[Neville]

I have decided to go with the EMU404 card and was wondering what software everybody else is using ? I need it to :

1. rip all my cdroms to hard disk
2. put them into easy to manage folders
3. have a very simple interface to select the type of music and then the artist
4. be able to shuffle between artists in the same type of music or between different types of music

I plan to have the card play directly into my Jolida 1501RC.

Any suggesstions are most welcome.

Neville

 

[bzy83]

what do you mean by "server"?

just a computer to extract and storr music or a music player?

 

[Neville]

Yes I plan to use a dedicated PC to store all my songs with the ability to share them amongst other PC's in the house.

But I also want it to be able to play songs in my hifi room when connected to my existing components.

 

[ted_b]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neville I have decided to go with the EMU404 card and was wondering what software everybody else is using ? I need it to : 1. rip all my cdroms to hard disk 2. put them into easy to manage folders 3. have a very simple interface to select the type of music and then the artist 4. be able to shuffle between artists in the same type of music or between different types of music I plan to have the card play directly into my Jolida 1501RC. Any suggesstions are most welcome. Neville

1) I use EAC to rip all cd's to wav and cue files then compress them to flac (saves about 40% space yet is still lossless ) and put them on a dedicated hardrive.
2-3) I use foobar2000 and with a couple of plugins have a simple interface that plays the flac files directly (no need to decompress) and plays them bit-perfect through a Chaintech (hi sample rate, 24/96).
4) Playlists in foobar are very searchable, or set up ones based on genre,

 

[ted_b]

Sorry about the jpeg. The forum only allows 25k sized pix and I can't seem to manage to produce a larger view.

I use columns_ui and the freedb tagger and a simple script import for the colors and info capture.

 

[Neville]

How much are these products or are they open source ? Do you have any issues with your Chaintech ? I see it has quite a following and at a pretty good price.

Can you tell the sonic difference between a standard cd player and your PC ?

 

[Budley007]

EAC and Foobar2000 are free.

Setting up your music server should be a piece of cake. Put EAC on the server and rip away. I'd recommend you organize your directories under genres. Install Foobar2000, create genre tabs to correspond to the music server's genres on all the computers you want to play music from. Select a genre tab then click "Add directory" under the Playlist menu. Point your browser to the music servers harddrive folder for that genre and hit "OK". Repeat for each genre. You're done. There are some scripts on the web that can be more intuitive than this, so I addressed only the very basics.

As to the Chaintech question, there are a ton of opinions written here at Headfi that should endorse your purchase.

 

[ted_b]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neville How much are these products or are they open source ? Do you have any issues with your Chaintech ? I see it has quite a following and at a pretty good price. Can you tell the sonic difference between a standard cd player and your PC ?

As Budley007 said, they are free. Foobar is at www.foobar2000.org and eac is available at http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Go to the third party plugins once you download foobar, read about them, and put some dll's in your components folder of foobar (like columns_ui and the freedb masstagger). Email me and I'll send you some other files to help with look and feel if needed.

I think combining a nice EAC-based ripped wav or flac file, coming off a silent hard drive, with a good bit-perfect soundcard, properly set up bit-perfect with foobar (see Mr Radars setup guide on any of his posts) will rival any redbook transport out there...ANY $$. This assumes a good DAC at the other end. Otherwise, the Chaintech analog output is good, the Emu's are very good, and the Lynx are great ($700 card). Any of these can provide a clean spdif signal to a dac like the Benchamrk Dac-1 or a Bel Canto Dac2 or a Scott Nixon tubedac+ (mine will be for sale soon) or any of the more expensive Audio Note (3.1x is SWEET) dacs; this solution will be more than you expect from a "computer".
Ted_B

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ted_b I think combining a nice EAC-based ripped wav or flac file, coming off a silent hard drive, with a good bit-perfect soundcard, properly set up bit-perfect with foobar (see Mr Radars setup guide on any of his posts) will rival any redbook transport out there...ANY $$.

Actually, as a digital transport, the Chaintech is very average. There are much better transports out there. The only way it won't matter is if the DAC reclocks the input to remove the jitter (the cheapest DAC that has that feature is the Benchmark DAC1 which is $1000).

 

[ted_b]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar Actually, as a digital transport, the Chaintech is very average. There are much better transports out there. The only way it won't matter is if the DAC reclocks the input to remove the jitter (the cheapest DAC that has that feature is the Benchmark DAC1 which is $1000).

I agree; that's why I mentioned that level of DAC. Also, a Monarchy DIP will solve that problem and at a cost a lot less than spending several hundred on a card just for less spdif jitter. I know the 0404 is not "hundreds more" but some of the cards mentioned here for spdif output are.

P.S. Thanks much for helping with the Chaintech setup. Your input is priceless.
The $25 experiment worked big time!
ted_B

 

[Neville]

I do not have an external DAC and will not be able to purchase one for a few months. Will the standard RCA out of the sound card to an intergrated amp be sufficient ? Will I lose anything in the process ?

Thank you all so much....

 

[Solude]

Windows Media Player 9 does all that out of the box, no mods, plugins or other running around. If you have Windows XP you already have everything you need.

 

[ted_b]

Do a search on "analog outs" for the Emu 0404; there is plenty of discussion in this area. I don't have one but understand the analog quality is good. The Lynx cards ($600-700) are state-of-the-art in regards to analog, according to many.
Ted_B