disadvantages. You cannot directly compare quality based on bitrate among the different codecs. 128kbs MP3 is
NOT the same as 128kbps AAC!!!
MP3 - This is the one that started it all. As an old codec, it's started to show it's age in overall quality, yet is still "good enough" for most people. Encoded properly
most people CANNOT tell the difference in quality. Bitrates are the number one factor for sound quality. Most prefer at least 192kbps CBR (constant bit rate). Most of my old stuff is all 192CBR. Lately, I've upgraded to using VBR (variable bit rate), which dynamically increases the bit rate for complex waveforms. I would recommend using LAME with the --alt-preset standard switch. This is what is recommended by the guys at the Hydrogenaudio site, and they know what they are talking about!
The one benefit that MP3 has over any other format (excepting WAV) is that it is pretty much a universal format. pretty much every player out there can play the format.
MP3Pro - This brings a lot of improvements to the MP3 codec, but does not have the support that MP3 does.
MPC - Don't know enough about this one yet... glowing reviews for Hydrogenaudio though...
OGG - If there was one format that I'd love to see supported by more people, this is it. It's an open source format, meaning that anyone can support the format, or use it on their hardware without paying a dime. it's also one of the best formats IMHO. It's just not used widely enough.
WMA - I'm definitely biased against WMA.. my advice is don't use it!
AAC - A new generation format, very similar to MP3Pro but has two major forces behind it pushing it's growth: A) iPods, and B) iTunes. I had considered moving my library to AAC, but it was just too much work, and it was not supported by my car MP3 player. As I noted above, you cannot compare the bitrates for AAC to MP3. I'm not sure what the ratio is exactly, but 128kbps AAC is somewhat equivilant to the quality of 192kbps MP3.