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SteveTheShadow
06-11-2008, 12:36
Having freed myself from the shackles of iTunes for organising the music
for my Squeezebox, I have found a nice little CD ripper for OS X that rips to FLAC and various other formats.

It is a Universal Binary, so will work on Intel Macs and is very simple to use.
either a command line or a GUI version can be downloaded from http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html
The software is donation ware but does not pester you for donations after you download it.

It works extremely well and is faster than MAX at performing secure rips.
XLD uses the newest CDparanoia engine and checks with the accurate rip database to give a confidence rating
for each CD processed, and outputs a log file when the CD is done.

The preferences are easy to understand although there is one thing they could have made easier.
The option to edit the Metadata before ripping is there, but not immediately obvious, as it is located
in the File menu rather than being on a button in the main window. However once the CD tracks are displayed
in the main window the standard Apple 'get info' shortcut,"command I" will bring up the tag editor.

XLD uses the CDDB database to start you off with reasonably accurate tagging
so will be quicker than MAX for tag editing as MAX uses MusicBrainz, which
although a worthy effort is a bit limited in the amount of tagging data it holds
at the moment.

There are not as many options available as there are with MAX but for getting your music
into your Mac efficiently and without fuss, I think XLD is a good bit of kit.

Steve

Filterlab
06-11-2008, 12:56
Good find Steve, what formats and encoding rates does XLD offer?

SteveTheShadow
06-11-2008, 16:31
I've put up a picture below of the application working.

http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/Picture%201.jpg
If you look at the pic, you can see the output formats in the pop-up menu on the preferences pane.
As to encoding rates etc it looks as if it just does the bog standard 16/44.1K standard encoding. There does not seem to be any means of altering the conversion sampling rates. You should just about be able to see the bottom drawer sticking out below the cog application, which is playing one of the files in the background.

As I said at the beginning, this is not a ripper/encoder for the advanced user as it does not have the flexibility of MAX, but for the average user migrating away from iTunes, it offers remarkably good ease of use.

The sound quality of the ripped FLAC files is excellent via the SB3 Slimserver playback path. I have no complaints at all.

Steve

snapper
06-11-2008, 16:58
Another handy thing XLD does is 'Offset correction value'.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y198/davhar/xld.jpg



You can find your drives here.


http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm

SteveTheShadow
06-11-2008, 18:26
Hi Snapper

Mine seems to have set itself up automatically as it the checkbox in your screenshot infers, at +102 without any intervention from me.

It must have automatically got the info from the accuraterip database via the Internet.
It consults accuraterip everytime a CD is ripped to check against their references, if they have one, so I presume that's how it got the information on my drive offset.

Neat :)

Filterlab
06-11-2008, 19:31
Interesting application, I'll give it a whirl. I notice there's no CAF support, a file format definitely worth having a listen to. I've always been an AIFF advocate as it's always seemed the most natural and fluid upon playback, but CAF minces it dead it terms of detail retrieval and 'ambience'. However I see that it supports FLAC which I know to be very good.

Good find!

Filterlab
06-11-2008, 19:37
Another handy thing XLD does is 'Offset correction value'.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y198/davhar/xld.jpg



You can find your drives here.


http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm

Have you tried any A/B comparisons with the offset correction value applied and the '0' setting?

snapper
07-11-2008, 11:11
Have you tried any A/B comparisons with the offset correction value applied and the '0' setting?


Yes.With the offset value applied the music seems better presented.More open sounding,more natural.

Some CDs seem to benefit more than others. :confused:

Maybe one of the digital boffins could explain,cause I huvnae gotta scooby.

Filterlab
07-11-2008, 13:18
Interesting, I may give it a go although I am quite attached to my CAF format music. Still, never hurts to try.