Lossless ripping & capacity usage - OUCH!

admin_exported

New member
Aug 10, 2019
2,556
4
0
Visit site
Hi all, sorry for the long post but bear with me ;)

I've just spent a while ripping some stuff to my Itouch in Apple Lossless having read about the superior sound quality over the standard Apple rip rate and have been staggered by the capacity it has used up!

To give an example, I have one file ripped AAC which gives me 79 songs lasting 5hrs 6mins and uses 324.6MB.

I have ripped another file using lossless which gives me 73 songs lasting 4hrs 54mins and uses a whopping 2.01GB!

Is this typical?

As an ex DJ I have thousands of tracks I want to rip so I can store the originals away (7", 12", Vinyl Albums, CD Albums & Singles).

I was looking at buying 2, or maybe 3, Ipod Classic 120GB to do this.

Based on the above, if I rip everything lossless I'll only get about 4,400 tracks on each one whereas if I rip in AAC it will be in the region of 29,000 for each one!

So here's my question.

If my maths are right, and my experience of the additional capacity usage in lossless is normal, will I gain sufficient benefit in sound quality to offset the drastic reduction in tracks that can be recorded?

I listen mainly in my car and other relatively noisy environments like my clubhouse. Even at home there is always other noise going on - Kids, wife etc ;)

Is there a way I can rip lossless but then get a copy in AAC for use on the Ipod?

I've searched Itunes but it only appears to give me an option to create a lossless version?

This seems to be my best option as I can always then get a better version if I wish but I can't see how to do it.

I will rip one of the tracks in AAC and compare them tomorrow but at this hour I'd be lynched!

Any thoughts, comments or advice appreciated [remember my typical listening environment ;)]

Capitan
 

The_Lhc

Well-known member
Oct 16, 2008
1,176
1
19,195
Visit site
Capitan:Hi all, sorry for the long post but bear with me ;)

I've just spent a while ripping some stuff to my Itouch in Apple Lossless having read about the superior sound quality over the standard Apple rip rate and have been staggered by the capacity it has used up!

To give an example, I have one file ripped AAC which gives me 79 songs lasting 5hrs 6mins and uses 324.6MB.

I have ripped another file using lossless which gives me 73 songs lasting 4hrs 54mins and uses a whopping 2.01GB!

Is this typical?

Yes, sounds pretty much spot on.

As an ex DJ I have thousands of tracks I want to rip so I can store the originals away (7", 12", Vinyl Albums, CD Albums & Singles).

I was looking at buying 2, or maybe 3, Ipod Classic 120GB to do this.

Based on the above, if I rip everything lossless I'll only get about 4,400 tracks on each one whereas if I rip in AAC it will be in the region of 29,000 for each one!

So here's my question.

If my maths are right, and my experience of the additional capacity usage in lossless is normal, will I gain sufficient benefit in sound quality to offset the drastic reduction in tracks that can be recorded?

To be honest, you're the only person that can answer that question, you'll just have to listen and make your own mind up.

I listen mainly in my car and other relatively noisy environments like my clubhouse. Even at home there is always other noise going on - Kids, wife etc ;)

In that case probably not.

Is there a way I can rip lossless but then get a copy in AAC for use on the Ipod?

I've searched Itunes but it only appears to give me an option to create a lossless version?

This seems to be my best option as I can always then get a better version if I wish but I can't see how to do it.

I believe there is a way of getting iTunes to sync the iPod using a different codec (although I think it'll take longer than a normal sync as it's transcoding on the fly) but I'm not an iTunes user so I can't really help here.

I will rip one of the tracks in AAC and compare them tomorrow but at this hour I'd be lynched!

Any thoughts, comments or advice appreciated [remember my typical listening environment ;)]

Capitan

To be honest, I'm not sure what else you expected, if lossless took up the same space as lossy formats, why would anyone use lossy formats? There has to be a trade-off somewhere and this is it.

As for using 4 ipods to store your collection that sounds like an awfully expensive way of doing it, buying a bigger harddrive for your PC would be quicker and cheaper (MUCH cheaper!), although presumably you must have a big hard drive anyway, otherwise where is iTunes going to store all these tracks? I'm not sure I really see the point of buying multiple iPods in that case?
 

idc

Well-known member
The only things that I would add to the_lhc's excellent response are; you may well find that the best compromise sound to space is with the higher bit rate AAC and you really do not need three ipods. By using the check boxes next to each track, and control shift to highlight what you want to check and uncheck, and manually sync music when you connect the ipod, you can control what goes onto your ipod. One 120gb ipod will store a lot of music and you treat like it is a massive CD multichanger.
 

The_Lhc

Well-known member
Oct 16, 2008
1,176
1
19,195
Visit site
idc:The only things that I would add to the_lhc's excellent response are

Aw shucks!
emotion-10.gif
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I'd go along with those answers, Capitan. Rather than get multiple iPods just get an external hard drive for storing music - a 1TB (terabyte) unit can be easily bought for between £100 and £200.

When it comes to formats and file sizes, this is something we've looked into extensively. I have a song on my laptop at 128kbps - the file is 3.6MB. I also have it at:

192kbps - 5.3MB
Apple Lossless - 24MB
uncompressed WAV - 38MB

So yes, compressions drastically reduces file size. However, you do also lose quality, but your question is how much? Our June issue will have a very interesting piece on this exact issue, so look out for it. In general, however, my advice is do what I do and what idc suggests: rip Lossless, use an external hard drive with plenty of space and manually sync your iPod with the tunes you want to listen to today.
 

Crocodile

New member
Jan 15, 2009
38
0
0
Visit site
Or if you need more on the iPod, rip to lossless as your master library & then convert (leaving the masters intact) to the lossy format of your choice. Use this second, compressed library for iTunes. A bit more disk intensive but storage is cheap enough.

Oh, & whatever you do, don't forget to backup!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sorry for the delay in replying folks, I've been too busy to get onto the forums.

Thanks for all the advice :)

I see what you all mean about maintaining 3 ipods but I guess this goes back to my DJing days when I used to carry 10,000 tracks (at least) with me everywhere.

I love music, am out and about a lot, and just like to have as much as I can WITH me so I can play anything I like when the fancy takes me.

Looking forward to the june issue DD it hopefully will make an interesting read ;). I like the idea of the external drive - could you suggest a really good one? Another reason for storing this much music is I'm considering getting back into the DJing game and would like to use Serato to save my old and infirm back any more pain.

This is another reason why I'd prefer to have lossless versions available.

Crocodile, can I convert my lossless tracks already on Itunes to AAC? If so, how? I can't see anything on Itunes that will let me do that.

I feel for 'out and about' AAC will be fine, but for Quiet listening or DJing lossless would be preferable.
 

Crocodile

New member
Jan 15, 2009
38
0
0
Visit site
Capitan:Crocodile, can I convert my lossless tracks already on Itunes to AAC? If so, how? I can't see anything on Itunes that will let me do that. dBpoweramp will batch convert while you sleep (or drink!).
emotion-5.gif
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
I do not wish to create a new tread. I trust I will get some good guidance.

I want to archive my Vinyl, CDs with 44.1Khz/16bit and some other CDs with 96/192 and 20/24 high resolutions.

In order to preserve the quality of the content, which audio format should I use for conversion? I intend to get 1TB storage drive. Any suggestion on software?

Regards

William
 

The_Lhc

Well-known member
Oct 16, 2008
1,176
1
19,195
Visit site
wtaylorbasil:I do not wish to create a new tread. I trust I will get some good guidance.

No pressure then!

I want to archive my Vinyl, CDs with 44.1Khz/16bit and some other CDs with 96/192 and 20/24 high resolutions.

Err, do you mean CDs or SACDs? Because there's really no point in archiving a CD to 20 or 24 bit resolution and/or 96/192k sample rates. CDs are only 16bit/44.1Khz, you'll gain nothing by ripping them to the higher resolutions, other than using up more space.

In order to preserve the quality of the content, which audio format should I use for conversion?

Any lossless format, ie FLAC, ALAC or even WAV, although you'll have tagging issues with WAV.

Any suggestion on software?

dbPowerAmp is excellent but there's plenty to choose from.
 

Zarn_Smith

New member
Apr 30, 2010
29
0
0
Visit site
Another vote for dbPowerAmp as the ripping tool.

In terms of which lossless format, in the end (apart from WAV, which I would not recommend) they are all as good as each other. The answer will be based on which formats your player supports. If you pluck for one format and realise that your player only supports something else, you can use dbPowerAmp to merrily convert them with no loss of quality.

In terms of the Bit Rate, well the answer is always rip at the same bit rate it was encoded in. So for CD 16Bit 44.1Khz. For vinal I would argue the same as CD, but I have never bothered ripping vinal to say either way.

I have no recommendation on which hard disk to buy. They are all as good / bad as each other. I can recommend however that you buy 2. One hard disk for your audio files and the other to backup the first. Seriously, you don't want to spend all the time ripping to have that disk fail and you have to do it again.
 

DaveyBoy1980

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2010
15
0
18,520
Visit site
Capitan,

I don't know if this helps and I hope I'm not just repeating what one of the other guys has suggested but this is what I do!

My media player of choice on my PC/Laptop is mediamonkey. I rip all of my CDs to my laptop in FLAC (lossless). I do back my laptop up regularly so that I don't lose all my music if my laptop hard drive ever decides to die!

MediaMonkey gives you the option of converting the files at the same time as syncing to your ipod. I have set it so that any music files over 320kbps in my collection gets converted to 320kbps MP3 files on the fly. This doesn't alter the FLAC files that I have on my laptop nor does it create a converted copy. All it does is converts and drops it onto the ipod.

This way I find that I have a lossless version on my laptop and a very good 320kbps version on the ipod which saves a lot of space and enables me to get a lot more music on my ipod!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Crocodile:Capitan:Crocodile, can I convert my lossless tracks already on Itunes to AAC? If so, how? I can't see anything on Itunes that will let me do that. dBpoweramp will batch convert while you sleep (or drink!).
emotion-5.gif


Like he said. dbpoweramp, right click music folder, convert to.....

Anyone serious about computer audio is advised maintain a 'control file' containing FLAC or WAV base rips, and then using suitable SW (dppoweramp and Magic Monkey I find easiest) make new files based on codec and compression ratio required.

I find that 320kps Mp4 for ipods and FLAC level 5 compression for home meets all needs. I squash the kids music down to 128kps MP4 and they are happy with quality.
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
the_lhc:Err, do you mean CDs or SACDs? Because there's really no point in archiving a CD to 20 or 24 bit resolution and/or 96/192k sample rates. CDs are only 16bit/44.1Khz, you'll gain nothing by ripping them to the higher resolutions, other than using up more space.

Err, I forgot to mention that I have a few Hi-res, SACD, DVD-A, HDCD etc. So I should have a software that can handle the highest resolution possible and convert to only the required resulution.
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
Zarn_Smith:

Another vote for dbPowerAmp as the ripping tool.

In terms of which lossless format, in the end (apart from WAV, which I would not recommend) they are all as good as each other. The answer will be based on which formats your player supports. If you pluck for one format and realise that your player only supports something else, you can use dbPowerAmp to merrily convert them with no loss of quality.

In terms of the Bit Rate, well the answer is always rip at the same bit rate it was encoded in. So for CD 16Bit 44.1Khz. For vinal I would argue the same as CD, but I have never bothered ripping vinal to say either way.

I have no recommendation on which hard disk to buy. They are all as good / bad as each other. I can recommend however that you buy 2. One hard disk for your audio files and the other to backup the first. Seriously, you don't want to spend all the time ripping to have that disk fail and you have to do it again.

Is the dbPowerAmp capable of converting at 14/192 resolution as I have SACD, DVD-A and some HDCDs?
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
Andrew Everard:You can't - only real way to do it is via analogue, in real time...
Thank you Andrew. I assume it is the same for DVD-A? I also have a few HDCDs with 20/96 and 24/192. Can I rip these and maintain the audio purity when played back?
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
DaveyBoy1980:

Capitan,

I don't know if this helps and I hope I'm not just repeating what one of the other guys has suggested but this is what I do!

My media player of choice on my PC/Laptop is mediamonkey. I rip all of my CDs to my laptop in FLAC (lossless). I do back my laptop up regularly so that I don't lose all my music if my laptop hard drive ever decides to die!

MediaMonkey gives you the option of converting the files at the same time as syncing to your ipod. I have set it so that any music files over 320kbps in my collection gets converted to 320kbps MP3 files on the fly. This doesn't alter the FLAC files that I have on my laptop nor does it create a converted copy. All it does is converts and drops it onto the ipod.

Do the FLAC files contain Tag information?

This way I find that I have a lossless version on my laptop and a very good 320kbps version on the ipod which saves a lot of space and enables me to get a lot more music on my ipod!
 

wtaylorbasil

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2009
29
0
18,540
Visit site
DaveyBoy1980:

Capitan,

I don't know if this helps and I hope I'm not just repeating what one of the other guys has suggested but this is what I do!

My media player of choice on my PC/Laptop is mediamonkey. I rip all of my CDs to my laptop in FLAC (lossless). I do back my laptop up regularly so that I don't lose all my music if my laptop hard drive ever decides to die!

MediaMonkey gives you the option of converting the files at the same time as syncing to your ipod. I have set it so that any music files over 320kbps in my collection gets converted to 320kbps MP3 files on the fly. This doesn't alter the FLAC files that I have on my laptop nor does it create a converted copy. All it does is converts and drops it onto the ipod.

This way I find that I have a lossless version on my laptop and a very good 320kbps version on the ipod which saves a lot of space and enables me to get a lot more music on my ipod!

Does your FLAC files have all the Tag ifo? I converted one track fro deep Purple's Machine Head CD using MediaMonkey and (1) it does not pick-up any track info (2) properties show it was compressed to 32% (setting was on 0) but quality shows Perfect (lossless). It is same using dBpoweramp. Is this inorder?
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts