Wow ripping CDs into flac files is a upgrade of your music

[Blacksabbath25]

Well so far this morning I’ve ripped 20 albums into flac files and I am impressed in the new life it’s given me from CD quality which I look at it as a upgrade in its self and it’s cost me nothing .

so looks like I will buy myself a music server to store my flac files on any ideas what’s good to buy for this kind of job ?

my only little issue is that sometimes the windows media library doesn’t find the album cover is there anyway of doing this manually ?

I’ve kind of eat my words a bit here as in the past I’ve said cds are better but I’ve kind of changed my mind on that now as specially when I’ve ripped stuff like led zeppelin the difference is very notable so anyone who hasn’t thought about ripping into flac I recommend it .

 

[CnoEvil]

Some of us have been saying this for some time. *wink*

 

[insider9]

Really depends on what functionality you're after. Does WMP give you full tagging including artwork?

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Really depends on what functionality you're after. Does WMP give you full tagging including artwork?

yes it gives me the artwork and track listings , year , track time

 

[Blacksabbath25]

So I understand this I take it when you rip files into flac it lifts the compression ?

 

[MajorFubar]

Welcome to the 21st century (lol)

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

 

[MajorFubar]

So I understand this I take it when you rip files into flac it lifts the compression ?

CDs aren't compressed to start with. It's basically the raw WAV file encoded to the CD. FLAC files are compressed compared to CDs though, but it's totally lossless compression, think of it as being like a ZIP file tailored for audio.

 

[CnoEvil]

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

Any improvement usually comes down to removing the shortcomings of a CDP.

 

[MajorFubar]

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

Any improvement usually comes down to removing the shortcomings of a CDP.

True enough. That's why when I metaphorically had to choose between a £2k transport which reads the data as accurately in real time as a £15 USB drive that can leisurely take couple of passes at it, I chose the latter

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Welcome to the 21st century (lol)

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

yes I think I was a bit slow bracing the technology and didn’t fully understand it I mean I didn’t no about the loudness war till I joined this forum but totally get now .

but they reckon that the loudness war is coming to a end and the producers that mix a albums are starting to understand what people want there music more dynamic and not loud and compressed which they think is what is putting people of buying music and the fact that the artist didn’t have any say when a album was put together which I thought they did maybe some do but most of them do not .

 

[Macspur]

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

Any improvement usually comes down to removing the shortcomings of a CDP.

Depending on the CDP in question of course.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com

 

[MajorFubar]

but they reckon that the loudness war is coming to a end and the producers that mix a albums are starting to understand what people want there music more dynamic and not loud and compressed which they think is what is putting people of buying music and the fact that the artist didn’t have any say when a album was put together which I thought they did maybe some do but most of them do not .

We can but hope. But then there'll be a whole new raft of re-masters for us to buy: they wil be new 'HDR' versions of albums first released during the last 10-15 years

 

[Blacksabbath25]

So how do you guys store your music files then ? And are the files backed up to a second drive as I take it I would have to buy a hard drive caddy say with two TB hard drives say and the other 2 TB hard drive backs up ?

I was thinking of something that I can directly connect to the Yamaha wxc50

 

[Blacksabbath25]

but they reckon that the loudness war is coming to a end and the producers that mix a albums are starting to understand what people want there music more dynamic and not loud and compressed which they think is what is putting people of buying music and the fact that the artist didn’t have any say when a album was put together which I thought they did maybe some do but most of them do not .

We can but hope. But then there'll be a whole new raft of re-masters for us to buy: they wil be new 'HDR' versions of albums first released during the last 10-15 years

now your telling me something new here that I no nothing about lol

 

[MajorFubar]

So how do you guys store your music files then ? And are the files backed up to a second drive as I take it I would have to buy a hard drive caddy say with two TB hard drives say and the other 2 TB hard drive backs up ?

First of all well done for twigging that you defiitely need a backup because you only want to do this ripping malarky once! Life's too short. But to answer your question I keep mine on a Network Accessed Storage drive (NAS) which plugs directly in my router. I periodically backup that drive to a separate USB HDD, plus it's also backed up to a cloud service (iCould in my case, previously I used dropbox)

 

[CnoEvil]

Depending on the CDP in question of course.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com

...of course.....but the inherent weaknesses of reading a spinning disc in real time, while dealing with the "noise" of having an electric motor in the mix, are still there...even if better designs go to much greater lengths to mitigate them.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

So how do you guys store your music files then ? And are the files backed up to a second drive as I take it I would have to buy a hard drive caddy say with two TB hard drives say and the other 2 TB hard drive backs up ?

First of all well done for twigging that you defiitely need a backup because you only want to do this ripping malarky once! Life's too short. But to answer your question I keep mine on a Network Assess Storage drive (NAS) which plugs directly in my router. I periodically backup that drive to a separate USB HDD, plus it's also backed up to a cloud service (iCould in my case, previously I used dropbox)

I knew about backing up as I use a portable 1 TB hard drive for backing up my iTunes music but can you keep things simple and buy a hard drive server that would plug into my Yamaha wxc50 ? Or is this the wrong way to go about this. .?

 

[MajorFubar]

Very probably! I don't know much about the Yamaha. I stream from my NAS to an Airplay receiver using the FileBrowser app on my phone.

 

[Deleted member 108165]

my only little issue is that sometimes the windows media library doesn’t find the album cover is there anyway of doing this manually ?

I'm using Windows 7 so not sure if anything has changed in 10 but yes you can perform a manual search with wmp. If you right click on the album art icon it should come up with options: Find album info; Update album info, this will open a new window where you can search for your exact album information including album art. I've known this to fail on some rarer albums hence why I don't use wmp; I use a different ripper and then manually search for the best album art using Album Art Downloader and place the image in the ripped file in a format recognised by Foobar.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Very probably! I don't know much about the Yamaha. I stream from my NAS to an Airplay receiver using the FileBrowser app on my phone.

my thinking is I can as I can rip CDs on my laptop and tell windows media player to send it to a hard drive server storage which will be connected to my Yamaha .

so the files wouldn’t be kept on my laptop but on the server instead which would be just a box with 2 hard drives inside with WiFi so it could be backed up when ripping .

 

[insider9]

Connecting a drive via USB to Yamaha is an ok solution. However it will be a pain to use with large libraries and not great to navigate.

It's got its limitations but it would work.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Connecting a drive via USB to Yamaha is an ok solution. However it will be a pain to use with large libraries and not great to navigate.

It's got its limitations but it would work.

you can navigate with the MusicCast app as it shows me all of the albums and info

 

[newlash09]

Since you are happy with ripping your CD's, the next step would be a music server. There was a recent thread between me and Insider9 mostly about the same subject. Please search for 'melco n1a2 or innous zenith' in the forum.

If I were in your shoes, I would consider passing on the Yamaha cd player to one of these two.

But again I do know that you also have some mighty attachment to your Yamaha spinner. All the best

 

[insider9]

Yes but it depends on folder structure. That's if you use USB drive. You wouldn't be able to sort by genre, search by composer, or even sort by name.

You'd need to know if your alphabetical order has The Doors under D or T. Jimi Hendrix under J or H

With large collection these things are difficult to work without good software.

 

[Al ears]

Not sure why you're noticing a massive sound quality improvement though, maybe just the DAC you're using with your computer is better than the one you were using to play CDs.

Any improvement usually comes down to removing the shortcomings of a CDP.

+1