Computer based music replay

Well, the guy at the Apple shop in Buchanan St. reckons that ripping CDs to a hard drive always results in some loss of data/sound quality because of the way the Apple compression algorithm works (or something like that). Is that right? If it is, I'm going off the Mac idea, slightly.

The MacBook Pro costs about £850, which seems a bit pricy for a laptop these days.

 

No he's quite wrong.

You decide what the machine does when it rips.
So yes, you can rip it using lossy compression if you wish and this is generally what you'd do if using an iPod or other portable.
However, you can also rip as a straight uncompressed wav file, or Apple Lossless.

Not good that an Apple rep doesn't understand this.

In iTunes these are the menus:

First you have the import (rip) settings:




Then you can select a compressed format if you wish, such as this:





Or uncompressed WAV (as per the original CD):





Or Apple Lossles - about 30% space saving but no loss of quality and still bit perfect:

 

OK, thanks, so which do you use, Apple Lossless, or uncompressed WAV?

Also, how much disk space would 1 CD occupy, do you store your CD collection in the MacBook itself, or in an offboard auxiliary hard drive, and do you need a backup hard drive in case one fails? How much do the other drives cost?

 

A simple macbook would suffice if you want to use a mac. Think you can get them for a good bit less than £850. WAV is a direct rip of a CD unlike FLAC/apple lossless which still compress the original recording. Nothing is lost. And to get an even better rip of a CD, use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and then put the music into what ever interface you wish to use, i.e, itunes, windows media player, foobar etc.

A lot depends on how much you want your rip's to sound like the original product and what boxes you want/don't want sitting in your living/listening room.

 

One disk in WAV format can be in the region of 500-700MB. I've just converted circa 400 albums in WAV format and its taken up around 200GB+ of disc space.

 

Bub - I wouldnt worry about which 'lossless' decoder you use... they are all 'lossless' and therefore exactly the same.

Exactly the same type of lossless files can be stored on an ordinary PC - e.g. 'FLAC' files.

On the subject of MP3's - you may wish to try 'ripping' a track in various ways... 128kbps mp3, 256vbr mp3, FLAC, WAV, EAC etc.

I cannot hear any difference between any of them - and doubt anybody else could 'blindfolded'.

 

If you are playing them through a high end system, there is a noticable difference using EAC ripped WAV's compared to other formats. If you use an ipod be warned that you can't play FLAC files.

 

Re Computer based music replay

Ive got a cowan iaudio d2 and it will except flac and it sounds great

 

James,

Buying a Mac for this purpose if you already have a computer is a bit daft. Using Apple proprietary software is also a bit daft. Apple today really are the evil empire.

I ripped my CDs with dbpoweramp. This is flexible and accurate, it uses a communal database to ensure that your rip is exact. It also automatically gets you cover-art, track names, composers etc. It's free, but buying it gets you better performance on some PCs with more than one processor.

I encoded the files with FLAC, this is an open standard for lossless audio compression that everything should be able to play, even a Mac.

I have about 750 CDs ripped. Using FLAC these occupy 253,879,841,792 bytes, which is I think about 350 Megabytes per CD, which is about half the 'raw' size.

Each 'artist' has a directory, including 'various', then each disc gets a directory and each track is a file. This structure is only really for human use. The player uses the metadata or 'tag's attached to each file which identify all sorts of useful information.

The process is mostly automatic, you put the CD in a PC, let dbpoweramp find the art, tracknames, composers etc then press rip. The directory is created and the job done in a few minutes.

I store the data on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which is a box with a network connector and some disks inside.

My NAS can run SqueezeCenter or one of the uPNP servers that drive the Linn DS and other media players. So I don't need a computer running to play music, and the Squeezebox can wake the NAS up when necessary.

The attractions (for me) of the Squeezebox or other type of streamer,

1. I already had a suitable NAS.
2. The Squeezebox/DS sits in the rack as another source.
3. There is no PC attached to the hifi.
4. The Squeezebox Duet was about £250 and comes with a nice remote control with a colour screen. The sound directly from this is quite acceptable.

Not as complex as it sounds.

Paul

 

Hmm, arguable when that software has achieved worldwide dominance.

 

I use Apple lossless which averages at about 300mb per album.

Music is stored on an external USB portable drive - 360gb capacity and pocked sized.

Always back up the drive. Pocket or full size drives are available for well under £100.

 

The whole Apple "aren't we just so hip and clever?" ethos is rather offputting, and yes I already have a Compaq dual-core laptop. I have a wireless internet connection, does that become part of all this mess?

I thought the "Squeezebox" thingies all had a DAC inside them, if not, then what is their function?

I have never been so confused. The whole field is riddled with impenetrable jargon. I don't even know how a computer works, and have no intention of finding out. I suppose that's not very helpful, but why do they have to be so user-unfriendly?

 

That's why I suggested a Macbook running iTunes plus a dac.
It's the simplest way into all of this IMO, especially for someone new to this stuff.

If you already have a decent laptop, another option is to simply plug a USB capable dac into the thing, find some music management software that you like, and off you go.
The MF dac I mentioned costs £130 and works fine on USB - so using your existing pc you can enter this brave new world for £130 plus the cost a cheap USB cable.

Why not just do that, try a few different programs and see how you get along with it.
It'll get you familiar with the basics at minimal cost, then you can progress as you wish.

 

Squeezeboxes do have a dac built in, the sound does get better as you progress up to their transporter, the Linn machines ( I believe) are basically the same, some have a preamp and dac built in? They are much more expensive though.
Or you have a PC or Mac connected to a dac, the Mac is ready to go straight from the box, with the PC you may have to bypass the operating systems sound core, you can do this by downloading 'ASIO' drivers.
In all cases the music is held on a hard disc, you just have to choose the method of delivery you prefer, if you have a PC already it might be sensible to at least begin with that.
Keith.

 

The Squeezebox is an interface intended to be 'helpful'. It enables you to choose your music and send it to your amplifier.

There are, as you have discovered, many other means to the same end.

The first question is: what hardware device do you want to use to choose your music?

Do you want to use a laptop every time you want music?

Would you rather use a hand-held device to do the same?

Once you have decided on the device, how do you want to select a particular piece: picture of the cover art? file name from a folder?

Decide how you would like it to work for you, there will almost certainly be some hardware/software that will facilitate that.

 

OK, as an experiment, I downloaded a free version of dbpoweramp, and ripped an Aphex Twin CD. All seemed to go well, with the ripping and all that, and the FLAC files have been stored in: james - music - Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy.

How clever.

Only it isn't:

File Type: Unknown
Description: Windows does not recognize this file type.

Great stuff.

 

Windows is likely trying to play the file in Media Player, iTunes or whatever you have as the default player.

Try setting the default player to dbpoweramp (I'm assuming this software is also a player).

 

So you need a FLAC player. I think you'd find the same with Apple lossless, you might find that the Microsoft equivalent is magically supported de facto. I don't play much audio on my PC, I have a Squeezebox... Anyway Winamp rings a bell.

Does dbpoweramp not include a player? Try some other formats, especially right now. If you are seriously planning to rip 1000 or more CDs then spending some time now working it all out is well worth while.

The reason for using FLAC or MP3 or whatever is to reduce the consumption of disk space, whch is of marginal benefit, and to support meta-data in a popular way, which is very useful and needs to be done at the point of 'ripping'. A lossless format means you keep all the music.

This has nothing to do with understanding computers, you are way beyond competent enough, as evidenced by your casual download and rip experiment...

Paul

 

If you've ripped them into FLAC format, go grab Foobar2000. It's a pretty good freeware application for playing FLAC (and other) audio files on your PC.

 

1)http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ download + install. Follow dummies guide.
2)Once done, put in CD of choice. Goto eac->compression options->id3 tag and change to suit. i.e, for me i have Artist/album/name(track) which equates to %A - %L - %T.
3)Goto Database->get cd info from->remote freedb. Select album.
4)Hit big wav button and save to a created folder for these rips. (on desktop easiest)
5)Import to whatever media player you like. i.e, itunes, import folder and use the keep folder organised option. Once imported delete the original rip as it will be in your players music folder.


That gives you the best possible quality rip from a cd and its stored in your media player of choice music folder. Then all you need to do is decide how to get it to your speakers. Either leave it on the pc and stream it to a SB in another room connected to your amp or external dac etc, or get a NAS for circa £300, put all your music/media on it and connect that to your SB so you dont need the computer on 24/7.

To get good quality music out of your speakers which you are probably accustomed to already, you should be looking at the slim devices transport (£1k), the same but totally modded by ModWright with valves etc (2.6k), or have a SB modded all the way and external dac (Weiss 2?) for around the same or more than the transporter its self. Basically the SB has a shity dac built in and needs modded to a minimum of a few hundred quid or run a decent external dac. Transport is already good. See http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/207slim/ for a review.