Potential New User - General Software Query

[a.wright]

Hi,

I have been looking for software that can easily rip and convert audio formats for a while and this certainly seems to be an ideal choice. However although the marketing blurb seems to infer that it is used by millions of people I am surprised I have never come across it until now.

In addition, looking at the revision history, it seems as if there are still significant numbers of bug fixes ongoing which I would perhaps not expect from established software. Some of these seem to be relatively minor but maybe should not have found their way into a release version...

I'd be interested to hear users views as to whether in real life use, the software is generally very stable and reliable? I have no real reason to doubt otherwise but as I can't find anyone I know ever using this before, I only have what I can read on this site as a reference.

Thanks, and no offence intended to the authors!

[Spoon]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

If only you could see the complete bug fix list for say Windows, it would go into the 1000's, is that not established software?

Audio conversion is one of the most difficult fields as we are using many audio formats, many different 'standards' and many 3rd party libraries to read those files. There are many files created by programs which do not follow the standards and can cause crashes (such as bad ID Tags).

As the marketing blurbs says we convert more files than anyone else, that our software is exposed to more different types of audio files than anything else.

[garym]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

I've been playing around with digital music for a few years, started down the wrong path (not realizing that there was a difference between rippers/encoders) and essentially being blissfully ignorant. I then discovered HydrogenAudio.org, then LAME for MP3, then EAC for ripping. I educated myself the best I could and made the decision to rerip my 3,000 plus CDs to lossless (FLAC) and then to create a lossy library for use on portables using LAME MP3 at -V2. After playing with EAC for ripping and Foobar2000 for converting and other things, I moved to dbpoweramp. I find it more intuitive, to have more functions, and to be very much an "all in one" solution to high quality (secure) ripping and encoding. In short, I'm a very satisfied customer. The only other ripper that folks take seriously is EAC and it is not even a beta yet (it is "prebeta"). Foobar2000 is very popular and it has not even made it to version 1 yet (it is ver 0.95).

To summarize, I use the following software for my needs:

1. dbpoweramp reference (secure ripping to flac and encoding to mp3 (lame)); edit: I started with ver 12.3, recently upgraded to ver 12.4 (although for my purposes, the changes in 12.4 didn't affect me one way or the other)
2. mp3tag (for doing a few things that I can't do in dbpoweramp---actually I probably can if I learn a little more, it is just that I already know how to do the things I want in mp3tag (like converting replaygain album info into soundcheck values in itunes so that my ipod uses "album" level volume leveling rather than track level).
3. Foobar2000 for playing files on my computer (through my home stereo system--- Windows Laptop (SPDIF)-->Benchmark DAC1--> Preamp/Amp
4. I also import the mp3 files into an itunes library and use itunes for syncing with my IPOD. I use the latest version itunes and have several ipods (including the latest 160GB version).

EDIT: and of course the most important thing, my lossless and lossy libraries are backed up on multiple external harddrives stored in 3 different locations (backups stored in the same house don't help much with a fire, flood, theft, etc.). Harddrive space is cheap compared to what I've spent on the music itself.

[a.wright]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

Thanks for the responses. Perhaps partly I don't really understand the complexity of it all because you see so many applications that convert to just about anything that you just take for granted the processes involved... albeit perhaps with wildy differing results!

I'll be giving this a go. Thanks again

[EliAbbe]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

I started using it 2-3 years ago when I bought a Sonos system. It was recommended quite a bit on the Sonos board. I wanted to rip everything in a Lossless format. This was the closest thing that I found to an out of the box solution, so I really haven't tried other approaches. It has always done a great job of ripping, and I have also used it to convert to other formats for iPod, etc.

The greatest thing is the responsiveness of Spoon if you do run into a problem. A year or two ago, I was getting occasional crashes at the end of ripping an album. I reproduced on a conversion and sent a sample file to Spoon. He fixed the problem and re-released in a matter of days.

I am now using 12.3, Beta and I am having an occasional problem of losing the tags when I convert from FLAC to M4A. Others have reported it as well, and I am confident that it will be taken care of soon.

Definitely recommended.

[EliAbbe]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

I should have added that the problem that I am seeing now did not occur on version 11.5, so if I had wanted to stick to (or go back to) an earlier version, I would have been OK. So please don't make the mistake of saying that a version of a product (v12.3) is "immature" just because it has bugs that appear during Beta. That is the whole point of a Beta, to try it out in more real-life situations to find the problems that occur only in less common configurations.

I used to be a developer on Quicken, and I saw some interesting bugs come up in Beta, even at a point where Quicken had been out for 10 years and had 10 million customers. It doesn't mean that Quicken was "not establisheed".

[a.wright]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

Well I have downloaded and had a good play and I have to say it's exactly what I have been looking for

All I need to decide now is which format to go for that will provide me with most future proofing (if that is possible) and that is compatable with varied devices. i.e. I don't want to be converting my entire music collection every few years!

Thanks again for the responses.

[garym]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

Re future proofing. Any major lossless format is just fine. As I've said, I like FLAC because it is open source and there is lots of software that encodes and decodes to FLAC. With any lossless, you'll never have to rip your CDs again (and as you'll discover, this is effortful, time consuming part of all this). Even if a new lossless format arrives in a few years that, say, allows you to have file sizes 1/10 the size of current flac files. You simply use dbpoweramp or foobar (or whatever the software is in the future), select the directory with all 50,000 of your old flac files and reencode to the new lossless version. A couple of clicks, and 24 hours or so later you have all new lossless files with smaller size but with all the tag information, etc. The point to remember is Lossless = Lossless. While it would not be a good idea to transcode from one lossy format to another (mp3 to AAC), etc. because then you are losing something, the entire point of lossless is that you can always create new lossless identical files with any other lossless format in the future.

You might check out this poll over at HA. FLAC seems to be the most poplular for lossless.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=60145

p.s. don't get too excited about the issue of a FLAC image with cue sheet vs. ripping separate tracks. This has nothing to do with whether playing these separate tracks back are "gapless", etc. When I play Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, etc. with either FLAC or LAME MP3 (V2), the playback is true gapless if using any standard player (foobar2000, itunes, winamp). The LAME MP3 files are also gapless when playing back on IPOD (assuming you have 5th or 6th generation).

[aBob]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

I think many people (maybe most) have a misconception that if something is free, it must not be as good as a commercial alternative. In this technology, it seems to me, that far too many people believe that if the software isn't free, there is something wrong.

I used to use EAC, but pretty much had to stop due to the fact it started crashing at the end of every extraction, locking up the computer. The EAC author and helpers at the forum at that time ignored my requests for help.

You can do most if not all of what dbPoweramp ripper/convertor does (no, not all) with free software, but you may spend 100's of times the amount of money, in time spent, setting everything up to work, and work together. There will still be problems, and the 'tech support' is pretty often not the best, or even unavailable. Although enthusiasts do really do a very nice job of helping others, dbPoweramp takes an awful lot of headache (and time) out of getting your cd audio into the places and formats you want or need. That is my experience. I know there is still a free version of dbPoweramp, I really don't recall what all it doesn't have, but a little money really goes a long way here.

I 'play' a lot, with the alternatives, because I find it fun. But if I want to get some new cds archived, I do it with this. Often, getting it done takes under five minutes per disc.

That's my take.

[damian291]

Re: Potential New User - General Software Query

I first heard of dbPowerAmp a couple of years ago. It was recommended by a friend as being a very inuitive "not in your face" program for most of your ripping/converting requirements.

I can only give praise for this amazing product. Trust me when I say this product is not over-hyped!