building a lossless library on my PC, advice please

[dura]

I used to have an ipod an ripped ~200CDs to AAC, then I switched to a Sony (which I still use) and ripped the same CDs to ATRAC. Now I want a lossless dap for my bedsite system.
I was thinking, why not copy the .WAVs or whatever from the CDs lossless to my HD (will take about 100 Gb, got 500 in my PC, so I can even backup) and convert/transfer them to any player I want.
Is that possible?
what's the best software to use?
Does software like itunes and sonicstage allow transferring from the HD, and can they play the lossless files directly?
Are there other things to think about, it's a lot of work and this time I want to do it right and never have to do it again.
Advice would be welcome.

 

[warrior05]

some of the answers can depend on what you plan to use as your DAP. but first, let's start at the beginning.

the most popular piece of software used amongst us audio geeks is EAC. it has terrific error correction abilities when dealing with less than perfect CDs. you can set it up that it rips and compresses into FLAC. FLAC is very popular in regards to lossless formats. if you go this route, you can either use an iRiver that will natively play FLAC files or you can use an iPod but you'll need to install the Rockbox firmware. i'm not sure about iRiver but with the Rockbox'd iPod you can transfer the music via simple copy/paste drag/drop windows explorer interface.

if you are looking for the easiest route and you have an iPod you can then use iTunes to rip your CDs into ALAC which is Apple's proprietary lossless format. then you can just synch up your iPod - as you already know - with iTunes.

there is no difference in sound quality when it comes to lossless files so don't let that be your deciding factor on which way to go. it all kind of depends what you plan on using for your source and how difficult or easy you want the whole process to go.

there are other options but the above two - with variations here and there - tend to be the most popular.

hope that helps some.

 

[dura]

Thank you.
I'm not quite sure this is what I'm looking for though; I want to build up a library so that in the future, if I want to use an ipod or a sony or a zen or whatever all I have to do is import and convert the whole library, and neverever have to feed my PC a CD every five minutes.
I don't care about the storage it takes, and how long it takes my computer to convert things.
i know f.i. that sonicstage can import .WAV-files (though it'll probably do something horrible with DRM or conversion instead of copying, but if so, that's what backups are good for).

 

[m_memmory]

Personally I would (and did) convert everything through EAC into FLAC and store those. The reason why I used FLAC rather then the WAV file straight off of the CD is so that the tag information could be saved as well.

From the FLAC files they can be transcoded into pretty much any other codec you want/need.

 

[warrior05]

yup - i agree with m_memmory for your purposes. converted all into FLAC via EAC and you'll be set going forward. you'll even be able to burn audio CDs from your FLAC files if need be.

 

[dura]

Ok, sounds convincing.
The tags are a good argument, and as long as I can convert it to f.i WAV I can import in Sonic Stage, likewise other converters.
Thank you both.

 

[Skylab]

That makes sense. Use EAC and comvert to FLAC with the ID tags. If you ever decide to go to an iPod you can use dbpoweramp to convert to Apple Lossless with no loss.

 

[trains are bad]

EAC can easily be set up to obtain all the CD information from the web, so ripping amounts to popping a CD in, telling it where you want the files to go, and pressing a couple keys. Tada, fully tagged Flacs neatly in your file structure.

 

[wanderman]

FLAC is okay but if you want to save even more space and have faster encoding/decodeing I would go wavpack.

 

[Sparky191]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderman FLAC is okay but if you want to save even more space and have faster encoding/decodeing I would go wavpack.

What are the drawbacks to wavpack

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparky191 What are the drawbacks to wavpack

Less support by applications, and no support from any portable players from my knowledge, but overall it has the greatest variety of features out of all lossless formats, and rather good compression imho. All lossless formats sound the same though.

 

[adam917]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaGWiRE Less support by applications, and no support from any portable players from my knowledge, but overall it has the greatest variety of features out of all lossless formats, and rather good compression imho. All lossless formats sound the same though.

Doesn't Rockbox support Wavpack? BTW, iRiver needs Rockbox to play FLAC at all just like iPod.

 

[gdpeck]

I'm re-ripping or ripping all of my CDs to FLAC and 192K VBR AAC simultaneously using EAC and MAREO. MAREO is pretty cool, as it is called from EAC and can sequentially rip most any format that has command line ripping capabilities. It took me maybe 1 hour to set the whole thing up. There are lots of good tutorials for setting EAC up, and MAREO was super simple as well.

I chose FLAC for my lossless format because I have a Squeezebox and I don't believe it supports native wavpack streaming.

So now I have FLAC for home listening and AAC for portable. Having lossless is the most important part because now if I decide to try out a new format or get more resolving equipment (or better ears), I can re-encode my compressed music without re-ripping. If I have to do that now, I use foobar's convert function which is very cool, and also easy to set up.

 

[zip22]

this site is great for comparing lossless codecs
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....ess_comparison