Best format for ripping CD's? - Page 2

Since wave files have a longer history, and are still frequently used in the recording industry- I say wave is a safe bet for the future

Buy a stand-alone streamer like the logitech touch

I personally use FLAC because I like the ability to add metadata. While I understand that some may not value it much, I like to create playlists using genre and my personal ratings. For instance, I can create a playlist of just my favorite prog rock tracks selected from my 13,000 track library to transfer and play on my iPhone.

A program that hasn't been mentioned is MediaMonkey. MediaMonkey has replaced Foobar as my main media organizer/player/streamer. It plays most audio formats (wav, flac, mp3, ape, ogg, etc.), has lame and flac encoders built in for ripping, converts formats on the fly, has DLNA capability, and is one of the best media organizers around. It even organizes and plays my MCH flac files ripped from DVD-A's.

One of the features I rely on is to convert flac to mp3 to store on my iPhone and iPod. I simply select the flac files I want to transfer and the encoding quality, and it will transcode from flac to mp3 as it copies the tracks from my pc to iPhone/Ipod. I have a 160 GB iPod with all of my stereo tracks at 256 kbps mp3, plus various playlists of favorites, while my 32 GB iPhone contains mostly playlists of favorites. The type of playlists that can be created is endless based on embedded metadata.

To stream, I use MediaMonkey's DLNA media server to either serve the flacs (stereo or multichannel) directly to my Oppo in the theater room, or convert to mp3 on the fly to play on a PS3 in the family room. Again, with the playlist capability, I can stream by genre, artist, rating, year, etc. or any combination of the above. Over the holidays, I was streaming Christmas favorites to my family on the PS3 in the family room, while I was listening to a playlist consisting of my MCH Porcupine Tree albums streamed to the Oppo in the theater room.

Get a Sonos system. I use it to stream from cpu to processor. I use my iphone or ipad as the controller. Works and sounds great with the FLAC files. You get all the metadata and can create playlist on the fly.

A lot of people use Apple products and therefore lean towards Apple Lossless, but I play all my music files (except for my SACD DVD-A collection) through Windows Media Center. Therefore, I use WMA Lossless. From what I've read, there really is no difference in audio quality between the various Lossless formats, so it really boils down to how you are going to play your music.

I actually ripped my songs in WMA lossless and uploaded to google music. You should sign up for google music. It will automatically store all your songs for free online in a cloud. Up to 20,000 songs. I did an earlier post about this. It is amazing uploaded lossless files and play them back at 320 kbs quality.

Uploads are slow. Took nearly two weeks to upload my collection, but no cost. Can stream via my phone from google music. With bluetooth, I can stream via my phone to my car stereo. How cool is that?

I used to use WAV files, but FLAC or WMA I now think is best. I used WMA because tgoogle music had problems with some of the FLAC files I created with media monkey. This could have been a MM problem. Google music dropped the first song in every FLAC folder. I switched then to WMA and had no problem.

Flac has 2 advantages over wav, ability to compress and ability to include metadata such as cover art, artist name, track name, track number, genre, composer, recorded quality, etc. I use flac over wav because I want the metadata embedded for easy selection and navigation. I do not use the compression.

Im looking at doing the same thing and a friend of mine told me to get JRiver Media Center. He says its a all in one package. Anyone here have any information on it?

Flac, which is always lossless, even when using it's lossless compression. Usually use EAC with its integrated conversion to .flac.

I like that JRiver can also play bluray.

I like the idea of FLAC. I like the fact that more products support it than other lossless formats.

I find the software to create FLAC files to be very un-user friendly compared to WMP or iTunes.

Have I just not given them a fair shake, or I am missing something somewhere??

JRiver is very easy for FLAC. Im using the demo and I'm really liking it.

Yes it can stream. I have it streaming to my Android phone also. Look at there main page under network.
http://www.jriver.com/thenet.html

Never used JRiver as there are so many media players that don't cost anything. Admittedly EAC and Foobar 2000 require learning but they work for me.

It seems like EAC is hands down the best FLAC ripper. I just wanted a all in one program, rip, tag, play, and images. Makes it a little easier for a novice like me lol.

Bringing up this old thread because it partially answered my question of ripping, but also curious what's good to burn a simple music CD from the rips? What I'd like to do is rip everything lossless for playback on the PC and creating music CDs for my truck, but also at the same time create files usable by Spotify.

Edit: By the way, I have tons of rips I've done already using WMA lossless, which is a fine format for me, but I've seemed to have problems in the past with using those WMA files to burn a CD in Windows Media Player. It seems to cut off the end of songs every now and then. So I'm looking for a better solution for burning the CD.

I use Ashampoo Burning Studio Free. Very simple and works great for me. I rip my cd's in FLAC and use that program to make cds. If you are buring music that has no gaps between tracks (like a live cd or pink floyd music) there is an option to not instert gaps between the tracks. I find this very helpful.



I highly recommend dBpoweramp- worth the $$. You can rip 2 formats at once. I ripped all my cds in FLAC and 160mp3 at the same time. I use FLAC to archive my cds, the 160 mp3 files go on my MP3 players for my car and home.

Good Luck.
Edited by SKoprowski - 6/9/12 at 10:02am

Thanks for the suggestions Koprowski. I'm checking out dBpoweramp right now and it seems great! I especially like that it has an "acquire from scanner" for album art and such as I have some pretty obscure CDs that aren't found on the main databases. Seems like a great app and I'll probably go ahead and buy it.

I believe dBpoweramp uses like 4 or 5 services to scan your cds and you can choose one that fits the best. I also have some unusual music and most of the time it did find it- I was suprised. I think I only had to do may 2 or 3 by hand and that was with about 450 cds.

+1 for dBPowerAmp

I use it to rip to FLAC and 320Kbps MP3 (for iDevices). Then use FooBar2000 to play over HDMI into my Processor in the the HT.

Multichannel DVD-A's are also ripped to FLAC and played using FooBar.

Works great, and can transcode from FLAC to anything else, including a CD ISO image if I want to re-create a lost or damaged disc.

okay, so what is the best application or utility to use for converting CD's to FLAC and playback? I'm using Windows 7 and Windows 8. Also how are users converting DTS and SACD tracks to FLAC?

Right now I have a 40GB WMA archive loaded onto one 2TB WD "MyBookLive" external drive, which is installed on my home network (router). I'm able to stream WMA music source to living room system (Denon AVR-2112CI, Oppo BDP-103); theater room system (Marantz AV8801/Parasound A51, Oppo BDP-105); bedroom system (NAD C163/C272, Oppo BDP-93); and various Windows 7/8 PC's residing in various rooms. It's a wonderful thing.

However now I want to create a more hi-resolution format archive for more serious listening and better sound quality, take advantage of my equipment. I can play FLAC formats directly from my Denon AVR-2112CI receiver, Marantz AV8801 pre-pro, and various Oppo players (BDP-93, BDP-103, BDP-105).

What is the most popular FLAC player app?

Appreciate your help

What app's/utilities are people using to generate FLAC's from CD's? AutoFLAC? I have Windows 7 system. Appreciate your help here

I generally use EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Works great for me.

thanks for your input!

I am thinking about adding a Mac Mini to my Home theater for mainly hosting music files. What is the best host for Mac? I think I read that the best itunes can do is apple lossless which is 326kbps right? Can any programs for Mac host FLAC files? Thanks!