CBR or VBR? Ripping from CD's

Thanks @Pulse!  I've just noticed that Beatport MP3's are CBR, although I was under the impression 'Joint Stereo' was the best quality option?! Not sure if there is any difference mind!

Info on that here.

Yes, CBR is the best choice.  VBR will lower bit rates during quiet sections of a song to very low freq which will affect the end result quality.

Thanks guys! I'll need to check the settings on Exact Audio Copy, I may have to put something in the command line to encode in Stereo rather than Joint.  Otherwise as far as I can see LAME in it's default state is encoding at up to 320kbps CBR.  Also I'm not sure whether it's frequency filtering too?!

Would anyone be able to advise on the best LAME command line for: 320 CBR - Stereo - No Filtering ?

Thanks for your help,
Steve

Just to clarify, yes it is adding a Lowpass to the encoding.

..Ok just to follow up, in case this is of any help to others!

I am using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) settings as follows:

Compression Options -
LAME Encoder - LAME 3.100 (Pointing to .exe in EAC Folder)
I've deleted default command line and then simply added -m s (this bypasses the joint stereo default and encodes in normal stereo)

Setting: HIGH / 320kbps

These settings will encode MP3 in CBR mode (constant bitrate) at 320kbps, Stereo.  I believe it also adds a Lowpass Filter by default but this is at over the 20kHz level so shouldn't negatively effect the quality for 320kbps as far as I'm aware?!.

I am encoding on the fly from CD, importing as WAV then compressing with external program (LAME) to MP3 and then it deletes WAV.  Unless of course you want to keep the WAV copy as well, then you will need to adjust settings accordingly.

Hope that makes sense to someone in the same situation!
Steve   

I would always prefer Joint Stereo, because its the best case for Tracks that have the same signals L and R.

I personally rip them in EAC in FLAC and use FLAC in Rekordbox DJ

Flac is the best you can rip off CDs and save some space, but thats a personal thing

There's so much information it's hard to know what is the best.  The reasons I opted for Stereo over joint stereo are simple.. Support on here said to use stereo and also Beatport encodes in stereo also.  So I'm just assuming it is the best option.  I have a bit of a mixture though as originally it was encoding in JS, I doubt this will cause any noticeable difference though!

In stero elements that are equal in left and right might not be encoded equal (as the channels are encode separate). Joint Stereo is like FM radio. A mono signal in the middle and differential signals for left and right. Then the middel signal would be equal in L and R