Mediamonkey or Dbpoweramp?

Ricardo

dorokusai wrote: »

Been doing that for almost 2 years....slowpoke, sheesh.

We old farts take longer to adopt new technology.

Janne

Ricardo wrote: »

We old farts take longer to adopt new technology.

Well the technology is not really new any longer. Running my DVD and music collection from a Windows Home Server. Access through Windows Media Center on every pc in the house, wireless or cable.

heiney9

bikerboy wrote: »

I have been ripping cds to MM to flac for 6 months now. I havent had any issues.

There is no way to know if you are getting a bit perfect copy. For those extremely anal about making sure you are getting a "perfect" copy use DBpoweramp and then transfer them into Media Monkey.

For those that don't really care, just use the click and rip function of MM. MM does a good job, but DBpoweramp is better. Just depends on how much time and energy you want to spend and if you care to get a perfect, verified exact copy of your files.

I have had discs with scratches or perfect discs w/ ripping errors using MM and I didn't discover the issues until I sat down to listen to the music. Some of these were borrowed discs so I couldn't re-rip them easily.

I use DBpower amp going forward.

H9

heiney9

Janne wrote: »

Have you ever ripped in Windows Media Player? You have it there fully automatic.

Rip setting: WAV (lossless)

File name: Artist Name / Album Name / 01 Song Name.WAV

Surprised people are struggling with additional programs when it is already there in Windows.

Windows Media Player stinks as a ripping program compared to DBpoweramp.

Ricardo

Janne wrote: »

Well the technology is not really new any longer. Running my DVD and music collection from a Windows Home Server. Access through Windows Media Center on every pc in the house, wireless or cable.

For me new means it's been invented in the last 20 years or so.


Do you work for Microsoft?

concealer404

heiney9 wrote: »

Windows Media Player stinks as a ripping program compared to DBpoweramp.

This. I remember when i first discovered DBpoweramp. I heard a heavenly chorus, and my colic disappeared for the first time in 20 years.

Face

Another WMA Lossless user here. WMP has no problem with tagging or album art and works fine with my squeezebox and Zune HD.

As for a DAC/Pre, check out the Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2.

Janne

heiney9 wrote: »

Windows Media Player stinks as a ripping program compared to DBpoweramp.

I did not know that. It did a good job when I ripped my whole collection.

Dont worry. I like McIntosh too. As long as it is spelled correctly.

dkg999

I use WMP to rip and store music for my daughter and sync to her Sony Walkman MP3 player. It works fine for that but I have had several CD's from new artists popular with her generation that it just won't accurately recognize and/or rip. The CD's are recognized and ripped fine by MM and EAC. I also found out last night that on a Led Zep CD that MM and WMP wouldn't rip and gave me a message that the rip wasn't successful due to DRM that DBPoweramp ripped it with no problems. So I'm with H9 on the DBPoweramp and MM combination. It seems to work and you've got around $80 in cost to license the full versions of them. Pretty reasonable.

MillerLiteScott

Can iTunes and MM, DBPA or WMP all live together on a computer so that I can just point my squeezebox to the library I want to listen to?

Can you convert rips from WMP to MM if I wanted to do so later?

Scott

dkg999

They are all living together happily on my pc for at least the last day! MM will find and catalog every music file on your pc if you don't specifically tell it what you want it to see, both as far as drive/folder location and type of files. The same with SB Server. All of my music I want SB Server and MM to know about is on my NAS drive, so I have them both limited to seeing what's in the appropriate folder on that drive.

doctorcilantro

MillerLiteScott wrote: »

Can iTunes and MM, DBPA or WMP all live together on a computer so that I can just point my squeezebox to the library I want to listen to?

Can you convert rips from WMP to MM if I wanted to do so later?

Scott

No one using J. River? You can do everything in one place with it. Secure Rips, Library Server (stream transcoded to mp3 etc. or lossless) over local area network or Internet (i.e. to your office 30 miles away), custom metadata fields, custom view schemes, database expressions, multi-zone output, burn CD from your collection over Internet, live streaming to your iPhone/iPad/iTouch, remote control via handheld like Android or iPhone via HTTP (or native iPhone app Rivermote), cover art lookup, access FreeDB and YADB (and Gracenote using extra tool tom import to mc), Slim server integration with mc2slim (allows you to use JRMC as front end and push to your squeezboxes).

I have one master PC with a 5TB enclosure attached to it. Low power HTPC in the living is connected via LAN and runs a client version of JRMC that looks identical to the master - you sit down at either PC and they look the same - except the client can be told to sync or not sync any changes (new playlists etc.) back to the master. You can create unlimited zones in JRMC. You could have 2 USB sound cards and a PCI sound card, there's 3 zones, or even add 3 more zones with unique DSP settings (e.g. fixed sample rate and replay gain) for the same sound card....EACH zone is unique output but can be sync'd with one another if a different device of course (albeit not perfectly). The point it you can then see and control client zones ...the zones on all your clients (and vice-versa if you choose)! When we lived in a house, I would walk outside with my iPhone while my son was watching a show on the HDMI sound device and my outdoor zone fed off the same PC and instance of JRMC could be controlled right from my iPhone. Sort of how iTunes offers Airport access but much more control is offered to the user imo.

The list goes on and on. MM and DB are great but spending $80 on two one does more than the other two combined....?

J. River uses a proprietary database system; their test library is 1,000,000 songs which can be search in 5 seconds IIRC. Try that with iTunes.:D

Having used various software for organizing digital media, mainly audio, for the last 10 years. JRMC has it down for Windows platform.

Maybe screenshots and more info are necessary.

doctorcilantro

Janne wrote: »

Have you ever ripped in Windows Media Player? You have it there fully automatic.

Rip setting: WAV (lossless)

File name: Artist Name / Album Name / 01 Song Name.WAV

Surprised people are struggling with additional programs when it is already there in Windows.

You can't set tags on .wav files unless you use the new BWF (Broadcast Wave Format). I think you can actually force tags onto wav but it makes them buggy IIRC.

doctorcilantro

MillerLiteScott wrote: »

Can iTunes and MM, DBPA or WMP all live together on a computer so that I can just point my squeezebox to the library I want to listen to?

Can you convert rips from WMP to MM if I wanted to do so later?

Scott

Don't limit your choice of file-type because of iTunes, which is a complete waste of time. You pick a lossless codec for lossless compression for archiving. Maybe FLAC. All your metadata, once tagged, to the file, stays with the file. If you create new metadata fields in J. River, can choose to have them embedded in the file or attached to the library (a database which you can back up and restore from on any PC, of course the files have to actually be where the database points to). When you edit a file's info in JRiver, by default the library/database change is written to the tags of the file so when you open that file after tagging in MM for example, all that info shows up because it is tagged to the file, not just the JRiver database.

JRiver gave up on Apple and does not have the edge the MM has with regard to communication with ipods etc however they do have a 3rd party plugin which allows you to sync itunes and JRiver. Their trasncoding on the fly can even create a cache of mp3s for later quick transfer. They also have a library sync feature where you can create an entire copy of your lossless archival library and make a lossy (mps, ogg vorbis) copy.

I just use J. River WebPlay and stream anything and everything to my iPhone.

Oh, and you get native DLNA support in JRiver which means if you have a PS3 or DLNA TV (or any other thing like Roku etc.), JRiver will just see it as a zone and play whatever you throw at - and yes if you have the bandwidth JRiver has excellent DirectShow filter support so you can stream all your high-rez movies like .mkv files etc.

Ricardo

I downloaded Dbpoweramp and have been ripping all day. Pretty straight forward after a few minutes of setup. It gets the right artworks every time, except for some very rare/old CD's, but it lets you copy/paste any image and save it as the art cover.

Created my separate FLAC folder, and it automatically saves it as Artist/Album/Song number. My Squeezebox touch is getting it right.

I will get the MediaMonkey, but only because I want to be able to sync with my ipod converting to MP3's on the fly. There are a lot more features that I will probably not use because I do not intend to play from my computer.

John30_30

doctorcilantro wrote: »

You can't set tags on .wav files unless you use the new BWF (Broadcast Wave Format). I think you can actually force tags onto wav but it makes them buggy IIRC.

If you expand tagged flacs back out to wav, I've found they keep their tags. At least with dbpoweramp. I think any lossless codec will do that.

John30_30

concealer404 wrote: »

This. I remember when i first discovered DBpoweramp. I heard a heavenly chorus, and my colic disappeared for the first time in 20 years.

And for the ultra-anal there is EAC. Probably still the only one that does Secure T&C, Error Correction, and figures in your cd/dvd player's offset for bit-perfect rip 'n bake every time.

heiney9

John30_30 wrote: »

And for the ultra-anal there is EAC. Probably still the only one that does Secure T&C, Error Correction, and figures in your cd/dvd player's offset for bit-perfect rip 'n bake every time.

Actually DBpoweramp does the same thing and a little faster as well.

H0

LessisNevermore

heiney9 wrote: »

Actually DBpoweramp does the same thing and a little faster as well.

H0

Anything you want to tell us Brock?:D

Ricardo

heiney9 wrote: »

H0

Is this some side effect of too many tubes??

ESavinon

Here's a nice website to guide you on your new journey, Ricardo.
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/

On3s&Z3r0s

+1 for dBpoweramp. Man that thing is great in terms of producing an accurate rip. Not only does it check against the online Acccurate Rip DB, but it's incredibly configurable in terms of exactly what error detection features of your CD drive will get used, how it does re-reads for error correction, etc. I haven't found anything else as nice that way, but after I found dBpoweramp I stopped looking. To be fair, all those configurations can be a bit of PITA for a casual user, and the settings you choose in combination with a given CD drive can affect the computed checksum. But when dBpoweramp reports that a track ripped accurately, you can be confident that it did.

tryrrthg wrote: »

I've tried it a few times with no success. I want my songs to be named:

FolderArtist/FolderAlbum/Track# - Track_Name.wav

I'm still not sure how to set everything up correctly to set tags. If they're setup automatically then for some reason my squeezebox is not recognizing them.

@tryrrthg, are you having a problem with the tagging metadata associated with a ripped file, or just the filename? If it's just a filename problem, are you sure you want forward slashes? I don't have a Squeezebox, so I don't know if it's going to want forward or backslashes, but if you're ripping on a Windows machine, I'd make sure to use backslashes (\).

zingo

I'm going to bring this thread back up as I have a renewed interest in Media Monkey as they are now offering a iPhone client program to control the application, just like iTunes. Has anyone tried this app? I've been using iTunes for a long time for it's convenience, but I know that Media Monkey sounds better and can use FLAC files. Has anyone purchased the Gold version of Media Monkey?

bikerboy

I use MM and paid for the gold version. I have a droid and have been trying to get remote+ to work. I cant get the phone to connect to the computer. Port settings I guess? I have almost 800 hours of music so far and more to rip.

doctorcilantro

JRiver is a better buy. You have about 5 remote apps to choose from (Web-based, iPhone app, and Droid Gizmo by JR), and a Library Server that can stream to your phone or another instance of JR running over LAN/WAN.

XPtunes, Gizmo, PlugPlayer, Intelliremote, WebRemote, and Rivermote, all work to control JRMC. Tried MM but it just doesn't offer half the functionality JR runs out of the box.

zingo

I think I'll start with Media Monkey since it's free, then go from there. JRiver also sounds great, but does it sync with the iPhone like MM? Plus, all I use is the audio software, and so paying for a full Media Center seems a little off to me; unless I'm totally wrong... :biggrin:

audiobliss

I used dbPoweramp the last go round to rip all my CD's to .flac and configured MediaMonkey for playback (though I might should still go in and tweak somethings).

However, this has made me a bit curious, so I'm currently downloading the trial for JRiver Media Center.

Sherardp

I have the gold version of MM. Nice app, easy to crack if you know what your doing. Also have squeezebox touch that I use with Squeezepad on the Ipad of course.

doctorcilantro

Sorry for not responding sooner.

J. River does still have their free Media Jukebox. I'm not sure if they have bundled their new WASAPI [event mode] with that. It solved a lot of problems with some various high-end DACs dropping sync. They have 64bit internal DSP and it's really top-notch playback software; the equivalent of Amarra/Channel D etc. on Windows.

One thing you won't get on Media Jukebox is the Library Server IIRC. You can't sync to an iPhone with JRMC, they really despise Apple, but you can stream to your iPhone which I find easier to do overall.

You can do custom metadata with JRMC which is great and their expression language is really powerful for generating extremely custom Smartlists.

Some ideas for View Schemes here.

If anyone needs my customized 1080P Track info screen which pulls data from Last.FM and metadata, let me know. There is the default for 1280 I think somewhere.

FTGV

doctorcilantro wrote: »

.. but you can stream to your iPhone which I find easier to do overall.

Interesting,where might I find the set up for streaming to an iTouch if it's possible?I recently downloaded the trial version and I really like it so far.