New CD Ripper user, setup questions

**garym** · January 16, 2023, 10:27 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Welcome to dbpoweramp forums. You'll find a helpful group. Best advise is to rip a few different things (multi disks, compilations, etc.), play around a bit, look at outcomes, try on player, etc. Experiment a bit. Many start down one path when new, then after ripping 1000 CDs, they wish they had done things different.

1. Replay Gain. I have DSP ReplayGain selected, I probably did this after reading various posts here. Best I can tell, this does not change the FLAC or WAV files. Does anyone know if my 851N will, or can, use this setting during playback?

Correct. adding ReplayGain tags does not alter the actual audio data in the files. I have no idea whether your 851N server can use ReplayGain values. Many servers can.

2. Secure Rip. At this point have not enabled this feature, should I? My discs are mostly new or lightly used with no visible issues. All are well cared for and cleaned with CD cleaner fluid. So far, discs have ripped with no errors and CRC displayed. When I hover my mouse cursor over a ripped file on my SSD drive, file information from the ripping process is displayed. Does Secure Rip have to be enabled to find ripping errors?

Yes, the main value of the dbpa ripper is that it does secure ripping. The beauty of this, combined with its use of the AccurateRip database, is that on the first pass, it does an "unsecure" rip, compares the result to the AccurateRip database, and if you get a match, then the rip is done. So very fast. If you do not match the AR database (which is also possible for very new releases), then it will do several passes so that it can match the multiple passes and determine that you have a SECURE rip, even though there is no AccurateRip match. In the settings, turn on the full logging in your settings and a log txt file will be written to every folder containing your album rip.

3. Instead of the two stage FLAC then WAV ripping, is there a way to just select ripping to both formats during setup? Can I setup so FLAC and WAV data go to different subfolders?

Yes, rip to [Multi-Encoder]. Then for each codec within multi encoder, setup the settings for the FLAC rip and the WAV rip, file destination, etc.

4. Am I missing any setup parameters or settings?

Maybe. Hard to say without seeing your settings. But in my case, I rip to FLAC and add only the ReplayGain DSP, set at -18, adding both ALBUM and TRACK RG tags. I also tick the box to verify rip. I have the log setting to save complete (full) log. Pick what metadata tags you want written. Many I don't want. And I don't embed the artwork in the files. Instead I have it saved as "cover.jpg" in the folder, limited to 1000x1000 size.

**bettersound99** · January 17, 2023, 08:09 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Gary - thanks for your reply, info and suggestions.

I setup a Multi Encoder profile for FLAC and WAV, incorporated most of your inputs except your response to my Item 4 on Replay Gain (just ran out of time, and have to look at how to set the parameters you mentioned). Ripped one CD, a summary and some questions follow. Have not had a chance to copy the FLAC or WAV files to thumb drive and have a listen thru Cambridge 851N. Also, note this is my first reply to a forum post and the font seems to be set at size 5, which is really small as I see it, may be different after I submit the reply.

Data below is from the log file of my first secure rip (and first multiple encoders rip, FLAC and WAV encoders).
The CD as noted below has 13 tracks.
Some questions and observations follow with an example of the secure rip log data (only showing for Track 1, but all 13 tracks are similar).

1. I created a new Profile "Multi Encoder", and used it to rip the disc noted below. Did not see an option to save my inputs for this new profile.
After closing and opening CD Ripper this profile is now shown instead of Default. So, looks like it was saved and should be able to use it for next rip, with any additional tailoring I need to make.

2. Secure Rip was selected. Only one secure rip log was generated, it showed only the WAV files.
Why is there no log file for the FLAC files? They were also created.

3. Looks like I am not using "C2" since it is shown as turned off.
I've read about this but don't recall the details.
Should it be on?
Is this something that my drive has to be able to support to be useful?

4. What do the final two lines of the example track 1 log, Confidence 15 and 4 mean?

5. What does Pressing Offset -12 mean? Assume this is different than the Drive offset = 6 that I entered. Has the program calculated an offset for how this CD was manufactured?

6. DSP Replay Gain was selected as shown. Did not tailor any details of this, just selected Replay Gain from the DSP options.
Does this look like correct values have been applied by the program? Are these the values you suggested in your response to my initial post item *4?

7. I tailored some drive speed and re-reads as shown just to reduce wear and tear on the drive.

Below is the log file data noted above, any insights would be helpful!

dBpoweramp 2022-11-25 Digital Audio Extraction Log from Monday, January 16, 2023 19:17

Drive & Settings
----------------

Ripping with drive 'E: [Dell - DVD+/-RW DW316 ]', Drive offset: 6, Overread Lead-in/out: No
AccurateRip: Active, Using C2: No, Cache: 1024 KB, FUA Cache Invalidate: No
Pass 1 Drive Speed: Max, Pass 2 Drive Speed: 16
Bad Sector Re-rip:: Drive Speed: 20, Maximum Re-reads: 20

Encoder: Wave -compression="PCM"
DSP Effects / Actions: -dspeffect1="ReplayGain= -r128lufs={qt}-18{qt} -maxtgain={qt}25 dB{qt}"

Extraction Log
--------------

Track 1: Ripped LBA 0 to 13140 (2:55) in 0:19. Filename: C:\Users\JointHeir\Music\Hollies, The\The Hollies' Greatest Hits\01 Hollies, The - Bus Stop.wav
AccurateRip: Accurate (confidence 15) [Pass 1]
CRC32: F23E0664 AccurateRip CRC: ACD57FF5 (CRCv2) [DiscID: 013-00130c51-00c0cdef-a509bf0d-1]
AccurateRip Verified Confidence 15 [CRCv2 acd57ff5]
AccurateRip Verified Confidence 4 [CRCv2 cd1e8577], Using Pressing Offset -12

Final line of the log reads:

"13 Tracks Ripped Accurately"

** End of reply **

**garym** · January 17, 2023, 01:11 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

1. correct. and you can save different profiles, but I recall that the program will open using the last profile you used.

2. No clue about this. I only create FLAC files. I only need one lossless version of files. Maybe double check that you've turned on the logging for the FLAC codec ripping. Another thought. Are you placing the WAV and FLAC in the same directory. If so, dbpa is creating both logs, but the last one created is overwriting the first one because the logs have the same name. in the dynamic naming settings for each of the codecs used in multiencoder (FLAC and WAV), you should save the FLAC and WAV files in different top folders (e.g., /music/FLAC/artist/album and /music/WAV/artist/album).

3. Drive has to support C2. And many that even report using C2, don't use it correctly. It is OFF of all my drives.

4. What do the final two lines of the example track 1 log, Confidence 15 and 4 mean? There are multiple pressings of the CD in the AR database. Your rip matches 15 of the rips of others for one pressing and 4 of the rips of others for a different pressing. dbpa and AR is smart enough to use this info without any need for you to enter anything.

5. What does Pressing Offset -12 mean? Assume this is different than the Drive offset = 6 that I entered. Has the program calculated an offset for how this CD was manufactured?
See *4......this is just a different pressing of the CD.

6. DSP Replay Gain was selected as shown. Did not tailor any details of this, just
selected Replay Gain from the DSP options.
Yes, these are correct. But can't tell from this whether you added both ALBUM and TRACK gain to be calculated and saved. I suggest both (in my server, it uses ALBUM gain when playing back to back songs from same album, but track gain when playing tracks from different albums. The latter used to be called "radio" mode, as just like the radio it tries to make tracks sound a similar volume even though each album has very different dynamic range/volume.

7. I tailored some drive speed and re-reads as shown just to reduce wear and tear on the drive.

Agree. I do the same.

**bettersound99** · January 18, 2023, 05:29 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Originally posted by simbun

Is there any reason why you're ripping to FLAC and WAV? FLAC is lossless just like WAV but it's a much better format to keep your music in (smaller size, integrated checksum and excellent tagging support). If you're worried that some renderers may sound better when being fed WAV (I assume a consequence of a poorly implemented renderer) most music servers have the option to transcode on the fly.

Good question. I have not made a long term decision on one codec versus multiple, so for my early learning rips I'm doing some with both FLAC and WAV. I've seen references to the benefits of FLAC as you mention (don't yet understand how important the checksum and tagging for FLAC would be), so will have to take that into consideration for long term solution. However, WAV only is also an option, and could always derive FLAC from WAV.

The storage side of the equation definitely favors FLAC, especially when considering one or two backups, especially since it's very possible that I will not use USB memory sticks forever. Possible transition to some sort of hard disc or solid state drive ups the ante on this decision. From reading a lot of posts on these dBPA forums, my couple hundred CDs is a small collection. However, even at that size a storage strategy has to consider costs and the effort to maintain more than one type of file. One concern I have is how my Cambridge Audio 851N player implements the upsampling that I believe it performs on all inputs, and whether that would favor either FLAC or WAV. Best I can tell, the upsampling is not selectable, or I have not yet found how to disable it.

So, my strategy is a work in progress, any transition from USB sticks to disc storage will probably not happen for awhile, so I have time to gather data. Additional thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

**garym** · January 18, 2023, 12:54 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Benefits of FLAC. And I use *only* FLAC:

1. The checksum that is embedded automatically upon ripping with dbpa allows one to confirm in a simple batch process whether any FLAC files have been corrupted. There are many ways to do this, but for example, one can run dbpa BATCH CONVERTER, and select your top folder containing all your files, then choose [TEST CONVERSION] as your codec. This will then automatically decode each FLAC file, create a checksum and compare that checksum to the original audio check sum (tags don't matter here). If they match, all is good. If they don't match, the program will end (FINISH) by reporting the file that has a problem. You can't do this with WAV files, at least not automatically. I do this occassionally on my 130,000 FLAC files, when I create a new backup drive holding the files. Point and click, and come back in a few hours and I then feel confident that no corruption exists on my new backup file.

2. WAV files have no standardized tagging approach. Some players/servers can recognize tags written to WAV files and some can't.

For me, I don't care about file size, as storage is cheap. But I do care a lot about item 1 above. What if I had a disk full of files, and some are showing up corrupted because of bad sectors on the drive, etc. Without the checksum, I'd have to play 130,000 files manually to figure out which ones might be corrupted. With FLAC, I can point and click and have my answer easily. Tagging and the fact that virtually all players/servers handle FLAC files correctly is also a very good thing. And as you understand, these are all lossles files and upon decoding and playback are bit-identical. Don't go down the rabbit hole of "WAV files sound better". The arguments for that had virtually no support in the old days when computers and music servers weren't as powerful. But there's no computer or server in the last 15 to 20 years that would have any problem with the trivial computer task of decoding a FLAC file for playback.

**GBrown** · January 18, 2023, 05:25 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Originally posted by garym

Benefits of FLAC. And I use *only* FLAC:

1. The checksum that is embedded automatically upon ripping with dbpa allows one to confirm in a simple batch process whether any FLAC files have been corrupted. There are many ways to do this, but for example, one can run dbpa BATCH CONVERTER, and select your top folder containing all your files, then choose [TEST CONVERSION] as your codec. This will then automatically decode each FLAC file, create a checksum and compare that checksum to the original audio check sum (tags don't matter here). If they match, all is good. If they don't match, the program will end (FINISH) by reporting the file that has a problem. You can't do this with WAV files, at least not automatically. I do this occassionally on my 130,000 FLAC files, when I create a new backup drive holding the files. Point and click, and come back in a few hours and I then feel confident that no corruption exists on my new backup file.

2. WAV files have no standardized tagging approach. Some players/servers can recognize tags written to WAV files and some can't.

For me, I don't care about file size, as storage is cheap. But I do care a lot about item 1 above. What if I had a disk full of files, and some are showing up corrupted because of bad sectors on the drive, etc. Without the checksum, I'd have to play 130,000 files manually to figure out which ones might be corrupted. With FLAC, I can point and click and have my answer easily. Tagging and the fact that virtually all players/servers handle FLAC files correctly is also a very good thing. And as you understand, these are all lossles files and upon decoding and playback are bit-identical. Don't go down the rabbit hole of "WAV files sound better". The arguments for that had virtually no support in the old days when computers and music servers weren't as powerful. But there's no computer or server in the last 15 to 20 years that would have any problem with the trivial computer task of decoding a FLAC file for playback.

Agreed with both of these points. FLAC offers several major benefits over WAV, the three biggest being file size, the checksum comparator, and supported tagging across all platforms. This tagging may seem trivial to you today, but I guarantee you the potential frustration dealing with tags that don't display correctly on mobile devices, car stereos, and even PC apps will not be worth it. If you are a Mac and/or iOS user, you may have to consider using ALAC instead if you want to use Apple's native Music apps - but note that you will be giving up the checksum feature for this trade-off (and there are alternatives for these platforms that do support FLAC).

Lossless is lossless, regardless of the arguments that some may suggest. In all cases, you can convert between one lossless format and another. But you can convert back to wav at any time from any other lossless format and have a perfect match bit for bit. So I second the suggestion to stay with FLAC, and your Cambridge player should natively support that.

**bettersound99** · January 22, 2023, 07:03 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Originally posted by GBrown

Agreed with both of these points. FLAC offers several major benefits over WAV, the three biggest being file size, the checksum comparator, and supported tagging across all platforms. This tagging may seem trivial to you today, but I guarantee you the potential frustration dealing with tags that don't display correctly on mobile devices, car stereos, and even PC apps will not be worth it. If you are a Mac and/or iOS user, you may have to consider using ALAC instead if you want to use Apple's native Music apps - but note that you will be giving up the checksum feature for this trade-off (and there are alternatives for these platforms that do support FLAC).

Lossless is lossless, regardless of the arguments that some may suggest. In all cases, you can convert between one lossless format and another. But you can convert back to wav at any time from any other lossless format and have a perfect match bit for bit. So I second the suggestion to stay with FLAC, and your Cambridge player should natively support that.

Thanks, everyone, appreciate the inputs.

FLAC benefits are hard to argue with.

My concern is the forced upconversion in my 851N. It is always enabled for analog line level out from the player. The 851N also has coax and optical out, without upconversion, and they sound very nice on the amp I have have connected currently. However, the analog design of the 851N was a key factor in purchasing it, and the amp I will be using long term for this setup has only analog inputs. I have time to play with both formats for awhile as I get my process and files/folders structures setup. In the end, storage and other factors which have been pointed out may make FLAC hard to not choose.

Thanks again, I'm learning a lot!

**garym** · January 22, 2023, 11:42 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Thanks for an update on your thinking. I can't imagine why the upconversion issue has anything to do with whether the source is FLAC or WAV, in both cases the source file is decoded to PCM for actual playback before it reaches your DAC or analog output stages. Perhaps I'm missing something here and others can chime in.

**bettersound99** · January 22, 2023, 10:24 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Originally posted by simbun

There is no upconversion required as the FLAC file will have the same sample rate and bit-depth as your WAV.

I assume you mean you're worried about the decoding from FLAC to PCM by your streamer. I addressed this in my initial reply to you, but assuming you're going to use a decent UPnP music server (AssetUPnP or MinimServer) to index your music, then they can be configured to peform this and feed PCM (or WAV if you want) to your streamer so you can have the best of both worlds.

There have been reports on the MinimServer forum of audible benefits in upsampling the source material to that natively output by the streamer (I guess to reduce its processing requirement), but I'm personnally not sold on that, if anything it just means that your streamer isn't very capable.

Appreciate your response and garym's also. I'm not familiar with what happens to the data on its way to the DAC wrt source file decoding to PCM. The upconversion I'm referring to is the Cambridge Audio ATF upconversion as noted below from their site for the 851N network player that I have.

From Cambridge Audio site - start
Relevant Products: Azur 851N, CXN v1 & v2, Stream Magic 6 v2

Our unique ATF2 (Adaptive Time Filtering) upsampling technology, developed in conjunction with Anagram Technologies, Switzerland.

All incoming audio data such as a CD 16-bit 44.1kHz signal is upsampled to 24-bit 384kHz using a high-end 32-bit Analog Devices DSP (Digital Signal Processor). "Polynomial Curve Fitting Interpolation" provides a much more accurate upsampled audio soundwave than traditional upsampling processes. And a unique timing system buffers audio data to almost eradicate digital jitter. Vital – as jitter, common in digital audio devices, loses vital detail, often leaving digital audio sounding flat and lifeless.

On products that have ATF, every digital input, no matter where it comes from, wired or wireless, goes through the upsampling and jitter reduction process. From low-quality MP3 and internet radio to high res WAV or FLAC files, everything is treated the same so everything will sound detailed and full.

Please note: Upsampling only occurs when using analogue outputs as the process is implemented within the digital to analogue conversion process.
Cambridge Audio site - end

Some of the CDs I have ripped seem to have some "glare" (not a good technical term)in certain areas of the FLAC file more than the WAV version has and I'm trying to figure out why. On these CDs, the offending portion of a track is louder vocals. Completely subjective listening tests, not blind tests since I always know which version is playing, so really not a good test. Is the processing for the additional Cambridge ATF 24-bit 384kHz upsampling a factor in the files with the "glare"? Seems unlikely, but I can't disable the ATF to hear the difference with or without it. Comparing FLAC vs. WAV for other CDs which may have been mastered with more care, FLAC and WAV sound identical. So, I'm grasping at straws to explain what I think I'm hearing on a couple of the less than a dozen CDs I have ripped. I have updated my ripping settings to include track and album replay gain and that may have tamed some of the "glare", again subjective listening. Next plan is to change FLAC compression from 5 to the minimum compression zero setting (which I know is not zero compression). Don't expect to hear any change but it's something else to try as I fine tune settings during this "learning" period of my CD ripping adventure.

**garym** · January 23, 2023, 02:49 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Changing FLAC compression is irrelevant. It affects the time to create the file initially (more work to encode) but has essentially no impact on decoding back to pcm for the DAC. The upsampling happening in your streamer all happens AFTER the flac or WAV has been converted to pcm. Do at least a single blind test to compare flac and WAV. The mind is a powerful thing when you know what you are comparing. Many major differences have disappeared with blind tests.

**bettersound99** · February 06, 2023, 03:11 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Sorry I did not reply to final response in this discussion trail, thanks for the data points and info.

After listening to a some more ripped FLAC files, I decided to make FLAC my default encoder instead of ripping to dual FLAC and WAV. As noted in other responses, they are bit identical after decoding. Setting the replay gain feature may have helped a couple of the FLAC files that had a bit of "glare" sound, or I have convinced myself that it helped. Either way, FLAC is the encoder I am going with.

I could use some help deciding if the following Meta Data and ID Tag Options in CD Ripper are necessary or beneficial.
The default for these items is not selected, should I select them and what is the benefit?
Write ID Tags
Length
Raw CD TOC
CDDB Disc ID
MBID
Checksum
Profile
Pre-Emphasis
HDCD

Do I need to check HDCD if I anticipate ever having any HDCDs?
Any idea what this option does?

What do the following items provide versus the default not selected state?
Artist Sort
Album Artist Sort
Album Sort

ReplayGain
Set this to Track and Album Gain but do not recall why. Should this be ReplayGain?
After clicking on Track and Album Gain, clicked on the Advanced option. This opens a dialog box which shows Gain Calculation by EBU R128. What is this? The two small boxes below the EBU box then contain -18 and 25 dB. Does this all seem correct? Did not click on the box for disable clip prevention.

Thanks

**garym** · February 06, 2023, 01:18 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Write ID Tags
*Length
Raw CD TOC
CDDB Disc ID
MBID
*Checksum
*Profile
*Pre-Emphasis
HDCD

I use the ones I've indicated above with a *. Other things are info items I don't care about. But some do, and it doesn't take much space to save the info in tags. HDCD is a bit different. I don't use HDCD, as ripping with HDCD is no longer a bit perfect copy of the CD. I have some HDCD CDs, but rip normally and then later use CONVERSION with HDCD option to create 24 bit files that capture the 20 bit information and uses reverse engineering to allow these to be played with HDCD features on non-HDCD capable players. Also, it turns out that many HDCD CDs don't actually use the features of HDCD that need any of this special treatment. Read more than you want to know about HDCD ripping here:

Ripping HDCDs: Best practices? - dBpoweramp Forum

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?27540-Ripping-HDCDs-Best-practices

I apologize in advance for this lengthy post and its wordy questions, but after a lot of reading I'm still unsure what the best general approach is for ripping HDCDs, and from what I can tell there is no FAQ or definitive best practices recommended by illustrate. This might be a bit pedantic, but I'm really hoping those of you

What do the following items provide versus the default not selected state?
Artist Sort
Album Artist Sort
Album Sort

sort tags are used by some music servers and players. I don't use these, but some people do. For example, in my server, "Willie Nelson" is listed as Willie Nelson and shows up under "W" in alphabetical listing. I could have an ARTISTSORT and ALBUMARTISTSORT tag for his CDs with "Nelson, Willie" in the tag. Then Willie Nelson would show up under "N" in alphabetical listings. Same idea for ALBUMSORT.

ReplayGain
Set this to Track and Album Gain but do not recall why. Should this be ReplayGain?
After clicking on Track and Album Gain, clicked on the Advanced option. This opens a dialog box which shows Gain Calculation by EBU R128. What is this? The two small boxes below the EBU box then contain -18 and 25 dB. Does this all seem correct? Did not click on the box for disable clip prevention.

Your replaygain settings are correct and exactly what I use. Album Gain and Track Gain *are* the ReplayGain values that are being saved in the tags for use by your player. ALBUM GAIN keeps "intraCD" volume differences intact (quiet vs loud songs that were meant to be this way in the context of an album). TRACK GAIN used to be called RADIO GAIN, because it is like a radio station, where every song played from any album is trying to have the same target loudness. This is good when you are playing a playlist of tracks from different albums. I like my servers/players as I can set them to use RG, by automatically using ALBUM gain when I'm playing songs from same album or TRACK gain when I'm playing a mix of tracks from different albums. EBUR128 method is the more modern method of calculating ReplayGain. -18 is the default, and what I use. This creates, I recall, about a common loudness of the playback to 89db. And this matches the loudness of files that had RG tags added under the older method of calculating RG before the EBU R128 method.

**garym** · February 06, 2023, 01:22 PM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

By the way, this is the naming string I use. It automatically handles compilation CDs (multiple artists), and single or multiple disk CDs. If you want help on making it do something different (track numbers of 1.01, 2.01 instead of disc number subfolders, etc. just let me know). This is for windows. If you use a Mac, the backslashes should all be changed to "/".

[MAXLENGTH]240,[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album][IFMULTI]\Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title] - [artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI]\Disc [disc][]\[track] - [title][][]

**vilsen** · February 07, 2023, 01:33 AM

Re: New CD Ripper user, setup questions

Originally posted by bettersound99

I have updated my ripping settings to include track and album replay gain and that may have tamed some of the "glare", again subjective listening.

Originally posted by bettersound99

Setting the replay gain feature may have helped a couple of the FLAC files that had a bit of "glare" sound, or I have convinced myself that it helped.

Your 851N does not support Replay Gain, so that couldn't have helped fixing the "glare". It seems to be subjective listening like you pointed out yourself.

Replay Gain is nice to have though. You could make a feature request to Cambridge. They (more or less) frequently update the firmware for their models using the StreamMagic platform.

As an alternative, Asset UPnP supports Replay Gain and can transcode your files on the fly whilst streaming to 851N. But there is no automatic selection of gain type (like garym mentioned above for his server/player combo). So if you go this route I'd suggest creating separate instances in Asset - one for Album Gain and another for Track Gain. That way you wouldn't need to change the setting in Asset itself when switching between gain types, instead you would merely select the proper instance in your CP.

Also, IIRC there is a setting in BubbleUPnP for Replay Gain. Not sure of that or how it would work though.

New CD Ripper user, setup questions

New CD Ripper user, setup questions

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