What's the highest quality iTunes ripping file format? (Lossless?)

[zip22]

i just imported album 2 with eac. i had to hit the mp3 button to get it into flac. command prompt windows popped up at every track. i found out that the command line given in the tutorial above doesn't include a level i reset the level in the flac frontend (default was 6) and the files that came out the secdon time were the exact same size as the flac 5 files from foobar and mediamonkey, so i think they are flac 5.

it took much longer than just using foobar to import the tracks. at flac level 5 foobar took 2:11 EAC took 3:35. i even set up the drive for "speed only" and not accuracy. freedb worked - the second time i tried. the first time, i got a server error.

are all these options useful? i still don't see why EAC is so great at cataloging music.

mediamonkey is closer to itunes useability and is was just a few seconds slower than foobar, but its still not as easy as itunes. i had to find the cd in my computer, go to tools to get the tags from freedb (no email needed) and figure out which button was the import one. mediamonkey does have some great tagging features, though. like grabbing album art from amazon.com.

K2Grey, why do you need one program to rip, one to listen, one to sync, etc (like that recent thread)? doesn't wrapping up all these music programs into one make perfect sense? it is like a cd player with a speaker - also known as a stereo system.

 

[K2Grey]

The reason why it helps to have separate programs is because they tend to be better at what they do than all in one solutions.

Why do people have separate source, amp, and headphones?

Why do people use Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. instead of Works?

Why do people build computers by buying parts from many separate manufacturers when they could get them all together from one source?

As for EAC, it's not meant to catalogue music. It's meant to rip only, and with as much accuracy as possible. It's not really meant to win speed races even if the "speed only" option is set.

 

[zip22]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2Grey The reason why it helps to have separate programs is because they tend to be better at what they do than all in one solutions.

yes, thats what i'm looking for. how using eac along with a handful of other programs accomplishes something foobar or itunes alone can't. so far i have found nothing but an unneccesary degree of difficulty.

the files produced by eac and by foobar are identical. foobar was quicker and easy to figure out. foobar can also play the files. how is eac better at what it does than foobar if the end results are identical?

are errors in ripping a common problem? i have never noticed anything wrong with songs ripped in itunes or in foobar, but that seems to be what eac focuses on. maybe i have just been lucky?


building my computer, i know there is a difference than something bought off the shelf. it is faster and was cheaper. all this software is free, and the separate programs are, in fact, slower. the user experience of foobar and especially itunes is much much better than using multiple programs (in my experience), so i do not see why using eac is better.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2Grey Why do people have separate source, amp, and headphones?

Well the headphones pretty much have to be separate, right? On the order of 1% of people with a DAP use a headphone amp.

Quote:

Why do people use Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. instead of Works?

Because they come already installed on the computer?

Quote:

Why do people build computers by buying parts from many separate manufacturers when they could get them all together from one source?

Once again, maybe a couple of percent of computers purchased each year are assembled rather than being ordered all together from a vendor.

Quote:

As for EAC, it's not meant to catalogue music. It's meant to rip only, and with as much accuracy as possible. It's not really meant to win speed races even if the "speed only" option is set.

It's really hard for people with totally different desires to have a meaningful argument about "better" or "best" or "faster". Note that the topic of this thread concerns the "highest quality iTunes...format" and it becomes clear why the discussion is at cross purposes. Telling someone to use EAC isn't a helpful response to a question about choosing formats within iTunes, is it?

 

[TiTaN]

 

[K2Grey]

In my defense, I wasn't the person who suggested the use of EAC.

All things considered, the task of ripping an audio CD into WAV isn't that hard. So if you want to use foobar2000 for ripping, go right ahead (although I confess ignorance that it could do that). I use EAC since I make archives of my CDs and thus want to be quite sure my files are 100% accurate. But most likely you would get similar results ripping with other stuff unless the CDs are damaged. I've only had one such experience.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2Grey In my defense, I wasn't the person who suggested the use of EAC.

Sorry, that wasn't supposed to come out as something that needed a defense. My bad day, my bad mood, no insult to you intended. Personally, I've switched to EAC myself recently.

But I know when my wife peeks over my shoulder at my EAC-to-Foobar-to-iTunes-to-iPod monstrosity she says if she had to do half of that stuff she'd just hum instead of listening to music.