Starting over...how would YOU proceed?

[smrybacki]

First of all, bear with me as I get all of this out.

Currently, I have many CD's (maybe 600 or so) that I have already ripped into my computer via Windows Media Player using the WMA 128bit format because of the so-called (at the time) superiority of WMA over MP3 in terms of audio sound quality using the same bit rate. Also at that time, disc space was more expensive as compared to today, meaning that I am not necessarily as concerned now with space taken up as I was when I first ripped them all, at least to a point. Truth be told, I can't really hear a difference in quality and I am a hobbyist musician! At any rate, I have a need to have my music in MP3 format at times because my guitar trainer only accepts MP3 format, but I know I'll lose audio quality if I convert to MP3 from WMA. Not suitable. Also, I have a car MP3/WMA player that gives me horrible glitch sounds on many of the CD's I have ripped into WMA on version 10 of WMP. This only happens on THIS player, not my portable player or on the computer itself. Microsoft has sort of acknowledge the issue here but this won't really help me as there is not a real fix short of re-ripping and if I am going to do that, then...

So I got to thinking that likely the BEST option I could pursue is re-ripping my entire collection in a lossless format, hopefully one-and-for-all so I could then convert freely as needed to whatever audio format I want to. Makes sense to me.

So the question becomes, which lossless format offers the best combinations of options? As I said, disk space isn't really too much of an issue, but at 60o or so CDs, I would like to have the best compression I can get and still be lossless. Also, I don't want to rip all of these again, ever, so I want to use a CODEC that it "in it for the long haul" so to speak. So what would you audio experts do, given this situation?

I am asking this now because I am about to purchase dbPowerAmp and I want to be sure it will be the answer to my audio world. If it matters, my machine is a dual core AMD Athlon with 4GB of memory running on Windows XP Home. My DVD-CD burner drive is a Sony DRU-800 series plus I have another no-name DVD reader.

[Teknojnky]

Re: Starting over...how would YOU proceed?

I would suggest you start here and read up on some of the lossless comparisons.

As far as sound quality, all lossless will be exactly the same, and one the primary benefits is being able to transcode into another lossless or lossy codec pretty easily.

Other lossless considerations comes down to whether or not your primary applications support a particular lossless type.

For example, WMP supports WMA lossless, itunes supports ALAC, however neither support FLAC by default (although I understand that some plugins can be utilized to add support).

Most other modern music applications generally support FLAC directly, along with WMAL, ALAC and others.

Some other lossless codecs may offer better compression, but are perhaps less supported by applications (although plugins may be available).

Personally, I have gone to ripping to flac exclusively with r12/r13 reference since I use neither WMP or itunes. I still have a huge library of mp3's ripped previously. Over time, I work to replace older LQ mp3's with a good clean flac rip, but of course that is always a work in progress.

In summary, it does not really matter which lossless codec you choose as long as your app(s) support it, and if your situation changes you can easily convert from one lossless to another with dbpa, foobar, mediamonkey, or probly several other apps.

The most important thing, is to try to get good clean, secure/accurate rips as best as possible, and with dbpa or eac you can do just that.

[smrybacki]

Re: Starting over...how would YOU proceed?

So correct me if I am wrong here, but if I am using dbPowerAmp (the latest version) and I rip all of my music using FLAC, I could then selectively convert, without the extra data loss of going lossy -> lossy, between the FLAC files and whatever lossy format I need at a point in time? Or am I missing something?

[Teknojnky]

Re: Starting over...how would YOU proceed?

Yep, You can always go Lossless ---> Lossless (losslessly), and Lossless ---> Lossy.

Some programs can even automatically convert a lossless collection to lossy on an mp3 player automagically. I think foobar can do this, and I know mediamonkey can, and probably several other media programs.

As long as your lossless collection never suffers from data corruption (bad hard drive crash or application messing files up), then you should never have to worry about the quality and from there you can convert as needed to whatever you want.

[smrybacki]

Re: Starting over...how would YOU proceed?

Thanks for the replies!