Total noob: want to rip my CDs into WMA lossless (not doing FLAC, long story)

[Pipelineporter]

Hello,

Before I buy a license I want to make sure I can rip CDs into WMA lossless (not lossy WMA).

Is this problem and how would you do this? Waiting for my CD drive to arrive, so can’t try right now.

Thank you

[BOOTP]

Have a read through Spoon's resources, including the associated links here: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm

Not much else you can do without a drive. Just be prepared to do a bunch of test rips to explore and tune how things work before you start for real.

By the way, I personally would not rip to .WMA, although CD Ripper can do this. For lossless, I would not use anything other than FLAC.

[GBrown]

Yes, on Windows machines only though. Details are on the info page for CD Ripper.
CD Ripper

[Pipelineporter]

On my aftermarket radio, my choices are: MP3 AAC WMA. So out of those three WMA lossless would seem to be the best.
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Can you explain what you mean by:
&*8220;bunch of test rips to explore and tune how things work before you start for real.&*8221;

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Does this software have a lot of errors? I&*8217;ll read that link now. Thank you

[GBrown]

No error problems with dBPoweramp. But there could be issues with your player.

Are you sure your car player supports lossless WMA though? That is something I would test before moving forward with your whole library. By that logic if it supports AAC (m4a) then by extension it should also support ALAC lossless. There are far fewer devices that support WMA Lossless than the more traditional FLAC or ALAC options.

I am not trying to steer you away from a preference. It is more about making sure this less common format is really your only option.

[Pipelineporter]

Thats a great idea, sample CD, check and see what happens. I am waiting for my cd burner to arrive. After that Ill do the trial. Is it pretty easy to use and find WMA Lossless? I just want to make sure it is easy to tell if I am doing WMA vs WMA lossless. I really appreciate your help.

[Pipelineporter]

Also no worries on steering me anyway! I just want to have my songs in my car. I am finally putting a really nice stereo system so I want to best I can do.

[BOOTP]

The software is reliable and robust.

What I mean is it can take a while to get the options and settings exactly the way you want them (as you will not know everything from the outset), particularly when it comes to DSP's, folder structures, naming conventions, metadata, etc.

So, you can rip a few CDs and try and tweak things as you go, and in the process, discover what works and what does not for your use case(s). When you get everything just the way you want, you may decide to re-rip the originals.

[Pipelineporter]

Thank you for the reply. I just have to find a physical CD Burner I saw the CD accuracy pinned list so I figure to just choose one of those. Does that sound right?

[GBrown]

Also no worries on steering me anyway! I just want to have my songs in my car. I am finally putting a really nice stereo system so I want to best I can do.

If this is an aftermarket stereo, just get one that supports FLAC or ALAC at a minimum. There are enough good brands out there that do this already.

If you spend the time to rip your CD library to WMA Lossless now, you might regret it in the future when you will likely need to repeat it again.

[Pipelineporter]

I have an Alpine Restyle system, which is very integrated with Microsoft sync that I enjoy. So keeping that.

[GBrown]

I have an Alpine Restyle system, which is very integrated with Microsoft sync that I enjoy. So keeping that.

OK that is different. In your previous post it sounded like you were putting in a new system. An Alpine Restyle system that integrates into a MS Sync system was for older F-150s. If that is what you have, I'm afraid you won't be able to use lossless WMA. Check the specs for that system.

MP3: bit rate of 8-320kbps; sampling rate of 8-48kHz
WMA: bit rate of 48-320kbps; sampling rate of 8-48kHz
AAC: bit rate of 16-320kbps; sampling rate of 8-48kHz

[Pipelineporter]

Ooof, well I guess I&*8217;m stuck with WMA since the bit rate starts at 48

[GBrown]

Ooof, well I guess I&*8217;m stuck with WMA since the bit rate starts at 48

All three options max out at 320kbps so you can choose any of those three and rip at this rate. In order of popularity mp3>aac>wma but your call on what you want to do. The other option is to still rip to a lossless format, then sync a copy to your USB device for the car at the lossy format.

[Pipelineporter]

Im going to look into the USB. I dont think CDs are the answer for this