Ripping CDs onto a NAS for use with a Sonos system?

[admin_exported]

Hi,

Does anyone have an idiots guide to ripping CDs onto a NAS for use with a Sonos system?

I'm currently attempting to rip my CD collection using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) onto my NAS (Buffalo Linkstation Mini). I can rip the music and deposit it directly onto the NAS into its dedicated share folder, but I'm not getting any additional info (i.e. Artist name, Album Title).

As a result, I can see the tracks on the Sonos, but cannot filter on Artist, Album, Genre, etc.. All I can do is filter through a massive list of individual tracks.

For reference, I am using the freedB function of EAC to retrieve the album info, but I can't seem to get it to separate the information into the relevant fields.

Can anyone help please?

Cheers

 

[ianandyr]

Ketch, I am at the back-end of this process after a couple of false starts. There's lots of advice I can suggest but I'm not sure exactly what your issue is with the additional info. EAC allows you to download tag information and add that to your files. Do you have this step working ?

What are you ripping to ? If it is WAV files then that is your problem. WAV does not as standard store tagging information.ÿ

You are right to focus on getting a ripping workflow spot on before you start down the road as it's a PITA to go back and rework this process if you find you've missed something.

 

[Anonymous]

I am trying to rip to WAV. Didn't realise that it doesn't store the tagging info! D'oh!

Assuming that the next best alternative for lossless audio would be FLAC, can you explain what settings you currently use in EAC?

In my last attempt (admitedly when trying to convert to WAV), I changed one of the settings in EAC to create sub-folders (i.e. using the option where the attributes are seperated by a 'slash'), but again the tag information is not mapped.

I appreciate the time taken to respond Ianandyr, as you say I'd rather nail the process down now before I start on the main collection!

Cheers

 

[The_Lhc]

I don't have a NAS and I've never used EAC, I use dbPowerAmp (download the FLAC codec as well obviously!) for ripping CDs and it's simplicity itself really, you can fiddle with some of the options for ripping but really it's just a case of fire up the CD audio convertor sub-program, insert the CD, it finds it on t'net, adds all the tag info and you hit "rip". That's pretty much it. It sounds great on my SONOS.

As has been said before, it doesn't matter where or how you store the files (I just use a flat file folder, I don't bother with sub-folders for each album), WAV doesn't support tags, full stop.

 

[ianandyr]

You can 'force' tags onto a WAV file but it's not well supported by players and not a route I would recommend.

I don't use EAC, I use dbPowerAmp which IMHO is a better bet as it does several things I like including an excellent tagging approach (uses multiple sources and compares to get the best fit), integrated album art download and tagging, support for simultaneous encoding to multiple formats, easier setup (others disagree but that is my experience), the best implementation out there of AccurateRip which is very valuable as a check on your rip accuracy (clue's in the name really) and excellent post-processing options for things like Replaygain.

In fact I'm so impressed I shellled out £25 to buy it at the end of the one month trial.

For those rare occasions when dbPowerAmp does not get the AlbumArt I use AlbumArt Downloader which scans dozens of online album art libraries.

If I need to go back and retag then I also use Mp3Tag which is excellent and provides a handy response to the question 'What have the Germans ever done for us'.

FLAC is good unless you want to also be using iTunes when Apple Lossless would be better. Both are supported by Sonos and can be encoded by dbPowerAmp.

When it comes to FLAC there are very few settings to worry about in dbPoweramp. Essentially you can have it spend a bit longer on the encoding step for a slightly smaller file but that's it.

I rip to a single top-level directory with the following approach for sub-directories.

Directories are named : %artist% - %album>%

Files are named : %track number%. %track name%

Works for me as I find it makes it easier to manage incremental backups, adds to iTunes etc but its a personal choice how you do this.

Hope this all helps.

 

[Anonymous]

That's excellent.

Again, I really apprecaiet you taking the time to type all of that out.

I'll have a crack at it again when I get in tonight and I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers
Ketch

 

[ianandyr]

Pleasure. Good luck.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Just a quick post to thank the posters above for the advice given.

I decided to give dbPowerAmp a go and haven't look back since. I'm currently ripping my collection in Apple Lossless and all tags and album art are being populated nicely.

Thanks again (especially to Ianandyr who has ensured I don't waste days of my life on a futile task!)

Ketch

 

[ianandyr]