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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 10, 2010 19:20:18 GMT -5
I have an Oppo and a ERC-1, but I wondered what the best format is to rip cd's for maximum SQ. I have 450 CD's in iTunes, but It's not quite good enough past casual listening..
I have an iMac.
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jlafrenz
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 10, 2010 19:28:07 GMT -5
You can rip to Apple lossless. That would be the highest quality rip.
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 10, 2010 19:36:23 GMT -5
You can rip to Apple lossless. That would be the highest quality rip. Of course that means re ripping all those cd's again.... uhhh |
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Post by house72 on Jan 10, 2010 20:06:19 GMT -5
You can select all the songs and click to convert to apple lossless. Once that is done, you can delete all the low quality versions.
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 10, 2010 20:26:16 GMT -5
You can select all the songs and click to convert to apple lossless. Once that is done, you can delete all the low quality versions. So if I understand correctly, I can convert my current iTunes library to Apple lossless? Will they still play in iTunes? I'm sure my 32GB iPod would be too small..... Can I have both versions in iTunes? Sorry....... |
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jlafrenz
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 10, 2010 20:27:14 GMT -5
You can select all the songs and click to convert to apple lossless. Once that is done, you can delete all the low quality versions. Well if he has already ripped them in a lower quality format they can be changed to Apple lossless, but the quality won't change. It can't go back and add in data that isn't there. All it would be doing is changing the file format. |
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 10, 2010 20:31:16 GMT -5
You can select all the songs and click to convert to apple lossless. Once that is done, you can delete all the low quality versions. That's not a very good way to get Apple Lossless. The tracks have already been lossy compressed using iTunes. Information from the original CD has been lost, so converting to lossless after the fact is no longer a true lossless rip. The only way to get true lossless rips is to re-rip to Apple Lossless using iTunes or a third-party ripper like XLD, or sbooth's Rip. I'm going through the process right now, ripping to single-file FLAC+CUE for archiving, multi-file FLAC for my music server (linux), and converting to True VBR AAC (only possible with XLD) for iTunes and my iPhone. |
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 10, 2010 20:32:58 GMT -5
You can select all the songs and click to convert to apple lossless. Once that is done, you can delete all the low quality versions. So if I understand correctly, I can convert my current iTunes library to Apple lossless? Will they still play in iTunes? I'm sure my 32GB iPod would be too small..... Can I have both versions in iTunes? Sorry....... I'd look into maintaining 2 separate iTunes libraries if you want to go that route. Plenty of info out there on how to do it. |
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Post by dreadpiratemarc on Jan 10, 2010 20:37:04 GMT -5
Once data is lost, it's lost. If they're already ripped to mp3 or other non-lossless formats, converting them to Apple Lossless will not bring back the missing bits. There's nothing else for it but to return to the source and re-rip. I recently did that with my CD collection. It's a pain, but once it's done they sound indistinguishable from a CD. Be ready for them to take up a lot more disk space than what you're using now, by the way.
Apple Lossless is also my format of choice, for the convenience of compatibility with iTunes with iPhone remote control (for home) or my 160gb iPod for the office (like I said, lots of space). But SQ-wise, FLAC and Windows Media Lossless are just as good.
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Post by sharky on Jan 10, 2010 20:43:58 GMT -5
I'm just finishing converting mine to FLAC also.
Went with flac because of all the hardware players that read lossless being compatible with flac (well, I don't know about iTunes).
But squeezebox, olive, Linn, etc. they all went the flac route so I went there too.
I have a mediaplayer in the living room that gets the files from a network harddisk sitting by the PC at the office (at home).
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 10, 2010 20:59:44 GMT -5
So like I thought, I would have to re-rip everything all over again....... I'd like to find someone to do it for me  |
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jlafrenz
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 10, 2010 21:29:01 GMT -5
I just rip mine while I hang out on the lounge or listen to some tunes. Do a few at a time and it goes quicker than you think.
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Post by nativefx on Jan 10, 2010 23:14:23 GMT -5
Okay, sorry if i'm a newb to this topic. I'd like to start ripping my CD's to a lossless format like FLAC or Windows Media Lossless so that I could eventually set up a computer to serve as a media server, but I don't know where to begin. Is either of these formats better for what I'd like to do down the road, and which programs/players are available to download and fairly easy to use? Like I said, I'm a newb.
I do have an ipod and use itunes, but when I did that i ripped as mp3 files so I need to start over again. If I use FLAC or WML I can always convert these files into itunes to use with my ipod correct?
Thanks for any and all help!
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jlafrenz
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 10, 2010 23:23:06 GMT -5
If you have iTunes and want to continue to use it then rip to Apple lossless. If you want to use another format, use FLAC. They are both lossless formats and will work for what you want to do. Yes you can convert FLAC over into iTunes as far as I know.
Rippers:
iTunes, dbpoweramp or EAC
Players:
foobar2000, WinAmp, JRiver Media, or iTunes
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 10, 2010 23:52:29 GMT -5
iTunes doesn't understand FLAC natively, but there are some plug-ins out there to add the format for converting or transcoding on the fly. You can also use a different converter like foobar2000 to batch convert your FLAC files to AAC for importing to iTunes and syncing with your iPod.
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Post by dreadpiratemarc on Jan 10, 2010 23:54:04 GMT -5
Another FLAC player I used to use is Songbird. Made by the same folks as Firefox, which I also use. MediaMonkey is another one to try out. It plays everything, and it's the best tool I've found for tagging and adding cover art, whether you're going to use it for playback or not.
Once you get your CD's into any of the lossless formats, free software can quickly and easily convert between them without degradation, so it's easy to change your mind down the road. It's not like you have to start over again. dbpoweramp is a great free software to do that.
EAC ripping to FLAC is a highly "accurate" ripper (lots of error checking) but it's not quick, if speed is important to you. EAC is what I used, it just took a while. iTunes (to Apple Lossless) and Windows Media Player (to WMA Lossless) would be the quickest, but may have microscopic errors in the data (the kind that people argue over whether they are audible or not). dbpoweramp might be a good compromise but I believe only the paid-for version can rip CD's. (the free one can convert)
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 11, 2010 12:26:28 GMT -5
If you have iTunes and want to continue to use it then rip to Apple lossless. If you want to use another format, use FLAC. They are both lossless formats and will work for what you want to do. Yes you can convert FLAC over into iTunes as far as I know. Rippers: iTunes, dbpoweramp or EAC Players: foobar2000, WinAmp, JRiver Media, or iTunes If you rip in iTunes at the least compression setting - is it lossless? |
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jlafrenz
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 11, 2010 12:33:24 GMT -5
I don't personally use iTunes, but I just looked it up and it was stated to select MPEG4 and then there should be a choice for Apple Lossless.
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Post by strindl on Jan 11, 2010 12:56:44 GMT -5
As long as you rip from the original CD to any lossless format, the sound should be identical bit for bit to the CD. I ripped all one thousand plus of my CD's to wma lossless but any lossless format would yield the same sonic results. Flac is a particularly nice one in that it is an open source format..not proprietary to Microsoft or Apple.
Once you have your music in a lossless format, they can always be batch converted into any other lossless format, or back to CD, with zero loss of audio quality. You could also make MP3 copies of any or all of them for use on your ipod.
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 11, 2010 13:04:48 GMT -5
Apple Lossless is part of the libavcodec library, so while not officially "open" anything that includes the library (VLC, MPlayer, etc.) will support it. Apple has never tried to stop anyone from using the reverse-engineered code. Not sure if the same is true for WMA Lossless.
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