The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

[turnstyle]

Hi all,

I'm finally about ready to rip my CD collection, and this certainly seems like a chore that I only want to do once!

I've mostly decided to rip to a lossless format (as drive space is so cheap now) -- and I'm currently using Windows, but I may change to Mac or Linux at some later time.

I don't care much about lossless *compression* but rather ripping to "bit pure" files that are easily played via different players, and contain metadata.

It seems to mostly come down to FLAC, Apple Lossless, or WMA Lossless -- is that about right?

Thanks! -Scott

[bhoar]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Hi all,

I'm finally about ready to rip my CD collection, and this certainly seems like a chore that I only want to do once!

I've mostly decided to rip to a lossless format (as drive space is so cheap now) -- and I'm currently using Windows, but I may change to Mac or Linux at some later time.

I don't care much about lossless *compression* but rather ripping to "bit pure" files that are easily played via different players, and contain metadata.

It seems to mostly come down to FLAC, Apple Lossless, or WMA Lossless -- is that about right?

I'd say that FLAC is the most compatible format out there. I suspect both ALAC and WMA Lossless were deployed at least partially for lock-in purposes.

But remember, if you rip to lossless, you can always use the music converter to transcode to another lossless format with no audio quality loss (or to a lossy format for portables with some audio quality loss).

Note - it is possible to add FLAC support to WMP, but, alas, not iTunes:

http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation_tasks.html

EDIT: well, there's a semi-hackish way to add FLAC playback to iTunes mentioned here:

http://flac.sourceforge.net/itunes.html

-brendan

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Just curious, if...

1) WMP will rip to WMA Lossless

2) db will convert WMA Lossless to other formats

Is there a reason not to simply rip to WMA Lossless?

[bhoar]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Just curious, if...

1) WMP will rip to WMA Lossless?

I'm sure it can, by why would you use WMP to rip if you have a much better ripping tool in dbpoweramp's cd ripper?

-brendan

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

why would you use WMP to rip if you have a much better ripping tool in dbpoweramp's cd ripper?

Oh, just because it's already there -- just curious, why would db rip any better than WMP?

fwiw, I'm totally open to buying a copy of db (that's why I'm here, after all :D ) -- but if there's no practical difference, I generally prefer to run with minimal additional software when possible.

And thanks again, I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I am currently converting all my CD's to FLAC. I choose flac because its opensource, and its lossless, and I will probably get a SONOS system which supports FLAC. If I need another format in the future i can just use dMC to convert it all while im sleeping

Reasons to use db: its fast, you can get the folder names and filenames just the way you want to (and often coverart). The secure rip and acurip functions makes sure you dont really have to worry about the rips being accurate.
I love that I just pop in the cd, check names, and then when its done it spits out the cd and reports if there was any errors, so i can basically rip alot of cd's without worry or too much work. All that is required is a little time invested in setting the options to your liking.

Oh and i have seen threads about WMP having tendencies to store meta-data in its own library and making it a real hassle if you need to change player/platform/format, I have no personal experience with this because I can't stand WMP in Vista.

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Hi Ney, thanks!

What player do you use?

I'm currently using WMP11/Vista, and I don't actually mind this version of WMP (for a change!) -- but one thing that really bugs me about WMP is that it automatically adds normalization tags when it plays files, and there seems to be no way to turn that off.

So I'm game for a better (lightweight) player -- do you use db's player too?

-Scott

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Oh and i have seen threads about WMP having tendencies to store meta-data in its own library and making it a real hassle if you need to change player/platform/format

On that, if db were saving to WMP Lossless files, wouldn't it presumably save the metadata to tags within the WMA files, rather than do anything weird with the WMP library?

[EliC]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Hi Ney, thanks!

So I'm game for a better (lightweight) player -- do you use db's player too?

-Scott

mediamonkey makes a very nice user friendly player. Foobar is very popular among enthusiasts but is not very easy to use - though they will tell you otherwise. db's player is out of date.

[anthonydddd]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I just re-ripped ~3000 CD's with db and was for the most part thrilled with the program. I had done them a few years ago but got so sick of listening to artifacts and ripped scratches that I decided to do it again. If you are doing a large number of CD's anything you do to speed up the process ends up making a huge difference. I used Exact Audio Copy for about a day before I bothered to do the math and estimate how long it was going to take me. Ripping 8 hours a day 7 days a week I was looking at about 4 months. Using db and 2 drives I did it comfortably in a week or so. And with almost all the of CD's being in the accuraterip database I could be sure what was done correctly and was able to weed out any CDs that I needed to replace.

With regards to the player I have been a huge Media Monkey fan. Media Monkey 3 is still in beta but it works great and will be officially released very very soon.

The one problem I've had is that Media Monkey and db do not handle tags that are allowed to be multi-valued in a compatible way. For example, if db rips tracks that have more than one artist associated with them Media Monkey will only use one of them to build the library database. It seems that db does it properly, but that very few players accomodate the correct format, and that many hardware devices can't read the tags at all. For this reason the developers of Media Monkey intentionally adopted the wrong but almost universally accepted format, and they have no intention of changing it in the near future. How big a deal this is is personal i guess. For me it is a very big deal and I'm teetering on switching over to foobar2000. Fans of foobar2000 will tell you it is just as easy to use as media monkey. I have a PhD in computer science from Stanford and trust me, it is much more difficult. If you enjoy doing things like building your own interface from indivisually downloaded components then foobar2000 is the way to go, otherwise I'd recommend media monkey.

[Spoon]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

There is an ID Tag update utility which can put them as artist1; artist2

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=15296

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Another question: I just discovered the K-Lite codec pack which seems to come with a bunch of codes (including FLAC) -- it also includes what seems to be a lightweight player.

Does anybody have any opinions of the K-Lite codec pack / player?

thanks, -Scott

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I use good old winamp atm, but I will be switching to a Sonos solution soon :lustig1:
I generaly listen to whole albums, so i just rightclick the folder and select play in winamp, and then got winamp in the tray so its not bothering me. If I used more advanced playing methods or music libraries I'd probably change to another player.

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I've grown a bit weary of Winamp now that it's a property of one of the 'big guys' -- they always want to force unwanted stuff on you -- of course that logic also applies to WMP, but the difference is that WMP is present on the OS.

fwiw, I'm basically "rolling my own" Sonos -- in my case, I keep an old PC wired to my stereo (I use USB for audio out, as that provides for higher quality audio). I've also attached a pair of external drives to hold all the media files (one drive is a backup of the other) -- 500GB is only about $150 these days!

(and 500GB can hold thousands of lossless CDs)

I mostly work off my wi-fi laptop, and I use it to control the 'media server' via Remote Desktop (so when I select something and click play, it plays out the stereo).

It's a handy setup, and because it's all computer stuff, I can change how it works whenever I need to. (For example, it works with anything that works on a computer, whereas dedicated systems tend to only work with specifc options.)

The question I'm now wresting with is whether FLAC is the "right" format, whether use db for ripping/transcoding, and whether to use the K-Lite codec pack for decoding and for its simple player app.

-Scott

[Ron F.]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I have ripped my thousand CD collection to FLAC. Most of that was done under Windoze, but now I have moved on to Ubuntu Linux, and I continue using dB almost exactly as before.

As Ney said earlier, I like FLAC too because it is Open Source. I play my music using a Squeezebox, and FLAC is the native format of that setup. Music I want to transfer to the 8 GByte SD card in my Treo, I convert to Ogg Vorbis. For playing music directly off my computer, I use Amarok.

-Ron