[slair76116]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, But I could not think of another.

Here is the story, I purchase about 100 Sri Lankan Music CD's which is where I'm from.

I want to convert them and store them digitally for my own personal enjoyment.

1.) FLAC or DSD? I personally prefer DSD Audio files as I feel the background is blacker, or there is no background noise.
2.) Which software to use, EAC, Jriver, Itunes I have all
3.) Best way to go about it?, Itunes has most of the track info the EAC and jriver didnt I dont know why

asking advice from people who have gone through similar situations...

Thanks

 

[sander99]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, But I could not think of another.

Here is the story, I purchase about 100 Sri Lankan Music CD's which is where I'm from.

I want to convert them and store them digitally for my own personal enjoyment.

1.) FLAC or DSD? I personally prefer DSD Audio files as I feel the background is blacker, or there is no background noise.
2.) Which software to use, EAC, Jriver, Itunes I have all
3.) Best way to go about it?, Itunes has most of the track info the EAC and jriver didnt I dont know why

asking advice from people who have gone through similar situations...

Thanks

I will assume you are talking about standard red book CD's. They contain PCM audio. FLAC is lossless compression, if you convert PCM (or a WAV file) to FLAC then at playback 1:1 the exact same bits of the original PCM will be extracted from the FLAC file. Converting them to DSD doesn't make any sense. If a CD sounded different after converting it to DSD then either the conversion or the DSD format is not audibly perfect and you have lost something.
Of course you can also choose to convert to a lossy but audibly transparent codec. But personally I would always keep the CD's and/or a FLAC version as well if you have the storage space.

 

[Roseval]

1. As a CD contains PCM audio, stick to PCM. So FLAC it be.
2. For the ripping part, have a look at software supporting AccurateRip. EAC does but Foobar or Musicbee can do it as well.
3. CD's don't have tags so the ripping program tries to find the CD in a Internet database. JRiver has pretty poor meta data.
You might try the trial version of dBpoweramp.
It support AccurateRip (it is the inventor and owner of AccurateRip)
Pulls it tags from various databases.

Bit more about ripping: https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/Ripping.htm

 

[Chippy1]

+1 for dbpoweramp

 

[redrol]

EAC, Exact Audio Copy. Have it output FLAC files, done.

https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

 

[DAPpower]

EAC, Exact Audio Copy. Have it output FLAC files, done.

https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

And here I though EAC was the ONLY real option.

Works like a charm and you will always know that you are getting 100 percent accurate rips. Even on scratched CDs, the program will try to correct any errors that there are when Testing and Copying tracks into FLAC.

 

[bigshot]

iTunes has a verify check box. It does the job.

 

[redrol]

iTunes has a verify check box. It does the job.

EAC is far far superior.

 

[bigshot]

I’ve ripped tens of thousands of CDs with iTunes, including damaged ones, without any errors on files. It does the job..

 

[redrol]

Did it shoot out log files showing verifying that indeed, they are error free? Or do they just sound error free?

Put it like this, If I'm archiving my important CDs, I want them to be perfect. This isn't do they sound perfect, I want my bits perfect.

 

[bigshot]

If it works, it works. I don’t need a certificate when I flush the toilet!

 

[redrol]

If it works, it works. I don’t need a certificate when I flush the toilet!

My music isn't a turd!

 

[sander99]

If you rip 100 (or thousands of) cd's and if you don't want to discover an audible artifact caused by a ripping error years later, and don't want to directly check by listening to all 100 (or thousands of) cd's then I think it is very handy that it is thoroughly checked automatically.
One of the things EAC does is calculate a checksum of the file it extracted from the CD and compares it to the checksum in a large database with checksums of many, many cd's.
I don't know how the current situation is, but some years ago most software focussed on speed / real time requirements rather than bit perfect data extraction.

 

[redrol]

Good point man.

 

[Roseval]

iTunes or WMP do the same, you can tell them to rip in secure mode.
To the best of my knowledge this means reading everting twice (hopefully not the cached data but the disk).
Rippers like EAC, dBpoweramp or freeware like Foobar or Musicbee use AccurateRip.
This is comparing your rip with those of others by calculating a MD5.
Although audio CDs are rock solid, they are not bit perfect by design.
Hence support of AccurateRip is a nice feature.