[konseki]

Hi all

I am not a technical person and can barely understand all the logic. Tried reading but got all the more confused. I read in headfi and here. 

 

I intend to rip my whole CD collection to MP3 320kpbs and FLAC using EAC secure mode.
I presume FLAC is good enough and safe for non-lossy as backup?

For best output effects and sound fidelity, should I use VBR or CBR? Joint Stereo or Stereo?
Understand EAC has Accurate Rip but I kept on reading add LAME.
How do I apply LAME after downloading? And presets? I get so confused because I only knew how to use EAC alone.

For the CD internal drive for processing, can I use Lenovo or ASUS laptop? Which is confirm okay? I know Litheon doesnt work and I'm wondering if its in Lenovo.
ASUS seems to have too limited selections (based on online website) ,expensive and specs aint as good in Singapore.
Other ASUS models are not shown in the website so I do not know how good they are.
Lenovo is cheap and good for the price. But in terms of sound and graphic, I do not know which is better still.
By the way, I do not play games.

Sorry for bombing all the questions here. Since Im a multimedia person, thought would be good to hear from you guys. 

 

 

[RRod]

Let's break it down:
 
Ripping the CDs: The point of things like EAC+AccurateRip is to get exactly the right WAV file off of the CD. I've compared rips between drives and have never found any issues so I tend to not sweat AccurateRip, but that's up to you.
 
Compressing the WAVs:
.Lossless: FLAC essentially zips the WAV file, only it's smarter about handling audio than regular zip, so it can get better compression.
.Lossy: Don't worry about the stereo options, just use the default. VBR will get you the most bang for your buck in any format. The best VBR setting for lame is V0, but lower settings (like V3) might still sound perfect in a blind test to your ears. Either play around with test files or just play it safe with V0. For EAC and lame, see here.
 
Playing the files:
We'd have to see the specs on the laptop sound cards to know what, if any, differences there are.

 

[konseki]

  Let's break it down:
 
Ripping the CDs: The point of things like EAC+AccurateRip is to get exactly the right WAV file off of the CD. I've compared rips between drives and have never found any issues so I tend to not sweat AccurateRip, but that's up to you.
 
Compressing the WAVs:
.Lossless: FLAC essentially zips the WAV file, only it's smarter about handling audio than regular zip, so it can get better compression.
.Lossy: Don't worry about the stereo options, just use the default. VBR will get you the most bang for your buck in any format. The best VBR setting for lame is V0, but lower settings (like V3) might still sound perfect in a blind test to your ears. Either play around with test files or just play it safe with V0. For EAC and lame, see here.
 
Playing the files:
We'd have to see the specs on the laptop sound cards to know what, if any, differences there are.

 

 

Thank you so much for the explanation ! Its clearer to me now.
Is it necessary to extract FLAC from EAC? Or just WAV and mp3 will do? Then convert to FLAC when necessary?
Im just wondering if playing WAV or FLAC off mp3 players will sound way better than mp3?

 

[RRod]

   
Thank you so much for the explanation ! Its clearer to me now.
Is it necessary to extract FLAC from EAC? Or just WAV and mp3 will do? Then convert to FLAC when necessary?
Im just wondering if playing WAV or FLAC off mp3 players will sound way better than mp3?

 
FLAC and WAV have identical content, so they should sound the same on a system that is decoding the FLAC file correctly. Neither should sound way better than high-variable-bitrate MP3, such as you get from V0 in lame.

 

[Roly1650]

Thank you so much for the explanation ! Its clearer to me now.
Is it necessary to extract FLAC from EAC? Or just WAV and mp3 will do? Then convert to FLAC when necessary?
Im just wondering if playing WAV or FLAC off mp3 players will sound way better than mp3?

You'll need Flac.exe somewhere on your hard drive. In EAC go to the "File" menu and choose "Compression Options". In the file requester box for the external program, you'll need to point to the location of Flac.exe. and you can set your various flac settings under this tab. In the EAC main screen there are 4 icons down the left hand side, from the top, Wav, Cmp, Img and Wri. The first rips wav files, the second rips compressed files, (which will now be flac, because you've pointed to the location of Flac.exe), the third rips an image file and the fourth writes to cd. If you choose compressed, after the ripping process EAC will announce that it's compressing via an external program, which it will do and then go to the next file. All pretty transparent and user friendly.

 

[konseki]

Between dbpoweramp and EAC which is better? Assuming I want good quality I just rip wav n FLAC? Skip step of mp3? Or just rip all 3 formats and store in case I want them. I do not know if using foobar to convert to mp3s will cause drop of quality.

 

[Roseval]

Ripping to 3 different formats I do think a disaster
You have 3 different libraries to maintain.
Imagine you spot a tagging error and have to correct this in 3 different libraries.
 
Ripping is a job hence rip to 1 lossless format.
Use a ripper supporting AccurateRip
 
WAV has some severe tagging problems.
I do think FLAC a better choice
-          Checksum (allows you to verify if the content is corrupted)
-          Excellent tagging support
-          Lossless of course
-          Save some space
If you do think you can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV (I do think this a bit unlikely) use a media player featuring memory playback.
 
For portable use it is very convenient to have a lossy compressed format like MP3
In general the portables are not really high end and space is limited (we have to wait a little before the 1 Tb micro SDs are available)
This is solved by using transcoding.
You make a playlist and tell your media player  to sync all audio in this list with the portable, converting it to e.g. MP3 on the fly.

 

[konseki]

Thank u guys so much!!!
 
I just bought my Dell laptop 15.6 inch HD 8 GB Ram 500 GB internal storage i5 radeon graphic @ 949 SGD... I don't like Asus sonic sound coz its too boomy and cheesy for me. Though its cheaper by about 100 bucks. Only thing is the Dell has no DVD drive which I figured could be a good thing.
 
 
If I play discs too much and the drive spoils I just have to replace.
 
Any recommendation for external DVD drive to rip CDs?
 
Also, for the EAC ripping, how do I tag it? I have Japanese text and Chinese text....need to manage it.

 

[konseki]

  Ripping to 3 different formats I do think a disaster
You have 3 different libraries to maintain.
Imagine you spot a tagging error and have to correct this in 3 different libraries.
 
Ripping is a job hence rip to 1 lossless format.
Use a ripper supporting AccurateRip
 
WAV has some severe tagging problems.
I do think FLAC a better choice
-          Checksum (allows you to verify if the content is corrupted)
-          Excellent tagging support
-          Lossless of course
-          Save some space
If you do think you can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV (I do think this a bit unlikely) use a media player featuring memory playback.
 
For portable use it is very convenient to have a lossy compressed format like MP3
In general the portables are not really high end and space is limited (we have to wait a little before the 1 Tb micro SDs are available)
This is solved by using transcoding.
You make a playlist and tell your media player  to sync all audio in this list with the portable, converting it to e.g. MP3 on the fly.

I'm   using EAC.
 
There's this option under Wave option. Double channel on mono playback...do I check that?
What does that sentence mean...does it  make the music on both L and R side, making it appear duplicate/ L and R at the same time.
It does sound weird but according to the guide, to enable the option.