I’ve recently decided to start encoding my CD collection to mp3 and decided to do some research. Here’s a few links that I found useful in deciding what bitrate to use, also VBR versus CBR (Constant Bitrate Versus Variable Bitrate) quality versus file size, important decisions like that 
The software I’m going to be using is called grip (The frontend) and lame (The mp3 decoder) and the OS is the Ubuntu Feisty. I’m making the assumption that you already have lame and grip installed, if not read the link below which includes instructions on how to install lame and grip.
How to convert audio CD’s and understanding what you are doing
Below is an interesting article that tells you about the various lame command line switches an how to get the most out of them.
How to encode top quality audio files using Windows, Lame, Ogg Vorbis
Below are my grip setting:
As you might notice from the snapshot of the config-encode-encoder section of grip I’m using the lame command -V2 –vbr-new -q0 –lowpass 19.7. If you want to know why then feel free to read the article above entitled “How to encode top quality audio files using Windows, Lame, Ogg Vorbis”
Occasionally Grip doesn’t managed to find the correct IDv3 tags for the ripped songs, when that happens I use Easytag, to install it on Ubuntu Feisty simply type:
at the command prompt
I would definately recommend it, It’s saved me loads of time.
