Ideal Combo?

[Unregistered]

Just a quick question from a confused neophyte.

I want to rip CD tracks, buy downloadable tracks from various vendors, obtain by other means digital tracks that may not have licenses, etc. I would like to keep these tracks on my HD in lossless format, and convert as needed to the format used by my portable and car systems, as well as play them on my PC and burn CD's/use jukebox/etc. to play through my home Bose system.

It all seems very confusing. I have tried to plow through the various forums, but my patience is wearing thin.

I am about to buy new portable and car systems, and would hate to spend that type of money only to find that I can't do what I want to do.

My music collection is medium-sized. Any suggestions?

[xoas]

Re: Ideal Combo?

dMC provides you with a variety of lossless options of which the most popular are Monkeys Audio (ape format) and flac. I think you would probably be pleased with either one of those.
dMC also provides quite a bit of flexibility with respect to converting to other formats. With respect to car audio your choices are cd, mp3 and many car audio players will now manage wma. Some other formats may also be supported but these are the major formats. Some car audio systems also offer a line-in feature to allow you to hook up your portable player. I am perfectly satisfied with mp3 but some users prefer WMA because it offers somewhat better quality under higher levels of compression.
Be wary of your downloadable tracks. Many vendors use copy-protection measures that restrict your ability to convert their files to a different format. This is true of some manufacturers of portable players as well-notable is Sony's use of Atrac3 format.
Where possible you want to avoid these types of files and file formats if you want to re-convert them because they are a headache to deal with. And say if I had a disk of Atrac3 files I could not use the same disk in my car player (unless it too handled Atrac3 files). If you decide to play with wma format, make sure you do not accidentally encrypt your wma files when you create them.
So I would say go with ape or flac for your computer and use mp3 or wma for car and portable player, The exception would be to go for a more powerful portable player and going for a car player with a line-in option.
I'm sure other users might have their own recommendations.
Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen

[Unregistered]

Re: Ideal Combo?

I certainly appreciate the advice! I'm trying to feel my way without committing any of the cardinal sins.

I have come across flac and ogg vorbis, and a friend suggested the NeurosII with 20 GB HD and 128 MB ram. It handles these formats as well as wma, mp3, etc. I especially like the broadcast feature.

What formats do the different vendors use? I'm sure Sony is obviously the atrac3/plus, but what about itunes and the others?

Thanks again!

[xoas]

Re: Ideal Combo?

For a partial list of formats supported by various players you might want to check out this link:

http://www.mp3.com/tech/players_index.php

Since you mention iTunes, I should point out that if you download music from iTunes it will be an a format known as m4p which has copy protection (as is is increasingly common for internet music vendors and even manufacturers of cd's).

CNET.com also has a nice buyer's guide for portable mp3 players which you might wish to check out to help you consider the pros and cons of various types of players out there and which might be best for your needs.

With respect to playing music through your home system, at some point you should consider using your computer as an audio source for music played through your home audio system.

Hope this helps. Perhaps others will feel free to jump in with their opinions and suggestions as well.

Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen