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

I have a large classical music library that is in mostly 192kps mp3 . I downloaded "Exact Audio Copy" from C/Net and converted one of my CDs to FLAC. It seems that the FLAC file is roughly twice the size of the same 320 kps mp3 file. Converting to FLAC should not be an issue with hard drive storage space. It is, however, amazing to see how fast a 2 TB hard drive can be gobbled up.

"Exact Audio Copy" was very slow! It took over 15 minutes to covert a 48 minute CD to FLAC. Art there better (faster and as accurate as EAC) options than using "Exact Audio Copy?" EAC does verify the accuracy of the FLAC file and that is a feature I like. Maybe EAC is an OK program and I was not using it properly.

I play back my Mp3s in Foobar. I was able to play FLAC files in Foobar without any problems. Are their better options for playback?
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  • DaveHo
    DaveHo Posts: 3,471
    I use dBpoweramp for ripping CDs to FLAC. https://dbpoweramp.com/

    All my ripped music resides on my NAS. I use BubbleUPnp to control streaming from the NAS to several devices around the house.

    For the work headphone rig, music is on an external hard drive connected to a computer & I use Foobar.
  • daddyjt
    daddyjt Posts: 2,305
    Agreed - DbPoweramp is incredibly Versatel. It Only takes about 2 min to rip a cd. It also allows you to convert to just about any other file type you can imagine.
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  • heiney9
    heiney9 Posts: 25,053
    DbPoweramp is the "go to"
    "Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not".--Nelson Pass Pass Labs XA25 | EE Avant Pre | EE Mini Max Supreme DAC | MIT Shotgun S1 | Pangea AC14SE MKII | Legend L600 | BlueSound Node 3 - Tubes add soul!
  • Ricardo
    Ricardo Posts: 10,636
    What they said.
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  • drselect
    drselect Posts: 664
    What he said about what they said.
  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    JRiver and rip to WAV format for archiving purposes. JRiver is an all in one solution for reasonably fast ripping and excellent library management. I manage around 32,000 tracks originally ripped to WAV and also exported to separate FLAC and high bitrate MP3 format libraries.
  • voltz
    voltz Posts: 5,384
    JRiver Media. I use it to rip all of my music files, and It is a great player also!
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  • gce
    gce Posts: 2,158
    1 more for DbPoweramp.
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  • sgmsmg
    sgmsmg Posts: 542
    Anyone using DbPoweramp on a Mac?
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  • woofiepaws
    woofiepaws Posts: 214
    I'm using DbPoweramp on a MacBook Pro. Latest version of macOS. No issues.
    MacBook Pro running Roon-Monoprice USB-Schiit Gungir Multibit-Audioquest Earth-Schiit Freya with Tung Sol 6SN7s-Audioquest Sky-Krell FPB 400cx-Audioquest Mont Blanc-1.2tls with all the mods.
  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 32,902
    I have a large classical music library that is in mostly 192kps mp3 . I downloaded "Exact Audio Copy" from C/Net and converted one of my CDs to FLAC. It seems that the FLAC file is roughly twice the size of the same 320 kps mp3 file. Converting to FLAC should not be an issue with hard drive storage space. It is, however, amazing to see how fast a 2 TB hard drive can be gobbled up.

    "Exact Audio Copy" was very slow! It took over 15 minutes to covert a 48 minute CD to FLAC. Art there better (faster and as accurate as EAC) options than using "Exact Audio Copy?" EAC does verify the accuracy of the FLAC file and that is a feature I like. Maybe EAC is an OK program and I was not using it properly.

    I play back my Mp3s in Foobar. I was able to play FLAC files in Foobar without any problems. Are their better options for playback?

    Couple things come to mind.

    Is your computers processor up to snuff ? Meaning is it fast or aged and full of memory that slows it down when downloading ? That will effect your speed, 15 minutes to download a cd is very slow. Normally it's like 3-5 minutes depending on if some sort of error correction is engaged, which it should be.

    Free programs usually are a bit slower than paid for programs. DB power amp, JRIVER are excellent programs to use. Heck, if your on a windows machine, you can even use good old ITunes for your purpose.

    These files should not be filling up a 2 TB hard drive easily, that's a heck of a lot of storage. A flac file or apple lossless file is still compressed and then uncompressed when open. A WAV file is uncompressed for the whole process, thus it takes up more storage. Most find uncompressed WAV files to sound slightly better, but that's an argument for another day. MP3 files, the worst kind, actually leave out bits of information to reduce file size. This was the most common back in the day because storage was at a premium and ideal for use with portable devices. Today I see no reason to use them. If you have an MP3 file, that certain information is gone and there is no way to recover it, so don't think about converting MP3 files to flac or another lossless file as you will only copy an already compromised MP3 recording. Start with a lossless file, be it Apple lossless, Flac, Wav, etc. I have roughly 400 cd's on my hard drive and that only takes up 8gb's. So your 2 TB hard drive should be more than ample.

    Software to use.....Jriver is probably easier to use than DB Poweramp, but DB gives you more parameters of adjustment which can be a blessing or aggravating to the novice. ITUNES is probably the easiest of all and more automated which makes it more appealing to the novice. Hope that helps some, good luck to you.
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  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    I have around 32000 tracks in WAV format taking up about 1.4TB of disc space. To me EAC seemed to be fairly slow at ripping CDs but there are different error checking options in it. For some reason there is variability in the ripping speed between different CDs even in perfect condition with any of the programs including JRiver. It can take up to ten times longer to copy a "fast" CD compared to a really slow one.

    For scratched CDs there is no program that will do any better at reading and copying damaged sectors than others. The better programs will attempt to read the damaged sectors multiple times and let a user know when the read attempts to get a bit perfect copy failed. That is a function of the CD drive and the amount of damage on the disc. iTunes will just blast through and copy whatever it can and not report errors. That is why it is fast.
  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 32,902
    All programs these days support both flac and Apple lossless, most support WAV too. For right now, I'm using ITunes on my windows 10 machine and it rips a cd in about 3-5 minutes with error correction on. Yes, ITunes does have error correction, use it. Plus it's something you probably already have installed on your Windows 10 machine.

    Other than that, Jriver is pretty nifty, I'd recommend that one for guys just getting into downloading stuff. Yes, you can convert files too, flac to Apple lossless, or other formats but like I said, you don't want to convert MP3's to any of the other lossless formats.

    Lossless files, be it in flac, apple lossless, Wav, is comparable to cd quality, which is what you want. MP3 isn't...by a good margin too. Then we have getting those files to your stereo system, gear used, etc., that can and will also affect the sound.
    HT SYSTEM-
    Sony 850c 4k
    Pioneer elite vhx 21
    Sony 4k BRP
    SVS SB-2000
    Polk Sig. 20's
    Polk FX500 surrounds

    Cables-
    Acoustic zen Satori speaker cables
    Acoustic zen Matrix 2 IC's
    Wireworld eclipse 7 ic's
    Audio metallurgy ga-o digital cable

    Kitchen

    Sonos zp90
    Grant Fidelity tube dac
    B&k 1420
    lsi 9's
  • rooftop59
    rooftop59 Posts: 7,952
    I use media monkey. It works fine, and is a little cheaper than dbpoweramp and jriver. I haven't compared them so I don't know if there are differences between them...
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  • msg
    msg Posts: 9,308
    EZ CD Audio Converter was recommended to me by two other members when I was looking into this last. Tried dBpoweramp and EAC, but just liked EZ CD best and it's the one I use.

    I can't remember what you call all the error checking stuff, and whether EZ CD doesn't do it, or I just have it turned off, but it's pretty fast. I think there were two error checking mechanisms going on in the other softwares, and one of them would come up with mismatches or something pretty regularly? Not sure whether this indicated bad disc, bad read/rip, bad drive, or what. Would obviously fail on scratched discs.

    Another nice piece of software is Music Bee. It can rip audio as well, but I use it more for music management. Still can't believe it's free for as robust and smart as it is.
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  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    Regarding classical music files, one thing I have been thinking of doing is setting up a separate library in JRiver just for classical and keeping the other music in a different library. A good classical library needs to show orchestra, composer, conductor etc that rock and pop music doesn't. Classical can be hard to catalog in a library since there are a lot of options.
  • Media Monkey or Windows Media Player is all you really need. Both do any of the lossless formats including Apple (ALAC).
  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    The composer is probably the best category for most classical. Many people on the margins of classical fail to realize that at least 3/4 of the music is chamber music (piano, violin, cello sonatas, string trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, piano trios, quartets, music for wind instruments, brass instruments, smaller ensembles, etc.) These can all be organized under the composer.

    If you use a spreadsheet you can list everything including soloist artists and then sort the spreadsheet in many different ways. It is a challenge.

    I have three of the Herbert von Karajan big boxes which are 80+ CD's a piece and the Mercury Living Presence box sets too. Takes a lonnnnnng time to rip those and get the meta data properly set! Most of that has to be done manually to get it the way I want it. Finding the right cover art is an adventure too since the auto finder is usually wrong.

  • afterburnt
    afterburnt Posts: 7,892
    edited May 2017
    I use EAC, EAC is cheap spelled sideways. I think it works ok, although the metadata tagging can be a pain I don't think that has anything to do with EAC. I have always wanted to try JRiver, but I don't seem to have time give it a workout during the free trial. I will try it one of these days. I use Foobar with Fidelizer to play stuff from the PC.
  • rooftop59
    rooftop59 Posts: 7,952
    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?
    Living Room 2.2: Usher BE-718 "tiny dancers"; Dual DIY Dayton audio RSS210HF-4 Subs with Dayton SPA-250 amps; Arcam SA30; Musical Fidelity A308; Sony UBP-x1000es; Squeezebox Touch with Bolder Power Supply
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  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited June 2017

    I did consider converting to WAV but I have listened to several CDs converted to FLAC and am happy with the quality and FLAC saves some space on my 2 TB hard drive.

    I originally tried EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and then I tried the trial version of DbPoweramp. The first CD took 33 minutes to rip to FLAC using DbPoweramp. It did not seem to be a major improvement over EAC. Like you noted, the rip time varies. I decided to use EAC. Usually, CDs take 12 to 17 minutes. The metadata lookup feature of EAC is very good. I have not got pics of the wrong orchestra/conductor yet in over 200 CDs that I converted to FLAC. The big difference my new computer has over my XP computer is that I can still use the computer to do other things when I'm converting CDs, so speed is not as big an issue as it was with the XP.

    It sounds to me like you might have a problem with your PC Donner. There is no way that it should take that long to rip a CD in either dBpoweramp or EAC.

    My PC is 4 years old and I can rip most CDs to FLAC in 90 seconds in dBpoweramp. I have tried most of the CD ripping software including EZ and AVS and IMO dBpoweramp is by far the best of all of them. I have gotten a lot of EAC files with corrupted meta data and other issues. Never with dBpoweramp.

    The thing that is nice about dBpoweramp is I have found a way to work around any and all corruption issues with audio files and can repair them now. It took a long time to figure out the best ways to approach it. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a file is corrupt. Some will still play normally but technically they are corrupted and can prevent you from doing certain things with them like converting to other formats, changing the compression or tagging.

    EAC was good back in the days when you needed CUE files to play MP3s on certain players but most players today don't need it so I get rid of all that crap and split the tracks just like they would be on a CD. EAC has a tendency to corrupt the CUE file by writing the text out of order and/or adding dead spots which is confusing to some players. You will see this if you try to split the tracks and it fails to separate all of them. I have found a solution for this issue too using dBpoweramp and can split any that have bad CUE files.

    I then add any additional info or tagging using "Tag & Rename" which is another excellent software package. The way I have dBpoweramp setup doesn't leave much extra to do though other than add the album artwork to be displayed. I like to add my own at 600x600@300 DPI resolution and do not retrieve anything from online. It's a standard I've used for several years now an ensures that all of the files in my music library will all be displayed and play the same. That's the key, to pick a file setup you like and stick with it.

    The result is the cleanest and most properly tagged FLAC directory and files possible with zero corruption and everything setup the way I like it. No unnecessary crap or outdated features and the files will be perfectly displayed on any player.

    I would seriously look into your PC. Something is definitely wrong if it takes you more than a couple minutes to rip a CD to FLAC. I can rip DVDs faster than you are ripping CDs.
  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    You have a major problem if it takes you 13 to 17 minute to rip a CD. I could rip ten of them in that amount of time. Maybe your CDRom is slow?
  • msg
    msg Posts: 9,308
    DUB - same on some of my more obscure stuff. Had to enter it in. I always take a look at it anyway, because some people are lazy about entering stuff, entering everything in lower case, or misspelling. Sometimes, as you probably find with a lot of your classical albums, there are different releases for a particular album that don't match what's available in the databases out there.

    I'd say more likely the dvd drive than anything to do with the PC. I had similar performance issues when I first started ripping .flac several months ago. I imagine there are some better than others, but I'm just using an ASUS model now that I picked up on NewEgg a while back. I'd presume your drive is SATA since you mentioned your PC is newer. Who knows, there may only be a handful of manufacturers. I stuck some Dynamat on mine because when it would spin up to max speed, it would vibrate the chassis and rattle the bezel. Agreed, should be able to rip in minutes, however, if you have a lot of mass produced lower end discs, I notice that these can sometimes be inexplicably slow.

    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?
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