The more I think about it, the more I realize that I probably won't be re-encoding everything into this new and wonderful format.

The primary reasons are:

1) I have other devices which are still dependent upon the MP3 format and do not (yet) support Ogg Vorbis. It's more convenient for me to let these devices all share the same set of MP3 files. Obviously, when the time comes that these devices do support Ogg, I will reconsider.

I have some of the same issues, but fewer of them I think. I have been using XMMS in place of Winamp, but even Winamp includes .ogg support now (new in the v3 beta?). With the docking station at home, virtually all of my playback is out of the Empeg, so if Ogg support materializes there, then I'm good to go. The one gap is a portable player for airplane travel.

I'm fairly certain that MP3 will remain more prevalent for some time to come given that most of the file sharing is in MP3 format. However, since virtually all of my listening is ripped from my collection, that kind of popularity doesn't matter to me.

To me, it's the same old "Chicken or the Ogg?" conundrum. I'm going to work progressively more with Ogg, 'cause it creates the opportunity for me to send e-mails (like I did this morning to the author of MP3 Tag Studio) asking politely if Ogg might be supported in future. What the folks at Xiph have done is awesome. I'll endure some inconveniences if it will help them succeed in the long run.

2) The primary advantage of Ogg over MP3 is that it does a better job of encoding at a given bit rate. For instance, a 128kbps Ogg file will sound better than a 128kbps MP3 file. But I already encode my MP3s at a much higher bitrate than 128 and can't tell the difference between the original CD and my encoded MP3s. So the only advantage Ogg would give me is disk space savings, and thanks to products like the empeg and the Jupiter, storage is the least of my worries at this time.

Yes. Just for fun, though, I have thought about enlisting a friend to help me with a "real-world" listening test. Encode 5-10 well-known song snippets in MP3 and Ogg at a variety of base bitrates, blindly randomize the various encodings of each snippet into pairs, put on some headphones and conduct "which is better? A.....or B....?" listening tests. Run this rerandomized 4 or 5 times to see if I can figure out the point at which my sorry old ears can tell the difference, then pick the notch above that as my new encoding standard. Save 0.01 GB at least!

.... I just don't have a compelling reason to re-encode my entire collection at this time.

For functional reasons (space, sound quality, convenience) reasons, neither do I at this time, but for long-term political, licensing, and technical reasons, I slowly, progressively will.

I have a question about the Ogg format, though: Does it solve the gapless playback problem we experience with MP3s? If it does, I will likely re-do all of my continuous-track albums in Ogg format.

Isn't this one of the killer advantages of Ogg? Heh. A search just found a version 1 of a Windows player (VUPlayer ) that "Version 1.0 introduces gapless Ogg Vorbis playback & comment editing" (I'll have to check it out). Perhaps this is implementation-specific, but it sounds like it's out there. Great for live stuff and soundtrack (Oh, and some Rush albums!)

[edit: I expanded my second to last paragraph. I looked at it and realized that somebody might look at the post and wonder why the heck -- in general terms -- I would switch.]