[HtdHvy]

I recently began ripping my entire cd collection (500+) to my hard drive as WMA lossless. I'm about 260 CDs in right now, but it seems like most people here prefer EAC w/FLAC lossless over WMA lossless ripped by Windows Media Player. While it would be a pain to rerip my music, I would be willing to do it if the rips I have right now are not exact rips (i'd like to do it it once and be done with it).

I know all lossless formats are equal, but is the ripping job that WMP11 does worse than that of EAC? My CDs are in pristine condition so I'm not worried about ripping scratched discs. I like the interface of WMP11 for playback although I am aware that it doesnt support ASIO and I can achieve better playback via other software. I am more concerened with the quality of my rips for now since I can switch playback software later. Again, my goal is to have a perfect quality archive of my CD collection. Any help is appreciated.

 

[nelda]

I would say they are the same. I am on the same boat with you last time. I just can't be bothered with other software as wmp11 is there on my computer. but the real difference is when you want to play your files. not every player support wma as it is microsoft thing. on the other hand, many player support flac (hardware and software) and as it is "free".

 

[eboomer]

First, ripping through Windows Media Player will almost certainly result in some tracks being ripped imperfectly, especially for any CDs that might have some flaws such as minor scratches. I think that the difference will not be noticable if you are simply using Windows Media or similar player, as this causes all the audio to get upsampled to 196 kb/s in kmixer. You would get a better increase in sound quality by using ASIO or kernal streaming to bypass kmixer than by re-ripping your hundreds of CDs and this will cost SO much less time.

 

[HtdHvy]

First, ripping through Windows Media Player will almost certainly result in some tracks being ripped imperfectly, especially for any CDs that might have some flaws such as minor scratches. I think that the difference will not be noticable if you are simply using Windows Media or similar player, as this causes all the audio to get upsampled to 196 kb/s in kmixer. You would get a better increase in sound quality by using ASIO or kernal streaming to bypass kmixer than by re-ripping your hundreds of CDs and this will cost SO much less time.

I dont understand why WMP would change my audio to 196kbps. Besides wouldnt that be a downsample from lossless? Also how do i use ASIO or kernal to bypass kmixer? Can I do this and still use WMP11 or do I have to change my playing software? Do I need to change my soundcard? I use the audio out from my ASUS A8N-SLI 32 Deluxe motherboard if that helps. Also does kmixer vs ASIO vs kernal affect the ripping stage, or just play back?

 

[warrior05]

eboomer is talking about playback not the file itself.

the advantage EAC has over other rippers is its error correction. for example, i had borrowed a cd and it was pretty well scratched. i used EAC and though it took nearly 3 hours to get through one song it came out great. WMP couldn't touch it. but if your collection is as mint as you say it is i wouldn't bother starting over, personally.

 

[mkozlows]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HtdHvy I know all lossless formats are equal, but is the ripping job that WMP11 does worse than that of EAC? My CDs are in pristine condition so I'm not worried about ripping scratched discs. I like the interface of WMP11 for playback although I am aware that it doesnt support ASIO and I can achieve better playback via other software. I am more concerened with the quality of my rips for now since I can switch playback software later. Again, my goal is to have a perfect quality archive of my CD collection. Any help is appreciated.

WMP has a checkbox you can set to verify the rip, which slows it down a bit, but is probably worth it. Beyond that, enh. I'm sure EAC is technically superior at error rejection and recovery, but I wouldn't expect most CDs in good shape to be a problem at all.

If you want to do a spot check, use EAC to rip a few CDs chosen at random, then decompress your WMA Lossless archive to WAV, and diff the WAV files. If they're the same, then you're good to go.

 

[nelda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkozlows If you want to do a spot check, use EAC to rip a few CDs chosen at random, then decompress your WMA Lossless archive to WAV, and diff the WAV files. If they're the same, then you're good to go.

They supposed to be "mathematically" equal, not totally the same. you can rip to wav. convert that to flac. convert again to wav. the file won't be the same size as the original wav.

 

[JACK5ON]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelda They supposed to be "mathematically" equal, not totally the same. you can rip to wav. convert that to flac. convert again to wav. the file won't be the same size as the original wav.

umm.... what kind of "mathematics" would that process use? the one that says 1=2? both WAVs should be the same in the case that you described.

 

[warrior05]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JACK5ON umm.... what kind of "mathematics" would that process use? the one that says 1=2? both WAVs should be the same in the case that you described.

agreed. let's say you take a zip'd file, unzip it, take the unzip'd file then tar it, then untar it - the unzip'd and untar'd file will be exactly the same.

 

[lordgibbness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HtdHvy First, ripping through Windows Media Player will almost certainly result in some tracks being ripped imperfectly, especially for any CDs that might have some flaws such as minor scratches. I think that the difference will not be noticable if you are simply using Windows Media or similar player, as this causes all the audio to get upsampled to 196 kb/s in kmixer. You would get a better increase in sound quality by using ASIO or kernal streaming to bypass kmixer than by re-ripping your hundreds of CDs and this will cost SO much less time. I dont understand why WMP would change my audio to 196kbps. Besides wouldnt that be a downsample from lossless? Also how do i use ASIO or kernal to bypass kmixer? Can I do this and still use WMP11 or do I have to change my playing software? Do I need to change my soundcard? I use the audio out from my ASUS A8N-SLI 32 Deluxe motherboard if that helps. Also does kmixer vs ASIO vs kernal affect the ripping stage, or just play back?

He meant to say that it Windows resamples the audio to 196kHz, not 196kbps during playback. Although, from memory I believe it actually resamples to 48kHz as this is the de facto standard in most sound devices.

However, according to the foobar developers, kmixer does not resample the audio unless your drivers require it. Which would mean that this "ASIO sounds better than directsound etc." is possibly a myth, but I wouln't like to say without proof.

 

[nelda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by warrior05 agreed. let's say you take a zip'd file, unzip it, take the unzip'd file then tar it, then untar it - the unzip'd and untar'd file will be exactly the same.

but that's not how it work for wav file. why not try it?

 

[ameyer17]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelda but that's not how it work for wav file. why not try it?

The only diifference should be that the file decoded from FLAC has the RIFF chunks removed. However, most WAV files don't have RIFF chunks to begin with, so there should be absolutely no difference.

 

[HtdHvy]

ok thanks guys. I guess i'll keep ripping WMA lossless. As far as the ASIO or kernal playback, I never got an answer about it being or not being possible with WMP11 or the sound card I have. Anybody know?

 

[lordgibbness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HtdHvy ok thanks guys. I guess i'll keep ripping WMA lossless. As far as the ASIO or kernal playback, I never got an answer about it being or not being possible with WMP11 or the sound card I have. Anybody know?

I have never seen any output plugins for WMP, but they may exist. Winamp and foobar are the most extensible audio players and would be a better choice.

Regarding WMA, personally, I wouldn't recommend it as it is very much a closed proprietary format. It's better to use an open format (FLAC, OGG, MPC, etc.) or a very widely available format like MP3. I just wouldn't like the feeling of possible vender lock-in in the future, however unlikely. For me it'd be FLAC for archiving and MP3 for everything else!

 

[LeChuck]

The Hydrogen Audio wiki has a great lossless format comparison: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....ess_comparison

Personally I use WavPack; it's robust, fast, and compresses well.