Need Advice On Ripping Entire Cd Collection To Flac

[thatp]

Hi,

I'm in the process of determining the best strategy to rip my entire CD collection (about 500 discs, mostly classical) into FLAC and store the files on a network attached storage (NAS).

I have bought Synology 110J with a 1.5 TB WD harddisk and just started to convert a few CDs into lossless file format at 1411 kbps. I first rip the CD into uncompressed WAV files with Exact CD Copy, and then use Switch Sound File Converter to convert them to FLAC 1411 kbps. It is time consuming but produced satisfactory result.

As I'm about to invest many many late-night hours ripping and converting, I would appreciate it if anyone could let me know if I am on the right path. Or is there a more efficient way to achieve the same with, perhaps, different software and/or a different workflow.

Many thanks.

[BabySun]

Have you tried DBPoweramp?This is alternative - one stage ripp,with many options.If you manage all, in just one month - it can be free(30 days trial),but 30$ is sound investment for one year subscription.

I think,this program is the most popular one,may be,because it is the best .

from my experience - keep your eye on power line:things like fridge,washing machine,aircon,and keep your mobiles away or off.It is good idea to run ripps on laptop disconnected from AC line(battery only).

Also - make back up of your collection in case of unpredictable disaster(on another hard drive,which you will not use often, keep in safe and cool place).

[thatp]

Have you tried DBPoweramp?This is alternative - one stage ripp,with many options.If you manage all, in just one month - it can be free(30 days trial),but 30$ is sound investment for one year subscription.

I think,this program is the most popular one,may be,because it is the best .

from my experience - keep your eye on power line:things like fridge,washing machine,aircon,and keep your mobiles away or off.It is good idea to run ripps on laptop disconnected from AC line(battery only).

Also - make back up of your collection in case of unpredictable disaster(on another hard drive,which you will not use often, keep in safe and cool place).

Thanks a lot for your methodical and sound advice, Babysun.

[rgs2001uk]

Why the need to convert to FLAC?

I would just save as a WAV file, its not as if you are short of disc space, only my own personal thoughts, but why complicate a simple task?

[OriginalPoster]

Why the need to convert to FLAC?

I would just save as a WAV file, its not as if you are short of disc space, only my own personal thoughts, but why complicate a simple task?

Aside from saving disk space (which still does matter in some cases), since it's a smaller file it saves bandwidth if streaming them. Flac files have better support for meta-data tagging too.

Both EAC and dbPoweramp can output directly to flac. It makes it take a bit longer to rip each disk but there is no need for the user to manually perform an additional step of converting wav to flac.

But from the way that you phrase that question I'm wondering if you are aware of some disadvantage to flac. I know that Apple doesn't support it, is that the only reason to avoid flac? But as far as Apple's obstructionism goes, dbPoweramp and other tools will let you convert entire directories of flac files to Apple Lossless (alac) or wav format in batch mode. That might take a pretty long time if converting 500 CDs from flac to alac or wav but it's the type of thing that you can just start and then let it run by itself overnight. So it seems to me that as long as you save your rips to a lossless format (such as falc, wav, of alac) it wouldn't be then end of the world if you decide at a later date that you wanted to use a different lossless format

Edited November 30, 2011 by OriginalPoster

[rgs2001uk]

^^^^^OP,

sorry nothing sinister intended, just a legitimate question.

I (wrongly) assumed the OP was backing up his CD collection, of 500 discs, which with a "1.5 TB WD harddisk" will easily fit onto the space available in WAV format, hence my reason for asking why the need to use FLAC.

I agree with your observations, I was thinking more of time spent ripping and converting.

Having done more than once what the OP is about to undertake, I wish him the best of luck, its a thankless task, however the OP is obviously as passionate about his music as I am, so will consider it more as a labour of love.

[OriginalPoster]

^^^^^OP,

sorry nothing sinister intended, just a legitimate question.

I (wrongly) assumed the OP was backing up his CD collection, of 500 discs, which with a "1.5 TB WD harddisk" will easily fit onto the space available in WAV format, hence my reason for asking why the need to use FLAC.

I agree with your observations, I was thinking more of time spent ripping and converting.

Having done more than once what the OP is about to undertake, I wish him the best of luck, its a thankless task, however the OP is obviously as passionate about his music as I am, so will consider it more as a labour of love.

I have read claims on the web that flac files sound worse than wav's but if that occurs it would appear to be only under very specific set of circumstances, for instance with an underpowered CPU doing the decoding of the flac file at playback time. There is going to be some overhead in required computing power when decoding a flac (compared to a wav) so it's conceivable that in some applications flac might not be desireable. In my own experience, playing back with a Squeezebox streaming from a PC and feeding into a relatively highend DAC, I'm hard pressed to distinguish between the sound of flac vs wav files.

Edited November 30, 2011 by OriginalPoster

[thatp]

Thanks all for your valuable inputs. The reason I specifically need to rip and convert to FLAC has more to do with the peculiar requirements of my Wi-Fi audio streamer/internet radio (it won't play WAV)and probably my ignorance of what EAC can or can't do.

I tried using EAC to directly rip to FLAC but my player (something similar to a Squeezebox) refused to play those EAC-generated FLAC files. The player keeps skimming from track to track without making any sound.

Then through trial and error, I experimented with the two-stage method, using EAC to rip a CD into WAV files and then get Switch Sound File Converter to convert them to FLAC 1411 kbps and it works perfectly.

By the way, my player identifies those SSFC-generated FLAC files on its screen as LPCM 1411 kbps. As a non-techie I can only assume that FLAC and LPCM are one and the same, is it not?

That basically sums up the reason why I posted the question the way I did. Out of curiosity and eagerness to take some pain out of the process.

I'm willing to explore different programmes and methods as suggested by helpful people in this forum.

[OriginalPoster]

Thanks all for your valuable inputs. The reason I specifically need to rip and convert to FLAC has more to do with the peculiar requirements of my Wi-Fi audio streamer/internet radio (it won't play WAV)and probably my ignorance of what EAC can or can't do.

I tried using EAC to directly rip to FLAC but my player (something similar to a Squeezebox) refused to play those EAC-generated FLAC files. The player keeps skimming from track to track without making any sound.

Then through trial and error, I experimented with the two-stage method, using EAC to rip a CD into WAV files and then get Switch Sound File Converter to convert them to FLAC 1411 kbps and it works perfectly.

By the way, my player identifies those SSFC-generated FLAC files on its screen as LPCM 1411 kbps. As a non-techie I can only assume that FLAC and LPCM are one and the same, is it not?

That basically sums up the reason why I posted the question the way I did. Out of curiosity and eagerness to take some pain out of the process.

I'm willing to explore different programmes and methods as suggested by helpful people in this forum.

Regarding FLAC and LPCM being the same, that's not exacly it. LPCM is a scheme for digitally encoding music; FLAC is a scheme for compressing files. Think of FLAC files as being like ZIP files, albeit using a different compression algorithm.

As for your player not being to play FLAC files from EAC, offhand I'd guess that there must be something wrong with the option set under "File" "Compression Options" "External Compression". If the player is truly incompatible with flac files created by EAC, that would be a major marketing liability to the maker of the player. EAC handles flac file compression by shelling out to a 3rd party (Open Source) command-line utility called flac.exe that should be installed in the same directory as EAC. Input options required by flac.exe are minimal and flac.exe is normally a very stable application. Just thinking - if you download flac files from torrent sites, are there some of them that your player will fail to play also? If not, then it's almost definitely a problem with your EAC configuration options as the bulk of flac files that have been ripped from CD's and posted on torrrent sites would have been created with EAC.

With flac conversions, it shouldn't matter what bitrate you set for the conversions. That's used for lossy conversion (such as to mp3), on lossly conversions the resulting bitrate is an output that is beyond your control and will vary depending upon the content of the signal that you are encoding.

One problem with EAC is that many of the setup options are difficult to understand and there are so many of them that it can be overwhelming. Cleanest solution that I've found to that is to use dbPoweramp instead, that's much more ready to go upon initial installation; much less fussing around required.

[thatp]

Wow. Original Poster. I really enjoyed your lucid explanation of the finer points of audio encoding and compression technologies. Now I realised that the problem I have had with EAC-generated FLAC files must have something to do with my groping-in-the-dark approach to the programme's extremely complex settings. I could have mixed up different pieces of advice on "optimal settings" given by more than one experts that I found on Google. Will retrace my steps to find out what went wrong.

Edited December 2, 2011 by astral
No need to quote the entire post. Just pick out the relevant points, please - Astral

[astral]

http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation_tasks.html

How to rip to FLAC

[Darrel]

MediaMonkey does it all in one go for free.