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Post by littlesaint on Jan 13, 2010 22:34:09 GMT -5
It also depends on the condition of the CD. I was ripping some oldies last weekend and one disc took almost an hour.
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jlafrenz
Global Moderator
I don't want to jump in, unless this music's thumping
Posts: 7,722
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Post by jlafrenz on Jan 13, 2010 22:55:23 GMT -5
It also depends on the condition of the CD. I was ripping some oldies last weekend and one disc took almost an hour. I should have added that in too I have had a couple that take a few hours. I just put them in and go about my day.
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Post by RuggSkins on Jan 14, 2010 9:06:51 GMT -5
FYI - Here is a Web site that is dedicated to PC/MAC AV Integration. They have plenty of useful information pertaining to this topic. They are appropriately named Computer Audiophile www.computeraudiophile.com
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Post by BigV10 on Jan 18, 2010 0:55:41 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. If you originally ripped all the CD's with some sort of compression the first time, I'd recommend changing your ripping format in iTunes to Apple Lossless, as well as turning on auto import. As you feed it your CD's it will ask you if you want to replace your lower resolution files. If you say yes, it will handle the process of replacing the compressed ones with lossless versions while also keeping all of your ratings and playback history. It sounds like a lot of work, but I'm doing the same thing right now. It goes quickly. Just pick out all your favorites and do those first, then do 20 or 30 each day. Most third-party software and devices can handle Apple Lossless, and you can always convert back to FLAC lossless with a piece of software like Max sbooth.org/Max/. Brian
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Post by strindl on Jan 18, 2010 2:36:15 GMT -5
I use Windows Media player and rip to wma lossless. It's really fast on my Xeon quad core. I did do a mass batch conversion of all 1000 of my wma lossless CD rips to have another database of the music in 256 kbs MP3 for mobile device use. That took two days to complete.
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 18, 2010 10:55:30 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. If you originally ripped all the CD's with some sort of compression the first time, I'd recommend changing your ripping format in iTunes to Apple Lossless, as well as turning on auto import. As you feed it your CD's it will ask you if you want to replace your lower resolution files. If you say yes, it will handle the process of replacing the compressed ones with lossless versions while also keeping all of your ratings and playback history. It sounds like a lot of work, but I'm doing the same thing right now. It goes quickly. Just pick out all your favorites and do those first, then do 20 or 30 each day. Most third-party software and devices can handle Apple Lossless, and you can always convert back to FLAC lossless with a piece of software like Max sbooth.org/Max/. Brian Actually, I'm going to keep my current iTunes library for iPod use and non critical listening. You can create a separate library which I will call Apple Lossless. That is done by holding down the option key when you open iTunes. To be fair, a lot of the AAC files I have now sound pretty good, certainly listenable....
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Post by puppetz on Jan 19, 2010 0:22:58 GMT -5
Hey Porscheguy, just thought I would give you my two cents. I'm not aware of any advantage of maintaining two separate libraries (lossless, and the lossy version you already have). When you load songs on to your iPod using iTunes, there is a check box to let you downconvert higher bit-rate files to smaller size. Sorry, I forget the actual verbiage, but I know this works, even for my iPod shuffle (2nd generation) which is not compatible with anything encoded higher than 256kbps. I also have a 160GB Classic which I do not downconvert to- I store all of my songs on it in lossless (I currently have 2,917 songs on it, and it's still only a little more than half full). Also, in iTunes, you can add "Bit Rate" as one of the columns to be able to easily tell which songs are lossless and which songs are the lossy ones. -Nick
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 19, 2010 7:53:10 GMT -5
Hey Porscheguy, just thought I would give you my two cents. I'm not aware of any advantage of maintaining two separate libraries (lossless, and the lossy version you already have). When you load songs on to your iPod using iTunes, there is a check box to let you downconvert higher bit-rate files to smaller size. Sorry, I forget the actual verbiage, but I know this works, even for my iPod shuffle (2nd generation) which is not compatible with anything encoded higher than 256kbps. I also have a 160GB Classic which I do not downconvert to- I store all of my songs on it in lossless (I currently have 2,917 songs on it, and it's still only a little more than half full). Also, in iTunes, you can add "Bit Rate" as one of the columns to be able to easily tell which songs are lossless and which songs are the lossy ones. -Nick I want to create a lossless version of iTunes for streaming via airport express to my UMC-1. And to be honest, I'd love to eliminate my CD's at some point or at least "put them away"...
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 19, 2010 8:21:27 GMT -5
Hey Porscheguy, just thought I would give you my two cents. I'm not aware of any advantage of maintaining two separate libraries (lossless, and the lossy version you already have). When you load songs on to your iPod using iTunes, there is a check box to let you downconvert higher bit-rate files to smaller size. Sorry, I forget the actual verbiage, but I know this works, even for my iPod shuffle (2nd generation) which is not compatible with anything encoded higher than 256kbps. I also have a 160GB Classic which I do not downconvert to- I store all of my songs on it in lossless (I currently have 2,917 songs on it, and it's still only a little more than half full). Also, in iTunes, you can add "Bit Rate" as one of the columns to be able to easily tell which songs are lossless and which songs are the lossy ones. -Nick The "convert on sync" option is only for iPod Shuffles.
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Post by Porscheguy on Jan 19, 2010 8:26:47 GMT -5
I have a 32GB Touch and I's sure if I convert 451 cd's (5000 songs) to lossless it won't fit on my iPod?
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Post by littlesaint on Jan 19, 2010 10:34:43 GMT -5
I have a 32GB Touch and I's sure if I convert 451 cd's (5000 songs) to lossless it won't fit on my iPod? No chance. There's no advantage to lossless codecs on a portable player unless you're using it as a digital source device, or don't want to manage multiple libraries of your music.
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Post by puppetz on Jan 20, 2010 0:06:14 GMT -5
Hey Porscheguy, just thought I would give you my two cents. I'm not aware of any advantage of maintaining two separate libraries (lossless, and the lossy version you already have). When you load songs on to your iPod using iTunes, there is a check box to let you downconvert higher bit-rate files to smaller size. Sorry, I forget the actual verbiage, but I know this works, even for my iPod shuffle (2nd generation) which is not compatible with anything encoded higher than 256kbps. I also have a 160GB Classic which I do not downconvert to- I store all of my songs on it in lossless (I currently have 2,917 songs on it, and it's still only a little more than half full). Also, in iTunes, you can add "Bit Rate" as one of the columns to be able to easily tell which songs are lossless and which songs are the lossy ones. -Nick I want to create a lossless version of iTunes for streaming via airport express to my UMC-1. And to be honest, I'd love to eliminate my CD's at some point or at least "put them away"... Sorry, I was attempting to make a case for you to only have a lossless library (rather than lossless and lossy). But, as littlesaint corrected me, my rationale for you doing so doesn't seem to apply to your situation.
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Post by solidstate on Feb 10, 2010 21:04:13 GMT -5
I have a 32GB Touch and I's sure if I convert 451 cd's (5000 songs) to lossless it won't fit on my iPod? No chance. There's no advantage to lossless codecs on a portable player unless you're using it as a digital source device, or don't want to manage multiple libraries of your music. Figure? I think that would all depend on the quality of the headphones and quality of DAC/headphone opamp or headphone preamp used. If you have great cans then sure you can hear the difference. For a lot of people the only way to get real hifi is via headphones and a lossy rip vs. loss-less is discernible with decent cans. Heck even the classic Portapros are dam near good enough to tell let alone a pair of Grados etc! As for the thread topic. The short answer is mp3 and FLAC. I wouldn't use any other formats due to interoperability issues and DRM. For ripping into mp3 the only encoder to use is LAME. Because iTunes doesn't use LAME (must be some kinda plug for it) that's out of the question. Because LAME is open source software that means it's used in many many applications just not iTunes. If you have never heard of it I suggest you google it as it can make a big differents in SQ vs. the Fraunhofer encoder iTunes and many other programs use. Now as a general rule the best way to encode mp3 is to do it in VBR not CBR. Most modern mp3 players etc can handle VBR so playback is no longer an issue there. It will produce a much better sounding track than CBR will even at it's highest bit rate and the file will be much smaller. I can't get into the why here just trust me on this. Also never set it to stereo if the encoder has the option in the software your use. Set it to joint stereo. I also don't want to get why JS either... use google! LAME also has built in presets for encoding built right into the dll. Google alt preset standard etc. This will result in the best mp3 SQ currently available. As for FLAC there really isn't much setting for that encoder as it's lossless right... One thing though a CUE for it is a great thing as with the right software you can use the FLAC files and CUE to recreate a perfect and I mean bitperfect copy of a CD in case you ever scratch it etc. dbpoweramp.com/ is my personal choice for Windows and it used by a lot of commercial mail in ripping companies. A real great easy solution for a lot of people if you have an old PC kicking around and a bunch of HDs etc is to use vortexbox.org/It will rip your stuff into both formats on the fly, acts like a NAS with SMB, AppleTalk/Bonjour, DAAP, NFS, DLNA/UPnP with Squeezeserver and is built on Fedora.
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Post by monkeypimp on Feb 10, 2010 21:33:21 GMT -5
I personally use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip to FLAC. My last PC...single core took about 20 minutes to Rip a cd now I have a quad core chip and it rips a cd in about 5 minutes.
I use MediaMonkey for playback and to put files on my IPOD....when I right click on an album I hit send to IPOD and it downconverts to the settings I have set the downconversion to and moves them to the IPOD....no need for 2 libraries.
The move from MP3 to FLAC has made a big difference in the sound quality.
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mokes
Minor Hero
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Post by mokes on Feb 11, 2010 13:29:46 GMT -5
I personally use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip to FLAC. My last PC...single core took about 20 minutes to Rip a cd now I have a quad core chip and it rips a cd in about 5 minutes. I use MediaMonkey for playback and to put files on my IPOD....when I right click on an album I hit send to IPOD and it downconverts to the settings I have set the downconversion to and moves them to the IPOD....no need for 2 libraries. The move from MP3 to FLAC has made a big difference in the sound quality. Thanks for the tip, sounds great. Only issue for me would be incompatibility with Airport Express which requires iTunes.
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Post by monkeypimp on Feb 11, 2010 14:31:59 GMT -5
I personally use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip to FLAC. My last PC...single core took about 20 minutes to Rip a cd now I have a quad core chip and it rips a cd in about 5 minutes. I use MediaMonkey for playback and to put files on my IPOD....when I right click on an album I hit send to IPOD and it downconverts to the settings I have set the downconversion to and moves them to the IPOD....no need for 2 libraries. The move from MP3 to FLAC has made a big difference in the sound quality. Thanks for the tip, sounds great. Only issue for me would be incompatibility with Airport Express which requires iTunes. Looks like with the right plugin you can output using mediamonkey over the airport express: "AirPort Express remote speaker plugin for MediaMonkey – emilles.dyndns.org/software/out_apx.html – let’s MediaMonkey output its audio to the AirPort Express." The article is here: jasechong.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/review-airport-express/
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Post by DJ40andover on Feb 12, 2010 20:21:42 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. What software/distro are you running for your music server please?
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Post by littlesaint on Feb 12, 2010 21:19:19 GMT -5
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. What software/distro are you running for your music server please? I've been using mediatomb for awhile now. I might give fuppes a try too.
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Post by cfcmick on Feb 27, 2010 14:02:21 GMT -5
I have a 32GB Touch and I's sure if I convert 451 cd's (5000 songs) to lossless it won't fit on my iPod? PG, I too have an iMac and had to recently re-rip all my CD's (roughly 5,000 songs) after investing in an external DAC. I tried Apple Lossless at first, but soon switched to AIFF (also lossless) after a bit of research. Found many recommendations for this format for use on a Mac via iTunes including the host of Computer Audiophile (mentioned above). Don't know if it's because AIFF files are quite a bit larger than Apple Lossless and rip at a higher bit-rate, but to my ears, on my system, playing back through NHT Classic Three's, I preferred the sound of the AIFF files to the Apple Lossless, which sounded a little harsher to me.
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Post by littlesaint on Feb 27, 2010 16:13:31 GMT -5
I have a 32GB Touch and I's sure if I convert 451 cd's (5000 songs) to lossless it won't fit on my iPod? PG, I too have an iMac and had to recently re-rip all my CD's (roughly 5,000 songs) after investing in an external DAC. I tried Apple Lossless at first, but soon switched to AIFF (also lossless) after a bit of research. Found many recommendations for this format for use on a Mac via iTunes including the host of Computer Audiophile (mentioned above). Don't know if it's because AIFF files are quite a bit larger than Apple Lossless and rip at a higher bit-rate, but to my ears, on my system, playing back through NHT Classic Three's, I preferred the sound of the AIFF files to the Apple Lossless, which sounded a little harsher to me. There's no difference in sound between Apple Lossless and AIFF unless your ripper is doing something wrong.
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