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webby

27-01-2010, 22:48

The Grand Wazoo

28-01-2010, 00:30

Shame, I thought this thread was about something else...........

Kzn3KaO2Vyk

........oh well, sorry for interrupting. As you were.

lovejoy

28-01-2010, 07:24

I used to be happy with the sound of MP3/AAC so quite a lot of my music was high bit rate MP3. Then as the system got better it became quite clear that this just wasn't good enough, so I'm finally nearing the end of ripping everything onto a 1TB NAS in Apple Lossless format.

I'm using Max (on the Mac) to rip the vast majority of discs as the whole process is nicely automated and I can tell it how I want my directories laid out i.e. Artist/Year - Album/TrackNo. - Song title.

That's for the standard red book stuff anyway. Anything I have which is more than 44.1KHz/16-bit gets stored in AIFF as I don't trust Apple Lossless to be able to decompress the files into their original state if I ever need to change formats again (already been bitten by this one once).

I have a couple of DVD-Audio discs which I've used "DVD-A Explorer" to rip and stored those in AIFF.

I also have a few HDCD discs which I've decoded on a Windows PC using "HDCD.exe". This program decodes the extra 4-bits of HDCD info and pads out a Wav file to 24-bits, which can be played into a DAC without the need for an HDCD filter. These get stored in AIFF too and sound rather good.

At the moment there's still plenty of space on the 1TB drive. I have a fair few CDs that I know I'll probably never play again so I don't see the point of them taking up space on the HD. They're still taking up space on the CD shelf though, so if I ever did feel the need to listen to them again then I'll rip them as and when.

...and the stuff that I don't have currently as a lossless rip - well, that's what my Spotify subscription is for, rather than keep the MP3s on the hard drive.

webby

28-01-2010, 08:10

I used to be happy with the sound of MP3/AAC so quite a lot of my music was high bit rate MP3. Then as the system got better it became quite clear that this just wasn't good enough, so I'm finally nearing the end of ripping everything onto a 1TB NAS in Apple Lossless format.

Nice one Rich. I'm the same. When I got my imac, around 5 years ago, I wasn't so much into hifi like I was in the 90's. So, i was ripping stuff to everything from 128 upwards. Then we moved house and I finally upgraded my speakers and started to get interested in hifi again. Once I decided to go the computer audio route and bought the Airport Express (and discovered AOS and the excellent computer audiophile forum) I decided to start ripping losslessly. Plus, I bought a new imac that has a 500gb HDD, heaps more than my original imac's 160gb. I have a 1tb backup drive too that's working via Time Machine.

I reckon I could easily give over 150-200gb to music. That ought to hold around 500 albums at 3 albums per gb. So I'm gonna keep ripping, maybe leaving out those that I've grown out of and see how it goes.

I browsed your library the other day and we have VERY similar tastes!

Cheers

webby

29-01-2010, 17:44

Themis

29-01-2010, 18:33

I rip everything on three different formats simultaneously (in three different locations) using dbPoweramp:
- FLAC
- AAC 400VBR (highest lossy available)
- AAC 128CBR (medium lossy)

The first two are protected against disk failures in WHS (soft RAID)
Everything is backed up on remote volume once per 10albums / month (whichever comes first)

twelvebears

30-01-2010, 10:07

Phew, I'm glad I haven't got 1000's of discs to rip like I know some of you have done, or are doing. Pretty boring isn't it?

I've done about 85 discs in the last week and I reckon I've got around 500 discs. I think I'm gonna put a fair few in the 'don't want anymore' box.

Hi Lee.

Yes it is boring, which is why I'd strongly suggest doing what I did and picking up a cheap external USB drive to get through the ripping process. Using the internal iMac superdrive (aint nothing 'super' about it's speed, that's for damn sure!) will make the process MUCH slower. Trust me, providing your iMac is pretty modern, the speed of the internal drive is the bottleneck and using an external drive will about halve the time each disc takes.

Personally I have always just ripped straight to Apple lossless using iTunes and have the whole lot on a DROBO to protect from a HD failure. If I need to convert to MP3 for a car CD or something, I use XLD, which is about the closest you'll find to dbPoweramp for Mac (supports all formats inc Apple lossless, FLAC, MP3 etc and uses both cores of a dual core processor to encode two tracks at once).

For the amount HD space costs and the amount of time involved in the initial ripping, I'd never recommend ripping to a lossy format. Your system might not show the difference now, but it will do eventually and that lost data can never be got back.

webby

30-01-2010, 14:52

That's interesting Steve, will ANY usb CD-RW drive do? Any specific spec I should look for?

I would use iTunes to rip but it doesn't report any errors, but saying that, I have had XLD report a bad rip for a couple of tracks that I've then ripped in iTunes successfully. At least XLD reported those errors though.

I have a 1TB drive backing up everything hourly via the Time Machine app.

Cheers

twelvebears

30-01-2010, 16:24

webby

30-01-2010, 17:26

Did you buy just a cd-rom, or a cd-rw? Or even a dvd-rw?

What's the read speed of the imac drive?

twelvebears

30-01-2010, 17:38

Mine was a CDRW drive, but if you can find a cheap CDR only drive then that's fine as if you're like me, you'll not use it for writing discs anyway.

The iMac drive only reads CDs at x24 while most CDR drives now do over x40 with CDs. As a modern iMac can encode to lossless at x40+ realtime, the internal drive is really holding things back.

The reason the internal drive is limited to x24 is so it doesn't make the wizzing noise a drive running flat-out does and spoil the lovely Mac silence!!

sastusbulbas

31-01-2010, 11:17

I have tried just about every ripping program and playback software that is available free or for trial.

These days I just stick to PC with Windows 7 and Media Player 12 for playback. I rip CD's with WMP12 as WAV, after uploading the album data.

I also use iTunes for some stuff such as the iPod and cheap downloads, and I still have MediaMonkey which is set up for my Hi res Flac Library only though WMP12 plays my Flac, each has it's own collection of music at a seperate location, with WMP12 being my primary with my primary 1.5TB library drive.

If I have a problem CD, and I like it, I buy a new copy. I have found EAC to be no better than iTunes or WMP and others for bit accurate rips.

Some time back I did some comparison ripping of damaged CD's to see what I could salvage for replay, EAC proved problematic, WMP would let me rip a damaged disc to WAV with less deterioration during PC playback than I would get with standard CD replay in a CD player. This at least allows me to have teh album, if I notice a problem I can flag it as something to buy, delete the damaged copy, bin the damaged CD, rip the new CD and store the disc.

webby

12-02-2010, 14:21

I posted this in another thread but hope it might work better on it's own.

Basically, I wonder what ripping strategies you may have. What do you consider when ripping your library?

Do you rip everything losslessly? I know that, ultimately, hard drive space is the only limitation.

Do you selectively rip to high bit rate lossy formats for those less essential albums?

Do you decide that you never want to hear certain CDs again and choose to not rip those discs, or is it a case of 'you've got it, so why not rip it'?

I'd be interested to hear your tactics and methods.

I refer back to the original post in this thread as the ripping questions have been answered but the 'what do you rip' question hasn't.

I know it's down to personal preference but as I'm working through my archive of around 800 cds I'm wondering whether to rip everything or whether to make a decision on the spot and choose to discard a cd into the 'happy to not hear again' pile. How does one make that decision? I'm finding it a little difficult :)

The Grand Wazoo

12-02-2010, 15:22

....... make a decision on the spot and choose to discard a cd into the 'happy to not hear again' pile. How does one make that decision? I'm finding it a little difficult :)

Never get rid of any recording unless:
a) you don't like it & never have, or
b) you've got duplicated copies

Whenever I've trangressed those 2 rules I've ended up regretting it. You never know when you might get a hankering to hear it again.

Alex_UK

12-02-2010, 20:27

Never get rid of any recording unless:
a) you don't like it & never have, or
b) you've got duplicated copies

Whenever I've trangressed those 2 rules I've ended up regretting it. You never know when you might get a hankering to hear it again.

+1 (and huge hard drives are so cheap these days you may as well...)

Themis

13-02-2010, 10:17

I know it's down to personal preference but as I'm working through my archive of around 800 cds I'm wondering whether to rip everything or whether to make a decision on the spot and choose to discard a cd into the 'happy to not hear again' pile. How does one make that decision? I'm finding it a little difficult :)
I used to do it this way, but eventually decided that it was not worth having two piles of CDs.

As I use Squeezebox, I simply use a plugin that "separates" the albums in several categories. This is also useful, because some albums only appeal to only one of my family members... :eyebrows:

webby

08-03-2010, 12:32

Update: I'm making headway into my library. My Lossless tracks now equal 3602, consisting of 287 separate discs, taking up 89.47GB. That's roughly 40 tracks per GB.

It's slow, but I kind of enjoy it and I'm sure it'll be well worth it. I add good quality artwork as I go.

webby

08-03-2010, 15:05

I add good quality artwork as I go.

On that note, my god, Neil Young's album artwork is awful isn't it? Apart from Sleeps With Angels, which I like, the rest* are shocking. They could've been done by a 6 year old!

* Admittedly, I don't have ALL his albums.

webby

10-05-2010, 14:49

Hi peeps,

I've not been here so much recently, life's been getting in the way. Still job hunting and have also started a web design course with the OU.

Anyway, I'm still ploughing through my cd collection, ripping to lossless. At this moment I'm at 4104 songs at 102.79GB. That's roughly 330 discs!

I've just been reading Graham's (Gbeer7?) adventures with his 8000m's. :)

dave2010

11-05-2010, 19:48

I've not ripped many of my CDs, and it's a daunting prospect as I have several thousand. Indeed it's got to the point where I sometimes simply use Spotify or Napster or something else to stream pieces, even if I have them already on CD, as tracking down the CD might take longer. I don't normally do that though. If I have a CD I will prefer to play that first. I know the quality isn't as good, but sometimes I just want to listen, and the SQ is OK-ish [sometimes really good!].

I have wondered about using something like a Brennan JB7 to do the job. That way I'd play each CD once, when I wanted to, and it'd be backed up to a disc at the same time. Trouble is that unit only does WAV (plus some lossy compressed format), so I'd need to use another run to convert to FLAC, but that could probably be done in batches overnight with a couple of external hard drives. There could be other downsides to that approach as well, as the SQ of the Brennan might not be as good as my CD player, and also I don't know how well it rips. If it does a good job though, then future playback would most likely be via my Squeezebox + Caiman combination.

One other issue about ripping - which doesn't affect too many CDs, is the need for gapless playback for some music. It can be a real pain if the tracks are separated, and then can't be played continuously and contiguously. Not quite sure how this will work - it may be hardware dependent. To be honest I don't know if it happens, but I'm sure it can, and would depend on the playback system. It certainly happens with MP3s.

Do CDs contain information relating to the gaps between tracks, either in a table of contents, or in each track itself? Most CD players seem to manage to play continuous music spread over several tracks seamlessly well enough.

Comments and advice would be welcomed. I really don't want to spend hours on the ripping process - which if I did a minimum of 6 per hour would take several weeks flat out. I'm probably not going to use a paying service either.

webby

11-05-2010, 21:55

I was gonna recommend a paid for service until the last sentence. Still, it might be worth considering. Really, there is no difference between ripping to a computer and the Brennan. I wouldn't touch the Brennan as I don't like the interface. Do you have a Premium Spotify account? The bit rate is higher at around 320kbps.

iTunes has gapless playback ability. I can't comment on any other player myself. I believe gapless info is embedded on the cd itself.

dave2010

12-05-2010, 06:36

I wouldn't touch the Brennan as I don't like the interface.I've not seen the Brennan. What are the problems with it? Don't tell me - it uses 8 character MSDOS file names :lol::lol:

Do you have a Premium Spotify account? The bit rate is higher at around 320kbps.Yes - it's quite good. I also have Napster, Classical.com and some free services such as last.fm, radioio, Deezer - which on occasions also sound OK. I recall that Bluebeat has a high quality option too - and some good stuff - though not used it for some while. I had it set up on my Philips SLA 5520.

webby

12-05-2010, 09:35

Alex_UK

12-05-2010, 20:04

Hi Lee, good to see you back, hope you and the family including the (not so new now) little one are all well. I'm still procrastinating on moving to lossless, but to be honest for proper listening I still like the tactile involvement of spinning a silver or black disc - AAC or Spotify Premium for background music is fine - especially as I also sync up my ipod, and want the capacity rather than quality for that. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the process!

webby

13-05-2010, 08:51

Thanks Alex. The kids are very well. Lucas is 5months now. It goes so fast don't it? I trust your little one is well?

I moved to lossless cos of space issues really. I'd be happy to have all my cds out on a row of shelves but my missus isn't so keen. I refer to sleevenotes less and less these days what with the mountains of info on the internet at my disposal, so I decided I didn't really need them close to hand. They're still under the bed if I need them. However, if I was going to store them away, then I decided that it had to be lossless compression, even though I can't discern the difference between 256kbps and lossless. Future equipment may reveal that, so I thought sod it, it's only drive space isn't it?

Cheers

webby

13-05-2010, 10:53

Note: The hardest thing, as I've touched on before, is deciding whether to rip everything or to rip selectively. When you haven't listened to a disc for years you wonder if it's worth ripping it.

webby

18-05-2010, 14:35

I now have 4243 tracks ripped to ALAC, containing 94 artists and 346 albums.......and 5 storage boxes filled with cds! :)

A small library compared to some, but I'm happy with it.

dave2010

18-05-2010, 17:01

The Brennan? By the interface I mean the little display that you have to search your library in. I wouldn't get on with that. I couldn't be fiddling with a text search like that. Check out the Brennan site videos.

I much prefer my desktop mac/itunes solution.Ah, but I wasn't intending to actually use the Brennan to do anything than (1) play the original CD - hopefully the quality wouldn't be too bad for a one off listen, and (2) rip the CD at the same time to a hard drive - which I understand can be done. Then I'd unattach the hard drive once a sufficient number of CDs had been ripped, and connect it to my network. Possibly would require moving all the files to another hard drive.

At a cost somewhere around £400, or say £600 including one or two extra hard drives, that'd work out at rather less than the cost of employing a firm to do the ripping for more than 2000 CDs.

For FLAC formatting it'd be necessary to transfer the WAV files from the Brennan, but that could surely be done with script in Linux or Unix, or on a Mac.

Just an idea. Don't know if anyone else has tried this. I'm not rushing to do it yet, but maybe in due course, the fullness of time etc.