[tim_j_thomas]

I find iTunes to be very slow and not conducive to editing / categorizing classical music.  Mediamonkey works out of the box, so that's good enough for me.
 
I've played with foobar, and like it for playback, but it also is not great for editing / categorizing classical music.
 
Just my thoughts . . .

 

[eric0531]

Quote:

I started out using Winamp, I used it for way too long. I was also a Exact Audio Copy snob, and I used it for too damned long as well. I ripped maybe 1300 CDs with EAC. Then I switched to dBpoweramp Reference and I never looked back. It's so much better than EAC, oh my. And no more Winamp either. It isn't even installed on my current machine. Foobar 2000 and dBpoweramp. MMMMMMMM.
 
Winamp was always fine as a player, but it wasn't really useful beyond that for me. I never used it to rip anything.
EAC required lots of setting changes to get things correct. It works with Accurate Rip so you know when you got it right. dBpoweramp does what EAC does/did and it does a few things better. It grabs CD artwork, it even offers choices of artwork in the current version. It also grabs tag info from no less than four sources and then offers a choice. It rips extremely fast with a decent quality drive in secure mode. (unless the disc is NOT in Accurate Rip, then it takes its time). I normally rip to FLAC, get the tags right with Musicbrainz tagger, then do a batch convert to make additional copies in LAME V0. I use the FLAC files on my computers to feed my computer and main audio (Squeezebox Touch, V3 Squeezebox, and Squeezebox Boom). I use the LAME V0s in my portable devices.
 
If you are thinking about ripping thousands of discs (as I have already done), I advise you to get an external drive to back up your rips from your internal drive. Ripping takes a long time and you would hate to lose your hours of labor with a hard drive crash. I rip to my internal drive, immediately back up to my external drive, and then take it to my lake place and copy the data from the external drive to a computer there. That way if one home burns, the other has my tunes. I don't want to do it all over again....
 
As far as MonkeyAudio, I installed and played with that program, but it didn't impress me enough to keep playing with it. Maybe I should have given it more time. Perhaps I will in the future.
 
And Foobar is no picnic to get started with, but oh is it worth the effort. Yes.

It's like we are twins separated at birth...
 
dBPoweramp is awesome, it is my ripper and converter of choice.  I rip to ALAC only because I have several iDevices and while I currently use MP3 on them it's possible I'll switch to lossless at some point (at least on my Classic) so I might as well be ready.  I've got about 700GB of lossless files on an external hard drive - actually on two external hard drives, one of which I keep away from home.  
 

 

[MIKELAP]

I am using MUSICBEE i find it not complicated to configure your  choice of DIRECT SOUND, WASAPI ,ASIO you can rip to flac, wav, and several other formats. got a problem want to find out something you have online support. you have regular updates. when you rip you have ACCURATE RIP validation and error recovery and and much more. Worth a look.
 
 
 
 

 

[cooperpwc]

paraflam, ITunes navigation is far too slow for listening to music IMHO. Also it only supports ALAC as lossless whereas I have both FLAC and ALAC files. Foobar is wonderful to navigate a large music collection, particularly if you add the Facets browser component. With just a few extra "components", Foobar can easily be setup without any additional programing. Here is my simple but highly functional config, using my genre system as the foundation in the Facets browser:
 

 
(I do still use iTunes to synch with my iPod and iPhone.)

 

[lee730]

I use media monkey 4. I tried using foobar and while it's nice; I was not able to get Asio to work in bit for not mode, which is a must for me. In media monkey both Asio and wasspi work in bit for bit and sound great.

 

[eric0531]

Quote:

paraflam, ITunes navigation is far too slow for listening to music IMHO. Also it only supports ALAC as lossless whereas I have both FLAC and ALAC files. Foobar is wonderful to navigate a large music collection, particularly if you add the Facets browser component. 

Nice, I hadn't heard of Facets before but just downloaded it to try it out.  Definitely makes for an excellent way to browse a music collection!

 

[214324]

foobar2000. Use dBpoweramp or Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for ripping music. They can be used with encoders such as LAME. I use EAC since it's free. You can use dBpoweramp if you don't mind downloading it again every 21 days or paying for it.
 
Edit: I was looking at the screenshots for dBpoweramp and it looks a little more user friendly. I just can't get LAME to work with EAC easily.