Installing FLAC & WiFi question

Help needed

I'm ready to install FLAC. There is a choice of plug-ins and options:

Winamp2/5
Associate With Winamp2/5
Gapless Output for Winam2/5
Nero
Encoder/Decoder for Foobr2000
Winamp2/5 Cleanup

Double dutch to me. Should I leave them or tick them off? (I have Nero on my machine already)

Also, any recommendations for a WiFi access point/router (I read on the SlimServer Forum that some work better than others?)

I'm also shopping around for a couple 500GB HDDs. The choice seems to be limited. Any point in getting firewire or is USB OK?

Cheers
Sir G

 

At a guess you would need the Nero plugin if that is what you are using to rip the music.

I have never had any problems with d-link wireless devices running with the Squeezebox (and they are generally cheaper)

USB should be fine, just make sure it is USB 2.0

Andrew

 

Thanks, sorry for not replying earlier, was away.

Just by the look of the interface of EAC and FLAC I guess I'm gonna need a crash course just to set it up and start ripping ... which is OK as I still haven't decided what to get for WiFi and SlimDevices informed me yesterday of a delay in the SB3 delivery. A 500MB LaCie HDD is on the way though.

 

have a look here: http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/EAC/index.html
the main description is for musepack but it tells you what to do for flac down the pade a bit.
good luck with your wi-hi-fi adventure. will you we using an external dac?

 

I have no plans for a DAC for the moment. Will use the SB3 as it is to start with.

Thanks for the link, will look into it.

I have no Offset tab ... (different version maybe?)

Cheers

 

I have an install program which will install Cdex configured to rip to FLAC automatically if you want to avoid having to setup eac

Drop me a pm if you want a copy

Andrew

 

Thank you, just spent the best part of morning to set it up, using info I found in various fora and websites.

Just ran a test on one track and got a properly IDed artist directory and album subdirectory. It contains my test track in .wav form. Is this OK so far?

Maybe will PM you for this installer (although I guess, this thing is set up once and for all, unless you need different settings say for Rock / Classical)

I gotta run but will be back this afternoon.

 

I have read somewhere that FireWire will consume less of your CPU's time than USB so if your computer already has a FireWire port it might be a good idea to use it. Mine has a FireWire port on the sound card and it works fine.

 

... you can always use the FLAC front-end to decompress FLAC files to .wav format, then burn them using Nero, Easy CD Creator etc. - same with Monkey Audio. There are a few lossless music newsgroups around now, if your ISP carries them, if it doesnt there are plenty at Easynews.com

 

Sorry for sounding so dumb, but I'm a complete newbie and I have a feeling I must be missing something here as all I have after compression are .wav files. Shouldn't I get .flac files?

 

Are you just getting wav files, or wav and flac? It might be you haven't told it to delete the wav when finished.

 

For anyone wanting the pre-configured CDex installer I have uploaded it to here:

http://audiofi.dudehost.com/other/Setup.exe

By default it is set to rip to C:\music but to change that in cdex click Options - Settings and change the recorded tracks output directory in the filenames tab


Sorry about the branding on it, I just altered an old installer which was designed for something else, feel free to alter anything though!

Andrew

 

No flac files, just .wav, in a correctly named directory, on the right destination disk. And I did check the "delete wav after compression" box.

 

Sir Galahad are using EAC to rip the files?

I found it a bit envolved to EAC set up so that flac would do the external compression.
I help you out with all the settings i used, i'll post it up when i get home.

 

I'm a Noob to this so to test FLAC sound quality against MP3 I downloaded the free WinAmp and ripped a couple of CD's in it using the FLAC plugin.
It just worked without any setup hassle.

What are the advantages of the other systems that appear from comments here to be more complicated to setup?

BTW have you tested a WiFi setup yet? My room is 3 brick/block walls away from the router and there's not a hope of getting a signal between the two. I'd already installed CAT5 wires as previous wireless efforts had been rubbish, so it'll all connect up with real wires. It is worth thinking about before paying out the extra for WiFi devices that might not work.

 

I use EAC to rip because I trust the ripped files i get from it.
I've never had any problems ripping copy protected cd's.

I also the like the fact that with EAC it can rip the file twice and compare the two to make sure they are the same. Even with a standard rip you can save a report of the ripped files and it will let you know of any supect areas in the rip.

 

thanks for the program

any chance you know what Error: cant send data to external encoder
means?

 

Thats a new one to me, sounds like it can't find FLAC.exe

There should be a folder in program files called FLAC with FLAC.exe inside it, if that is there, go into CDex and click Options - Settings and check the encoder path is correct for flac.exe

My guess is one of those is wrong or missing

Andrew

 

FLAC.exe is there an the path is correct, seems strange

and for anyone else using firefox you have to use IE for the program.

 

it may be that you have set the file extension to .wav - this will create flac files with a .wav extension - see step 3 in the link i set.