Need to RIp 450 Cd's for Slimserver and Ipod

[Jazzman]

Hi All

I am going to rip all of my audio CD's to a digital format. I ordered a Slim Server for the home and have an Ipod. I'm a musician, so sound quality is important.

My plan is to use multiple computers with the same ripping setup to convert the CD's to FLAC I then want to merge these directories and the batch convert the whole catalog to AAC to synchornize with my ipod.

I see lots of threads, some which are old, so I thought I would ask what the current thinking is.

1.) Do I need to use EAC to rip, or will Db PowerAmp, which I see if much faster, give me comparable quality?

2.) I have several options for lossless. Apple Lossless, FLAC and Monkey Audio. Is FLAC the best option?

3.) WHich is the best way to batch convert these FLAC files in a format that preserves the tags and gives me the most information on the ipod. Can I do it in batch and recreate the directory structure for the albums etc on a different place on the drive ( preferably my itunes directory)

4.) Which version of AAC would work best for sound quality on the ipod.

Is this all possible, or am I nuts?

Thanks for your help in advance

Regards

Dave

[Deano]

Re: Need to RIp 450 Cd's for Slimserver and Ipod

1.) dBpowerAMP is much much faster than EAC when ripping (well, if EAC is set in secure mode anyway). I would use dBpowerAMP and make sure you enable AccurateRip. I did not realise how useful AccurateRip was until a couple of months ago, now I find it indispensable. As long as you make sure your AccurateRip results are good, you can be confident the rip was good.

2.) For the SlimServer, I would suggest FLAC being the best support as I know it supports it out of the box (at least I think it does). I imagine the others are supported via various plugins. But I'm a FLAC advocate. Heh.

3.) Batch conversions can be handled by dBpowerAMP's File Selector. As you are using Lossless files as your source, these will be good quality rips.

4.) Well, the new Nero AAC Codec produced very good results for me in testing. As long as you force LC-AAC (Low Complexity AAC), you should get files that play perfectly on your iPod. I tried with q0.5 (the default quality setting) and got good quality... but I imagine my threshold could be lower, I just got lazy testing things out.

[Jazzman]

Re: Need to RIp 450 Cd's for Slimserver and Ipod

Deano

Thanks for the help...WIll test a couple of CD's today

Dave

[omnibus89]

Re: Need to RIp 450 Cd's for Slimserver and Ipod

you can also use dbpa to re-rip to AAC using iTunes. simply download the codec from codec central and set your preferences in iTunes. If the only place you're going to play the AAC files is your iPod, might not be a bad idea.

[LtData]

Re: Need to RIp 450 Cd's for Slimserver and Ipod

Actually, the iTunes encoder codec has bene taken down. The new nero mp4/aac encoder is the only mp4/aac encoder that is available now, since it replaced the other ones and is much higher quality than FAAC.