[miTunes75]

rip your cds to your computer for your listening pleasure?

Anyone???

Just curious. I have a sharp ear for hearing flaws in song compression, etc...
I have yet to find anything as good as the original cd playing

I have, for the longest time, been using mp3 format encoded with LAME ~320 VBR.

I am purchasing a mac this summer and am strongly considering encoding everything in apple lossless.

Opinions / Options?

 

[Jahn]

I do, and my ears can't tell the difference between a CD and 256 VBR AAC. When I rip a CD into my computer, I tell iTunes to rip it into that lossy format and it's all good.

 

[Jon L]

Only one thing is for sure in PC audio. Use lossless format of some kind, and the rest can be adjusted/changed/re-encoded in the future as the PC audio state-of-the-art changes.

If you are going to use a Mac, going with apple lossless isn't a bad idea. If you go with PC, go with Flac/Foobar/ASIO.

 

[CoppellStereo1]

I use the Winamp you have to buy, and it rips and encodes without any pops, cracks, or whatever, using some VBR. I dont do it often though

 

[5ergo]

Im not an audiophile though i do hear huge difference between mp3, lossless and my CD player.
If i like a CD i simply buy it and listen to it on my CDP because it sounds even better than playing back lossless via foobar.I use dynaudio studio monitors for playback.
I think its a waste of space to fill HD with lossless music and also if PC goes to hell you are still able to listen to CDs.

 

[sidewinder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 5ergo Im not an audiophile though i do hear huge difference between mp3, lossless and my CD player. If i like a CD i simply buy it and listen to it on my CDP because it sounds even better than playing back lossless via foobar.I use dynaudio studio monitors for playback. I think its a waste of space to fill HD with lossless music and also if PC goes to hell you are still able to listen to CDs.

2nd

 

[TooNice]

I rip to lossless so that I can transcode into whatever for portable use.

 

[Grahame]

I Rip EAC->FLAC

Then I can

FLAC-> RIO Karma

or

FLAC->Slimserver->Squeezebox->Hi-Fi

Thus I can play the "Computer files" through the same downstream components as the CDP output.

WHY

1) Rip Once - Listen Many
EAC ( and cdparanoia etc) try multiple times to get the original bits off the disc - verifiably error free.

Your CDP attempts to get the bits off the CD - in real time - and may have to "Guess" the missing bits in the case of errors.

(To misquote someone - EAC only has to be lucky once, a CDP has to be lucky all the time).

2) Lossless vs Lossy Compression

Lossy compression by definition "throws bits away", Some people can hear the difference, some people can't. It has its place where you have a storage limited player. In my case I use a server to store all my files, and only download the files I want onto my mobile player. I treat my DAP as a "working set" of things I'd like to listen to, until the next time it syncs with "the mother ship"

You can allways transcode from a lossless format to a lossy format.

You can't go the other way and get back the bits you've thrown away.

3) Storage Space and backups.

HD storage is commoditized as is, and will only get cheaper.
I don't want to have to re-rip in the case of a Hard Drive crash.
Thats why I duplicate / backup my storage to avoid "Single point of failure".
The value of my time to re-rip and populate a drive again exceeds the cost of just buying another drive, copying it, and putting it in a safe place.

Standards, and players will undoubtedly change in the future, but I've done the hard stuff once. The rest can/will be automated as required.

YMMV.

 

[Iostream]

I rip pretty much everything to FLAC these days. I cannto say as I hear much of a difference between my CD Player and my Squeezebox playing FLAC... I do hear a difference in my computer playing flac, and I would guess this is because of noise the computer introduces (onboard soundcard).

 

[lan]

I use MPC and now OGG for lossy files. I can tell the difference even between encoders which is another form of madness

The convenience and space saving factor is good for me.

 

[AndyRx7]

I've ripped my CD collection to apple lossless, stored on an external harddrive for playback through my powerbook-->airport express-->...

It works great - the convenience is amazing compared to physical media. Also, the sound quality destroys my low-end Sony CD-player.

I would never bother to encode in lossy, simply because harddrive space is cheap and I'd rather have the best quality source I can, plus should a CD get lost / scratched I have a ~perfect copy. I don't have golden ears, and I doubt I could reliably A/B a high quality lossy file w/ a lossless file, but every little bit counts and I'd rather have the piece of mind of knowing I'm not missing anything I don't need to.

I think if I had an unlimited budget, I'd go for a high end CD player, which I speculate that computer audio would not match. But then again, if I had an unlimited budget I wouldn't even be using digital audio lol

 

[skyline889]

I rip into WAV first for home use then convert into 320kbps mp3 for portable use, The only reason why I do this is because I don't think my Zen Vision can support lossless files other than WAV.

 

[Grahame]

Another (possibly non obvious) advantage is Meta-Data, Tags, call them what you will.

With a CD, you are stuck with physical access to your music.
i.e. The music I want is track 7 on this CD.

When you rip, + Tag (label) your music, you have all sorts of information that you can use logically to Key/Sort/index/Organize/Find your music by

E.g ARTIST=???, YEAR=???, GENRE=???

(maybe even a GIRLFRIEND Tag for those that had Read Hi-Fidelity by Nick Hornby, or seen the movie with John Cusack)

 

[dwc]

I ripped all my cd's to flac with EAC. Stored on a couple different drives for safety.

Playback via squeezebox 3 in the house.

For portable i use foobar to convert flac to mp3.

-Dan

 

[m_memmory]

I've ripped all my music into FLAC on my hard drive (and have it backed up on an external drive as well just in case it's ever needed) I do this mainly for ease of use... I'm more likely to listen to all my music if it's easy to access rather then walking and getting the CD out to listen to it (I know it's lazy but that's why I have this PC as my entertainment centre! lol) Plus there's the ease of knowing what songs what - easier then having to remember which album it's on.

From there I transcode to LAME MP3 for my X5L