Ripping music cd's to your pc - how and why ?

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stevewestern

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Being the thoroughly modern chap that I am, I have started to rip my cd's to a hard drive.
Now, I want to keep them lossless, so have started to rip in WAV format, though having got about 200 done, I am being told that I ought to be using FLAC, as it makes for easier tagging and takes up less space.
I have over 2,500 cd's, so want to get it right, but am loathe to start again, so what suggestions do you have - WAV or FLAC, and also, is it easy to convert WAV to fLAC, and keep the file names, album art etc ?
 
WAV is indeed lossless, but the file sizes would be HUUUUUUGE!!! FLAC would be much better.

The only concern I would have with these formats is that they aren't going to be as compatible as say .aac or .mp3...
 
But hard drives are too..!
The bit I am struggling with is getting files with album art,track titles etc.
EAC is touted as the best ripper, but it does not do album art, and I can't work out an easy way to get the files into one album folder - using dBpoweramp to rip in WAV gives me files of 400 - 650gb per album, and seems to keep everything simple. As for mp3 - it is a lossy format, meaning the sound quality suffers - not what I want !
 
Just rip your CDs at a high bitrate, like 320kbps. CDs are rated at 192kbps I believe, so if you rip them higher than that, you're not going to notice the difference anyway.

I have a lot of mp3s that have been encoded from vinyl at 320kbps, and they sound better than CDs.

If your ears can't hear it, what difference does it make?
 
:agree:
I went through this exercise a while ago. I ripped everything at 320Kpbs MP3 and the sound quality is superb. An average album is around 75-90Mb. As WAV files each song would be in excess of that! :eek:
 
Sadly, my ears can tell the difference between the best mp3's and WAV - otherwise my hifi would have been a total waste of money... (to put it into perspective, my cartridge - the needle bit for playing records for you youngsters out there - cost more than my 5d AND 70-200 f4 IS put together, and the phono stage even more...)
I have 2tb of storage on the pc as it is, and may add another 2 soon..
 
steveinspain said:
Sadly, my ears can tell the difference between the best mp3's and WAV - otherwise my hifi would have been a total waste of money... (to put it into perspective, my cartridge - the needle bit for playing records for you youngsters out there - cost more than my 5d AND 70-200 f4 IS put together, and the phono stage even more...)
I have 2tb of storage on the pc as it is, and may add another 2 soon..
Click to expand...

Point taken Steve :)

That must be a phenomenal set up you have. I bet it sounds amazing :)
 
Chillimonster - I am doing that via dBpoweramp, so have all the info, but when trying to use EAC, which is meant to correct more faults than other programs (and it does make a difference!) I can't get the info. Think I may stick with dB for now, but thanks for the link !
 
I Have a similar problem, I would like to put my CDs on my Hard Drive and this I am doing using iTunes with no problem.

I am not sure if understand it correctly, but I have the idea that mp3 format will reduce the size of each track. If this is correct, could someone explain how I convert all my tracks to mp3 so as to save space on the HD.

I am using a Mac and running Leopard.
 
CD tracks are .cda which is cd audio... they are big. if you convert to mp3 they are smaller.

This is why you can only fit about 10-15 .cda tracks on a standard cd.. but a hundred or more mp3's depending on the quality and file size.
 
Grendel,
It does - this picture was taken a fair few years ago (as you can tell from the picture of me ) and most of the stereo has been replaced, but it was all Naim - 52, supercap, Gyrodec - now an Orbe, 2x250 amps etc etc..

stereo_and_me_Medium_.JPG
 
Are your girls allowed in that room, Steve?? ;) :)
 
Arthur said:
I Have a similar problem, I would like to put my CDs on my Hard Drive and this I am doing using iTunes with no problem.

I am not sure if understand it correctly, but I have the idea that mp3 format will reduce the size of each track. If this is correct, could someone explain how I convert all my tracks to mp3 so as to save space on the HD.

I am using a Mac and running Leopard.
Click to expand...

Arthur - mp3's are smaller, and sound quality is what goes when you shrink files. No problem for listening via an mp3 player on the train, but for serious listening, vinyl is still king, cd is ok, and mp3's, even at their largest size, are a fair way behind.
iTunes is ok, but there are much better if you intend to listen hard (foobar, JRiver etc) but remember that if you have a lot of cds, you will spend a fair few hours ripping them - I don't want to have to re-rip my 2,500 or so cd's...!
As for telling you how to convert via iTunes - sorry, I don't know, but I imagine you can select what the output file is, and how large.
 
Janice - they have always been allowed in, and have never once touched anything they shouldn't have - mind you, I do keep the cover down on the tutntable, just in case...
You would be more than welcome into my den..............!!
 
steveinspain said:
Grendel,
It does - this picture was taken a fair few years ago (as you can tell from the picture of me ) and most of the stereo has been replaced, but it was all Naim - 52, supercap, Gyrodec - now an Orbe, 2x250 amps etc etc..
Click to expand...

Wow! I can only try to imagine how good that must sound :)

You've aged well Steve ;)
 
steveinspain said:
I have 2tb of storage on the pc as it is, and may add another 2 soon..
Click to expand...

Slightly off topic I know, but don't forget you need to back all this data up or in the event of a PC failure or a burgalary you are back to ripping everything from CD.

I rip two copies of all my CD's one is a high bit rate MP3 for portable use and the other is WMA lossless. I went with WMA as it works nicely with my windows based media player and at the end of the day once you have your music in a lossless form it isn't to hard to convert it to a different format. I can't really help with the cover art thing I just let windows take care of it and only rarely have I had to manually track down any.
 
You have not seen me recently Grendel - its been a hard couple of years here..
But hell yes - I'll take the compliment - I was 47 when that picture was taken !
 
a1ex2001 - Mmmm - I have a 1.5tb NAS arriving soon - can't have to much storage, as they say !
 
Thanks very much. Will have to see how much HD space I can allocate to my music.
 
looks a very impressive set up there Steve and yes i do remember record players even the old wind up ones :) I still have some old albums going back to the 60's which are going to be retrieved for me soon by EG.
 
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