Few cd ripping and nas questions!

[admin_exported]

Hi few questions im now about to start ripping my cds in a lossless format which i will use with itunes and eventually the sonos set up, is apple lossless best sound wise and best for this as i want the best sound quality(i know in theory they are lossless but thought id ask!)? How much space approx does an album take up in this? Lastly i was looking for a Nas raid drive i saw a 2 x500gb for 139 any other recommendations? Thanks

 

[VoodooDoctor]

A song takes up about 20Mb in Apple Lossless. I'd recommend either FLAC or Apple Lossless. I think that the Sonos does both but can't remember. 1 Terabyte will last a long time (I have 2Tb in a RAID array [Buffalo Terastation]). How many CDs you got?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi thanks for your reply not a massive number of cds roughly around 450.

 

[Anonymous]

Following some advice received from this forum (particularly from ianandyr) I'd recommend ripping to Apple Lossless using the dbPoweramp application (available as a free 30 day trial download).

This works perfectly with my Sonos set-up (including the ability to automatically add in all of the required meta data and album art).

As for NAS units, If physical size and power consumption rate are of particular interest to you, I've got a Buffalo Linkstation Mini (1TB in a Raid 1 array, so effectively 500GB of storage). Its tiny (fits in the palm of your hand) and will happily tuck away in a corner somewhere.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok thanks if you dont mind me asking how much did you get the linkstation for? As far as the dbpoweramp app how do you put all the artwork on is it as simple as itunes? what are the benefits over itunes? Thanksÿ

 

[John Duncan]

Do be aware that dbpoweramp is not avaiable for Mac, if that's your bag. Can't comment on its efficacy over and above iTunes (which works fine for me).

Also, be aware that not all NAS drives will support streaming music to a client without having a PC on.

 

[Anonymous]

Well ive got a macbook pro but i do have leopard and xp pro installed on there. I want a Nas drive i can use without my laptop on what do i need to look out for there? Thanks

 

[John Duncan]

Well it depends on which streaming solution you use - Airport Express requires an iTunes server, Squeezebox requires Squeezeserver etc. NAS drives are available with these preinstalled (QNAP and Buffalo and Lacie are names I know) - I wouldn't fancy trying to install them on anything myself. Don't know about Sonos, need somebody else to chip in - it may just need storage, I don;t know how it works.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok thanks for your help well would be good if someone else could help as i dont want a pc running just hard drive tucked away feeding the sonos. Thanksÿ

 

[John Duncan]

Sonos say "NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices supporting CIFS" (whatever that is)

 

[Anonymous]

Common internet file system. Think i need to do some reading up! Thanks for your help with that. Ill try to find out which Nas drives are compatible with this then without a pc being on.

 

[Anonymous]

Got the list of incompatible drives from the sonos site so can get one ordered! Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

one last questions anyone whose ripped their cds in apple lossless and knows how many albums they have how much space does your cd collection take up(with artwork)? so i can decide how big i need. Thanks again!

 

[VoodooDoctor]

9379 songs, 672 albums, 261.9 Gb.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that well i have 5000 songs on itunes so think the buffalo 500gb raid will be fine should have a reasonable ammount of space in the 250gb. Thanks!

 

[John Duncan]

Oh jeez, mine's all mixed formats so can't say for def, but picking an album at random I get 41 minutes at 205 meg - so call it 350meg for a 74 minute album, making about three albums per gig, 150gig for all of yours. Double that for a twin-disk RAID solution obviously. 500gig drives are the best value to my mind.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so will still leave me space for roughly 250-300 albums more which is quite a bit of room. Saw the buffalo linkstation mini for 160 for the 500gb think ill go for that its nice and easy to tuck out of the way, even though i can get the standard linkstation pro 1tb for the same money thought the 1tb mini at 316 was a little expensive. Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Ordered the 500gb mini got it for 155 delivered thought that was pretty good! Next step find a dac any recommendations? To go with my onkyo 905 and speakers will be b&w 805s. Did think about the ca dacmagic if its good enough? Thanks