What is the best program for converting CDs to FLAC files?

2

Comments

  • gimpod
    gimpod Posts: 1,793
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    Media Monkey or Windows Media Player is all you really need. Both do any of the lossless formats including Apple (ALAC).

    Last time I tried WMC did WAV but not FLAC. Has that changed?

    @rooftop59 Yes & No. Win 10 is suppose to have native support for FLAC but no WMC. I don't use it it myself because it doesn't come with WMC (Microturd has drop WMC support and all after win 7), Now if your running Win 7 check this out Flac Files & WMP12, WMC & Win7 32 or 64 bit, For Those That Care

    I know it's a bit late but I Hope this helps.
    “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” ~ Mark Twain
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    Hey, if you have the time to waste ripping CDs at 1/10th the rate most people can rip them I guess that's up to you but it would get old real quick for me.

    New CDROM drives are dirt cheap now days.

    You can get a 24x DVDROM SATA drive that reads CDs at 48x for $10.

  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    I'd give it a try. Something is slowing your PC down. SATA drives tend to be faster than USB ones though.
  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    EAC is slow because it uses secure rip. Those times seem typical for EAC. I do a lot of rips with EAC on a super fast 6-core Intel with fairly new ROM drives and SSDs. It is not any faster. 20-30 minutes, that's just EAC.

    I also have dBpoweramp and it is much faster. I use it for ripping HDCD discs and even with the HDCD DSP added, it only takes 5-10 minutes. Honestly, I'd rather have a little bit slower rip and know that it is accurate.

    The reason I still use EAC is because it is required for one of the sites I upload to. They have a very strict guideline on how to get a guaranteed perfect rip,
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • DollarDave
    DollarDave Posts: 2,575
    I'd give it a try. Something is slowing your PC down. SATA drives tend to be faster than USB ones though.

    You sure like to post...do your research first. SATA drives are not faster than USB drives. The drives themselves are the same, the interfaces are different.

    The transfer rates of the interfaces depend on the standard that they adhere to. The latest version of USB (3.1) is the faster between USB and SATA.

    http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/peripherals/thunderbolt-vs-usb-3-0-vs-esata-931343
  • D'prived
    D'prived Posts: 191
    If you have ripping set to secure mode and there are issues with the disc it will take a long time to rip.
  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    Bottom line, secure rip with EAC takes a long time. However, dBpoweramp should be much quicker, unless you enabled a bunch of DSP features.

    I read back through and you said dB still took 30+ minutes to rip. Unless that was a very scratched up disc, or the metal layer is rotting away, it should be quicker. Is this a tower pc or a laptop?
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • DollarDave
    DollarDave Posts: 2,575
    DollarDave wrote: »
    I'd give it a try. Something is slowing your PC down. SATA drives tend to be faster than USB ones though.

    You sure like to post...do your research first. SATA drives are not faster than USB drives. The drives themselves are the same, the interfaces are different.

    Your comment to Gatecrasher was rude. He was merely offering "What if you tried this or that" advice to me.

    Three likely problems and solutions for CD ripping speed are 1) my DVD/CD drive is deficient - try a different DVD/CD drive; 2) the setup in the software needs to be changed to enable faster ripping - try a different setting in the software; and 3) the software itself is limited and does not allow for faster ripping - try a different ripping program. When I installed the software it gave me the option of two ripping speeds, a slower more accurate speed and a faster speed. I chose the slower. I can also stand pat with EAC and get to my destination slower than I would like.

    My DVD/CD external computer drives connect thru my computer's USB 2.0 port and do not work with USB 3.0.

    No, my comments weren't rude. I informed him that he was giving an inaccurate answer. Perhaps, he should give answers that are founded in fact, rather than just post superficial fluff.

    All three of the scenarios that you listed for reasons that the rips are slow (which is subjective) are obvious to you and anyone else with the competency to rip a cd to a mass storage device.
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    DollarDave wrote: »
    I'd give it a try. Something is slowing your PC down. SATA drives tend to be faster than USB ones though.

    You sure like to post...do your research first. SATA drives are not faster than USB drives. The drives themselves are the same, the interfaces are different.

    The transfer rates of the interfaces depend on the standard that they adhere to. The latest version of USB (3.1) is the faster between USB and SATA.

    http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/peripherals/thunderbolt-vs-usb-3-0-vs-esata-931343

    Notice I said "tend" to be faster? I agree with you but from what Donner was describing it kind of sounded like he might be using an older USB DVDROM. I have a portable one here that is a lot slower than my SATA. That's all I wanted him to take into account if his rip times are any faster or maybe even slower with the USB drive because he wouldn't really be comparing apples to apples. His current rip times are way too long and something is holding him back.

    In any case, I was trying to help him. Your info was good too. You just could have said it a little nicer.

    I'm going to rip a CD in dBpoweramp and time it and then do the same in EAC and will report back with the results.
  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163

    I'm going to rip a CD in dBpoweramp and time it and then do the same in EAC and will report back with the results.

    Make sure you have EAC configured with secure rip enabled, turn off C2, and caching as well. EAC can rip faster with those turned of, but the best, guaranteed quality comes with those settings. Also, there is a difference if you have the test feature enabled. That almost doubles the time in EAC.
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    billbillw wrote: »

    I'm going to rip a CD in dBpoweramp and time it and then do the same in EAC and will report back with the results.

    Make sure you have EAC configured with secure rip enabled, turn off C2, and caching as well. EAC can rip faster with those turned of, but the best, guaranteed quality comes with those settings. Also, there is a difference if you have the test feature enabled. That almost doubles the time in EAC.

    Yeah thanks for noting that stuff. I'm going to go through both software packages and make sure I note all the options to make the comparison as relevant as possible. I should have some result by tonight. It would be interesting to see what speeds others are getting too. My PC is by no means the fastest. I will also post my PC and systems info in the summary tonight.
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    Alright here are the results from my test today. Here’s my modest desktop PC that I purchased from Office Depot in 2013 for $500. I added 8 GB of RAM to it to bring it to 16 GB and added the 3TB hard drive.

    PC Info: HP Pavillion Desktop
    Operating System: Windows 10
    Processor: AMD A10-5700 APU 3.4 GHz w/Radeon HD Graphics
    System Type: 64-bit Operating System, x64-based processor
    RAM: 16.0 GB
    DVD ROM: HP SATA DVD RAM GH82N (48x max CD read rate)
    Hard Drive: WD Caviar Black 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch

    Setting Up The Experiment
    Since all CDs are different, I wanted to find one that was larger than most to err on the safe side. For this experiment I wanted to use a Red Book CD which means it’s just a normal CD. The first one I pulled out was “Pink Floyd- Animals” but it was only 5 tracks at 275.2 MB.

    I figured since Donner likes classical music, some of the CDs he’s ripping are probably larger than a normal contemporary music CD.

    So I pulled out another CD that has two albums on one disc. It was “The Beach Boys – Surfer Girl & Shut Down Vol. 2 (1998) {Capitol Records CDP 593692}” which is a much larger 27 tracks at 604.76 MB

    Leveling the Playing Field
    The next thing I wanted to do was to try and configure EAC and dBpoweramp as closely to each other as possible. This is definitely one area where dBpoweramp is easier to do than than EAC although EAC is not that complicated. dBpoweramp is just more user-friendly.

    One thing that makes dBpoweramp easier is that it compresses direct to FLAC while EAC rips the files to WAV and then relies on an add-on to compress the WAV to FLAC. You can set-up EAC to automatically delete the WAV files after they are converted to FLAC so the user really doesn’t notice it after you get everything setup correctly.

    EAC
    Since I haven’t used EAC in a while and it is a little bit more complicated to initially setup, I wanted to make sure I had everything configured similar to dBpoweramp.
    • "Secure Mode" enabled
    • Error Recover Quality Setting set to “High”
    • Files compressed to FLAC Level 8 (the highest compression and takes the longest time to rip)
    • Full Meta Data and album artwork retrieved from freedb

    dBpoweramp
    I went through dBpoweramp to make sure I had the same settings (or as close as possible) as EAC.
    • Files compressed to FLAC Level 8 (the highest compression and takes the longest time to rip)
    • Full Meta Data and album artwork retrieved from freedb
    • “After Encoded Verify Written Data” option activated

    Here Are the Results of the Experiment:
    The Beach Boys – Surfer Girl & Shut Down Vol. 2 (1998) {Capitol Records CDP 593692}
    Duration: 59:54 Size: 604.76 MB

    EAC
    Total Elapsed Time for FLAC Rip: 2:36
    FLAC Lossless Audio total compressed file size = 352 MB

    dBpoweramp
    Total Elapsed Time for FLAC Rip: 2:20
    FLAC Lossless Audio total compressed file size = 345 MB





  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    edited June 2017
    Something tells me you didn't use EAC in the same way he does. Especially if he follows the guidelines here (same as what I do):
    http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=30615

    Not saying everyone has to do it this way, but if you want to be able to recreate (burn) a perfect disc, with the same gaps, etc, using the rip, this way of using EAC is the way to do it. I creates an archive with a cue file that can burn a new disc that is bit for bit the same as the original.

    My site actually requires even more strict methods (cache disabled, pre-detect gaps, and test and copy for each rip)
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    Here's how I set it up but I don't waste an hour double checking the files.

    I've never had an error yet that I've ever found in one of my rips but I have found some from others that got them from torrents and other sources.

    I normally don't use EAC though. I prefer dBpoweramp because I don't care about CUE files. I don't rip them to post as torrents or anything like that. They are for my own personal library.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58RmQsGGbeQ


    Post edited by Gatecrasher on
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    Alright, I just ripped the Beach Boys CD using the "Test & Copy Selected Tracks" option and it took 5:31 to rip to FLAC from the time I started the rip until the beep. Anything else beyond that is really a waste of time isn't it? I normally don't even do the test. I just rip.
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    Try ripping with both the "Test & Copy Selected Tracks" option and the "Copy Selected Tracks" and see what your times are for each. I rarely use the "Test & Copy Selected Tracks" and never have any bad files, but when using dBpoweramp I always use the “After Encoded Verify Written Data” option (even though I never saw any benefit to using it either).

  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    edited June 2017
    I think cache and C2 can make a difference with speed in EAC. I have mine disabled in EAC because Waffles approval requires that.

    I use dBpoweramp for most of my rips and it usually takes less than 3 minutes even with the Verify feature enabled.

    I use EAC and post to only one torrent site (waffles) for those rare, hard to find discs that I want to share (DCC/Hoffman masters, MFSL, etc)
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    edited June 2017
    The sample rate doesn't have much to do with the ripping speed. That is all part of the compression stage, which, if you have a fairly modern PC, shouldn't be more than 5-10 seconds per track. Also, don't be fooled that the higher number will give you a better sound. That just means you will have larger files. FLAC is lossless, so no matter the compression, it will sound the same when played back. The only reason to have that highest number is to reduce the processing power needed to read the file and un-compress it. Personally, I leave min at the default of ~700.

    The real slowdown with EAC is, as I have said a few times, comes from the drive settings. When you disable Cache and C2, it slows down the extraction stage a lot. For various reasons, the 'experts' recommend disabling both of those in EAC to get "THE Best" possible rip. The Test and Copy feature will also DOUBLE the time. Probably not needed if you are just creating a personal library and you are not worried about disc loss, reburning, etc.
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    When I installed EAC, I chose hi quality over faster ripping. But going thru the YouTube video and checking my settings, I discovered that the preset "high quality" is not the highest quality. The sample rate was set to 768 bits per second. The highest quality sample rate available is 1 meg per second (1024 bits). So I went thru and upped all the settings to the highest quality. The sample rate does not change the size of the file nor the bit rate that playback occurs at. Foobar 2000 displays bit rate in the bottom left corner.

    It will probably take a day or so of experimenting with the program.
    billbillw wrote: »
    The sample rate doesn't have much to do with the ripping speed. That is all part of the compression stage, which, if you have a fairly modern PC, shouldn't be more than 5-10 seconds per track. Also, don't be fooled that the higher number will give you a better sound. That just means you will have larger files. FLAC is lossless, so no matter the compression, it will sound the same when played back. The only reason to have that highest number is to reduce the processing power needed to read the file and un-compress it. Personally, I leave min at the default of ~700.

    The "high quality" selection you made in the EAC setup is not the same as this one Donner. The EAC setup selection deals with the actual rip from CD to WAV. This section deals with the external file compression software that is an add-on to convert the resulting native WAV file that EAC produces to a compressed FLAC file.

    This is the only erroneous information I have found with this video turorial. From what I've read, you don't need to worry about setting this bit rate to anything. It doesn't do anything when converting to FLAC or any other lossless format. It is non-functional as-is the sound quality option. So it doesn't matter if you have the option set to "high quality" either. Lossless is lossless regardless of the file compression. A FLAC level "8" file sounds just as good as a FLAC level "0" file.

    Regardless of what compression setting you are using in the "Additional Command Line Options" box (0 thru 8), the recording bit rate and quality will be converted the same so these features are non-functional. If I convert a WAV to FLAC with the compressor set to 5 or 8 (or any other value) the bit rate remains the same at 1,411 kbps. The file compression doesn't effect the bit rate or quality, just the compressed file size in MB.

    If you were to compress the WAV to a lossy format like MP3, then the bit rate and quality options would be active.

    http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    msg wrote: »

    GC - you mentioned a couple of problems and then fixes. Got any specifics on that?

    Re: dbPowerAmp and EAC, I had issues getting clean error checking, or whatever it is, on some discs that didn't have perfect surfaces, but played without issues. Also on some that appeared to be fine. I don't know what their AccurateRip was all about. A comparison database for comparing your rip? What happens if it doesn't match? Is it just an fyi?

    GC - why 300dpi 600px? That seems unnecessarily high? Don't most displays max out at 72/96dpi? I can see wanting to preserve higher resolution in case you want to edit them (I do the image edits before final resize and save an original), but if you're embedding the cover in the file, isn't that wasteful? Or do you link your coverart instead of embedding?

    AccurateRip is a database that can be used to check the accuracy of a CD rip with the results others get. It's just another way to check for errors. EAC has included it as an add-on but it has been an option in dBpoweramp for a long time. It was created by dBpoweramp. If something is wrong it will let you know. Just an FYI.

    The reason I decided years ago to go with 600x600 @ 300DPI for my album art "folder.jpg" file dates back to when I was ripping MP3s. I hadn't graduated to FLAC yet although it was starting to become more prevalent. I wanted to set-up all my audio files the same along with the album art size and resolution to be displayed.

    Some people were using big jpg files but when embedded to the music files they would automatically be reduced by MS Media Player which then turns them into "hidden" files. Also, a lot of the artwork you can download from freedb and the other databases is all different sizes. I basically wanted a standard size and resolution so all my albums and songs in my growing media "jukebox" looked the same as far as size and picture quality goes.

    After experimenting around I settled on 600x600 as the size and 300DPI as the resolution. It provides a nice picture that can be enhanced or sharpened if it needs a little help. I also scan all of the artwork from my CDs at 300DPI so it was already at that resolution.

    I must have been doing something right because a few years later Apple came out with I Tunes and they also use 600x600 as their album art size but at 600DPI resolution. The size is the same but Apple uses higher resolution which tends to create some display issues at that size. Sometimes you can get the "screened" look at 600DPI. A lot of people reduce it to 300DPI.

    The file format I've always used is the one MS Media Player uses as a default which is "track #; title" the rest of the info is included in the tagging. I decided long ago that it was best for me at least to do it this way because of the file name size limitations in Windows which still exist today. I hate getting the "filename too long" error message that you can get from lengthy file naming schemes that others use. That's why you have tagging. You can include as much text as you want in the tags. Entire paragraphs if you want.

    As for the folder names, for official releases I try to include as much as possible without exceeding the character limits. "Artist; Album Name; # of discs if more than one; Year of Original Release; Remaster & Release Info along with year"

    For bootlegs I like to start with the date.

    That's they way I have been doing it for over ten years now.

    Here's a list of the software at my disposal that get's used (some more than others):
    • dBpoweramp (for ripping CDs and converting most audio formats to FLAC)
    • EAC (for ripping CDs and LPs with a CUE file)
    • Nero Burning ROM (for burning CDs & DVDs)
    • Medieval CUE Splitter (for splitting EAC audio files into individual tracks)
    • WavePad Sound Editor (for splitting EAC audio files with corrupted CUE files, splitting single LP files without a CUE file, and for converting SHN audio to WAV or FLAC)
    • Tag & Rename Music Organizer (for renaming and applying tags to audio files)

    While I use all of these software packages from time to time the three I use the most (by far) and cannot live without are: dBpoweramp, Medieval CUE Splitter, and Tag & Rename Music Organizer.

    I have a large HP scanner I use to scan album artwork. I use 300DPI resolution for everything and save as a jpg. Some people like to scan at higher resolutions and save as .tiff or .png and that's cool if they want to take the extra time but I always use a 600x600 300DPI cover saved as a .jpg to be used as the "folder.jpg" file aka album artwork.

    You are investing a lot of time into creating your own digital audio library and that's why it is important to decide on a file configuration you like and stick with it because it sucks having to go back and change everything if you decide you like it another way later.
  • billbillw
    billbillw Posts: 6,163
    edited June 2017
    FYI: a 600x600 pixel mage doesn't matter if its 300dpi or 72dpi unless you actually print out the image to paper. On a display, those pixels will look the same when viewed at 100%.

    If you scan a CD liner/cover that is 5"x5", at 300dpi, you will actually get a ~1500x1500 pixel image. If you shrink that down to 600x600, the software will combine pixels, etc and loose much of that 300dpi resolution. In fact, it will really only retain a true resolution of about 120dpi. (1500/600=2.5, 300/2.5=120).
    For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017
    That's good to know. I will probably stick with the 300dpi from my scanned artwork though just because it's a standard I've had for so long now. The average file size is around 100KB.

    But if I ever have to look up some artwork and it isn't quite 300dpi I will probably go with it rather than continue to look for higher res alternatives. I have seen some at 72dpi that looked good.

    The main thing is I want 600x600 size for all of them.