My opinion of bitrate has changed quite a bit, pretty much in tune with my available storage and the cost of same. Way back there, I was easily content with 128, but sometimes settled for less, then I switched to 192 a couple of years ago on my own rips, and recently have been doing SOME at 256. That would be the ones with higher quality sound to start with. I figure it didn't make much sense to rip at 256 on say a Dave Macon recording, but Norah Jones? Probably worth the extra space.

When I was working at the Folk Center, we recorded our archives from WAV onto CDs, then saved the archived tracks onto our hard drives at 128 for a few years, then briefly upped that to 160, and maybe a year later to 192. I think that is what they are using now.

What you choose is up to you. How much are you prepared to pay for storage? For that matter, how low is the price of storage going to go? How good is your playback equipment? How good are your ears? What are you going to do about backup? If you are simply backing up a CD, there isn't much need for multiple copies, but let's say you are buying tracks from eMusic or some other source. You are going to want multiple copies in case of a crash.

Let's make one thing reasonably clear. The day of the CD as a storage device is nearly over in favor of some type of digital storage on computers, ipods, phones, and probably something that hasn't been thought of yet. The day of the CD as a medium in the stores is waning. The progression is speeding up at a dizzying pace. When is the last time any of us bought a cassette?