FLAC?

[admin_exported]

Dear all,

Forgive my ignorance. I have decided to try and join the 21st century and turn my CDs into a more modern format to alllow playback in various ways around the house and on the move. I guess I only want to rip them once as it will take a while. From what I can see, FLAC is the way to go. Do people generally agree?

 

[Crocodile]

Yes.

 

[Anonymous]

FLAC is one of the good choises yes.

 

[John Duncan]

It depends on what you want to do with it afterwards - some of the more popular streaming devices don't handle FLAC at all. How were you anticipating playing it - just on your PC or streaming to your stereo somehow?

 

[Anonymous]

Depends on the equipment and software you want to use.

Not all equipment/software support FLAC.

First decide what equipment and software you want to use, then rip to a lossless format supported by that equipment.

Once ripped, lossless files (FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF) can be converted to other lossless format without loss of sound quality. So the only way you really can go wrong, is by ripping to a lossy format.

 

[Silverleaf]

Interesting topic....

I will start using the Sonos (supports Flac), with an external DAC.

What kind of software are you using for ripping and are there any settings to pay attention too?

Currently I have a limitted numer of albums in Tunes, but thats not lossless.

Any advise is welcome

Regards

 

[Anonymous]

Silverleaf:
What kind of software are you using for ripping and are there any settings to pay attention too?

EAC

 

[DIB]

EAC is one.

However, I've ripped all my CD collection into FLAC files using dbPoweramp. I've tried EAC but much prefer dbPoweramp.

.

 

[Scissor_digits]

I've tried ripping the same CD to flac firstly using EAC then using MediaMonkey and I couldn't tell any difference between the two when streamed through my Squeezebox Touch so now I just use MediaMonkey as I prefer it to organise and tag all my ripped CD's although EAC did identify which of my PC's CD drives was the better performing.

You should try the same experiment yourself to satisfy yourself which you prefer between EAC/dbPoweramp/MediaMonkey/other

 

[eternaloptimist]

FLAC is a good choice - as mentioned above it can be converted to other lossless formats without loss of information.

I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip - am in the middle of the collection now, have done around 160... I understand some people have ripped thousands (!!!) Probably the other popular option is dbpoweramp. Each has its proponents, both rip "bit perfect" so I suspect it is more to do with the interface, management of metadata (track info etc) than the actual sound quality.

I would avoid proprietary codecs such as Apple lossless as I am concerned you never know about support in the future. FLAC belongs to no-one! It also p****s me off that Apple effectively block FLAC use - can get pluggins to play back but lots of metadata issues...

I then playback with J River MC 15 with WASAPI into my DAC.

After ripping 160 CDs - each taking around 20 minutes up to 2 hours (for the old scratched ones...) I do not plan on doing this *ever again*!!

 

[DIB]

eternaloptimist:
FLAC is a good choice - as mentioned above it can be converted to other lossless formats without loss of information.

I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip - am in the middle of the collection now, have done around 160... I understand some people have ripped thousands (!!!) Probably the other popular option is dbpoweramp. Each has its proponents, both rip "bit perfect" so I suspect it is more to do with the interface, management of metadata (track info etc) than the actual sound quality.

I then playback with J River MC 15 with WASAPI into my DAC.

After ripping 160 CDs - each taking around 20 minutes up to 2 hours (for the old scratched ones...) I do not plan on doing this *ever again*!!

This is the main reason that I use dbPoweramp rather than EAC, it just takes too long.

.

 

[eternaloptimist]

DIB:eternaloptimist:
FLAC is a good choice - as mentioned above it can be converted to other lossless formats without loss of information.

I use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip - am in the middle of the collection now, have done around 160... I understand some people have ripped thousands (!!!) Probably the other popular option is dbpoweramp. Each has its proponents, both rip "bit perfect" so I suspect it is more to do with the interface, management of metadata (track info etc) than the actual sound quality.

I then playback with J River MC 15 with WASAPI into my DAC.

After ripping 160 CDs - each taking around 20 minutes up to 2 hours (for the old scratched ones...) I do not plan on doing this *ever again*!!

This is the main reason that I use dbPoweramp rather than EAC, it just takes too long.

Everyone has to take up their cross... I like that EAC is free. I'm in no rush, I set a CD going, come back later etc... For the scratched CDs I set it going before going off to bed!

 

[Alec]

EAC is supposed to come into its own with scratched discs but ive enjoyed using poewramp on trial recently. I can never even hear the errors it reports.*

This must mean I have terribly hearing, the error reports are wrong, or the errors are minor to say the least. I'm happy either way.

*Though i only listen for errors if only a couple of songs are reported to have errors. On a couple of occasions every song on an album has seemingly had errors, so ive replaced the disc.

 

[Anonymous]

Dear all,

Many thanks for your advice, I am now ripping away merrily, although it looks like it will take a while. I have found that a piece of freeware I was already using called Freerip will rip to FLAC, so I am using that. I think I will buy a NAS hard drive so I can get to the files from all over the house and work things out from there. Does anyone have a Logitec Squeezebox, and are they any good? They don't seem too expensive and I am tempted.

 

[John Duncan]

Yes they are. Depends on which one you choose (varying degrees of native sound quality), but put a DAC on the end and they're all fantastic. And they support FLAC...

 

[nads]

Niffleman:
Dear all,

Many thanks for your advice, I am now ripping away merrily, although it looks like it will take a while. I have found that a piece of freeware I was already using called Freerip will rip to FLAC, so I am using that. I think I will buy a NAS hard drive so I can get to the files from all over the house and work things out from there. Does anyone have a Logitec Squeezebox, and are they any good? They don't seem too expensive and I am tempted.

yep I have both the clasic and the touch.

used to use the classic with a Dac magic but dont use any Dac with the touch.