Ripping CD's to FLAC

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  • coolsax
    coolsax Posts: 1,824
    edited March 2011
    finished my ripping today woo hoo.. now i'll only have to do it when i get new Cds.
    Main 2ch -
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    TT - Pro-ject Classic SB with Sumiko Bluepoint.

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    Denon 3500 -> Dynaudio Excite 32/22
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    So I got my soundcard configured to send out 192 khz rather than 44 khz. Sounds quite a bit better. Bass definition is surprisingly much much better out of these Infinity's. Not doing anything different besides increasing the khz setting.

    I actually turned my bass controls down on the HK3490 to default from max and the treble down as well. Liking this a lot.

    Cant wait to get my USB DAC + powered Monitors...

    Also have any of you had trouble with MediaMonkey not picking up secondary drives? It keeps having trouble recognizing my G: drive which is where all my FLAC music is. The drive is fine as I can access it, play music off it with subsonic's web plug in, and rip to it.

    Its just MediaMonkey not realizing its there. Its done this two me 2 times so far.
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • mdaudioguy
    mdaudioguy Posts: 5,165
    edited March 2011
    I have 4 drives and haven't experienced that problem. I am only using 2 of them, but my music is not on the primary drive.
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    anyone setup subsonic for MediaMonkey? Having trouble getting it to work with my Uverse router....

    if anyone has the same situation and can help give me some insight would be awesome....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    So stupid question, but that wont stop me from posting it.

    Say you have an MP3 that was ripped @ 128 kbps, 320 kbps, ect. If you convert that to FLAC its obviously isnt as good as a rip off the original CD BUT if you took that same file and burned it to a CD and then ripped it to FLAC would it be the better (albeit more annoying) route. Or does it not matter since both are relying on the already lossy MP3 file for their source?
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • heiney9
    heiney9 Posts: 25,203
    edited March 2011
    Doesn't matter, once it's been converted to an mp3 file all that info is gone forever. You can convert it, burn it, convert it again and it makes no difference.

    mp3's are evil that way.

    H9
    "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!
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    heiney9 wrote: »
    Doesn't matter, once it's been converted to an mp3 file all that info is gone forever. You can convert it, burn it, convert it again and it makes no difference.

    mp3's are evil that way.

    H9

    I thought that was the case :frown:. Next question: Is it worth it to convert MP3's to FLAC at all? Is there a certain bitrate that its OK to do so and others its just pointless (i.e. 128 kbps and below pointless, above 128 kbps is ok)?

    I have a bunch of crap in my library that I dont have on CD's persay (unless I want to wade through all my 50 million burned mix copies which might be pointless anyway lol).
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • heiney9
    heiney9 Posts: 25,203
    edited March 2011
    Nope, just a waste of time and space. It will sound exactly the same as the mp3
    "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!
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Also LOVING dbpoweramp. Its only found 1 song so far it couldnt rip... and thats been out of about 125+ cd's. Couple of CD songs are taking 8+ hours (due mostly to that CD having some quality scratches lol). But I just make notes of those track, skip em and then re-rip them while I am at work, or sleeping. Seems to work great so far. Loving the ability to edit the metadate pre-rip and also add the cover art myself if it cant find it.

    MediaMonkey is so friggin easy to use. Loving the ability to quickly import the music and also add cd covers if they dont transfer over for some reason (happened w/ a couple CD's so far). Havent spent a bunch of time on it yet but loving it.

    Also downloaded the subsonic add-in for MediaMonkey. Haven't got it fully configured yet, but looking forward to remote access to my FLAC files via the web once I do get it all figured out. Its a bit counterintuitive for me (which is rare as I do IT work). I blame it on AT&T's blasted 2wire modems. I might just have to call tech support for once lol.....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited March 2011
    This is my 1st post on the forum but have visited a few times in the past. Finally decided to join the group.

    I have almost 8 terabytes of 320kbps MP3s (I used to modify old jukeboxes to touch screen MP3) and a couple terabytes of flac, wav & wv (WavPack) files too. My RAID tower isn't big enough to hold all the hard drives I have laying around and I swap them like 8-tracks.

    I try to keep the amount of applications to a minimum on my PC but have quite a few that I have grown to like and use a lot. I use good old Nero to burn flac, wav, and wv to CD though. The codecs are free and I always liked Nero. I added flac & wv codecs to Nero and it works great. Easy to add them too (plus did I mention that they are free?). Free is good.

    I use EAC for wav files but use another free application called "Magic Flac to MP3 Converter 3.71" to convert flac to MP3. It's pretty-slick and can tag too. I also use "Medieval Cue Splitter" to split albums in single flac files to separate tracks. It's nice to have individual tracks plus if you plan to convert an album from flac to MP3, it usually separates the songs more cleanly than if you rip from the CUE file.

    The final application I use (and the only one I actually paid $ for) is "Tags & Rename" music file organizer and tagging software. It makes tagging large quantities of music files a whole lot easier and faster. Well-worth the money to me.

    I have added all of the codecs required to play just about anything in Windows Media Player including flac and wv. Don't need a bunch of additional players. I have enough apps already!
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  • mdaudioguy
    mdaudioguy Posts: 5,165
    edited March 2011
    Welcome to Club Polk, Gatecrasher! Terabytes of music?!? :eek: That's a lot of freaking music... You must have a broad range of tastes.
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    mdaudioguy wrote: »
    Welcome to Club Polk, Gatecrasher! Terabytes of music?!? :eek: That's a lot of freaking music... You must have a broad range of tastes.

    I agree, I am at about 200 CD's and only using 43 gigs right now....still got another 100 or so to go of the wife's collection though lol..
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • audiobliss
    audiobliss Posts: 12,518
    edited March 2011
    mdaudioguy wrote: »
    Terabytes of music?!? :eek: That's a lot of freaking music
    Holy crap, I think he must have the whole internet downloaded on his computer! haha
    George Grand wrote: »
    Jstas wrote: »
    Simple question. If you had a cool million bucks, what would you do with it?
    Wonder WTF happened to the rest of my money.
    In Use
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    In Storage
    [Home Audio]
    Rotel RCD-02, Yamaha KX-W900U, Sony ST-S500ES, Denon DP-7F
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  • mdaudioguy
    mdaudioguy Posts: 5,165
    edited March 2011
    EndersShadow wrote: »
    I agree, I am at about 200 CD's and only using 43 gigs right now....still got another 100 or so to go of the wife's collection though lol..
    audiobliss wrote: »
    Holy crap, I think he must have the whole internet downloaded on his computer! haha

    Let's put this into perspective... 6 years 4 months 3.148 days worth of music!!! :biggrin::biggrin::tongue:

    http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%288+terabytes%29%2F%28320+kilobits%2Fsecond%29
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  • audiobliss
    audiobliss Posts: 12,518
    edited March 2011
    ...wow...
    George Grand wrote: »
    Jstas wrote: »
    Simple question. If you had a cool million bucks, what would you do with it?
    Wonder WTF happened to the rest of my money.
    In Use
    PS3, Yamaha CDR-HD1300, Plex, Amazon Fire TV Gen 2
    Pioneer Elite VSX-52, Parasound HCA-1000A
    Klipsch RF-82ii, RC-62ii, RS-42ii, RW-10d
    Epson 8700UB
    In Storage
    [Home Audio]
    Rotel RCD-02, Yamaha KX-W900U, Sony ST-S500ES, Denon DP-7F
    Pro-Ject Phono Box MKII, Parasound P/HP-850, ASL Wave 20 monoblocks
    Klipsch RF-35, RB-51ii
    [Car Audio]
    Pioneer Premier DEH-P860MP, Memphis 16-MCA3004, Boston Acoustic RC520
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    So there is a chance I might be slowly burning out the motor on my computers internal blu-ray player due to using it too much non-stop for ripping?:eek: Whoops. There was a plastic melting/burning smell coming from the guest room last night and it seemed to center around the computer, but we also are not sure if its not the heater coils on our furnace going since that is also way old and we just had our furnace blower replaced (thank god we rent :smile:). Called Maintenance about it this morning to have them check just to make sure it wasn?t something crazy like wires melting/about to start a fire or our heat about to go?.

    I am currently about 250 CD?s in and almost done. Got some CD?s I need to rip certain songs off and then about another 10 total from my wife?s collection and then I am done for now.

    So it brings me to my next question. What ways, if any, exist to be able to play the FLAC files located on my computer in the office upstairs on my HT system downstairs, using either my Xbox 360 or blu-ray player? I do not believe Windows Media Player will play FLAC files, so I don?t think my Xbox 360 can unless there is a plug in to do so (in which case let me know).

    So then the next question is how do you guys play FLAC from one room to another? What components/plug-ins/interfaces are you using? Keep in mind I am trying to do this on the waaay cheap end :smile:

    I have a laptop that can access the FLAC files on the web via the Subsonic plug-in I installed on my main computer, but that?s a total PITA, both to connect it up, and control it. I would prefer a way to just either use what I have or buy something decently cheap that can just stay down there and connected to the computer.

    I believe my AT&T router has a USB port that might allow me to put all my FLAC files on an external drive (which I was going to do anyway) so that I wouldn?t need the computer on 24/7 perhaps...but I still have to find a way to stream/access them and play them?.

    Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Found a possible way to do it over my Xbox 360. Going to test it out on Saturday and see if I can get it to work:

    Quick Guide found here

    In Depth for troubleshooting found here
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • coolsax
    coolsax Posts: 1,824
    edited March 2011
    I have my FLAC files on Qnap single bay TS-110 NAS which I have wired to my Cisco wireless router via normal ethernet cable. any wireless device that I let access the network or any device hardwired to the router can stream the files if it has the capability.

    I think the server was $159 though i think its gone up on Amazon and the 1TB HD you can find for $50 or so i'm sure. it also has a one touch usb port so you can back up to an external drive whenever you need to.

    if you go the NAS route, I would say go Qnap or Synology, I read a ton of reviews on all types of NAS's and they are the ones i saw with the best results, i have no complaints about mine and I know H9 recommends Qnap.
    Main 2ch -
    BlueSound Node->Ethereal optical cable->Peachtree Audio Nova 150->GoldenEar Triton 2+
    TT - Pro-ject Classic SB with Sumiko Bluepoint.

    TV 3.1 system -
    Denon 3500 -> Dynaudio Excite 32/22
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Dirga Dirga...looks like it will not be in true FLAC format.....

    So perhaps its time to unretire the Halo 2 Limited Edition Xbox and make it a XMBC player, which will allow me to stream FLAC files.......I think.....

    Dont like the Squeezebox since you cant display it on your TV and honestly at 10 feet away its kinda hard to scroll through artists on a 4.3 inch screen.....

    The Sonos looks nice, but I cant front the cost to be honest.

    If XMBC streams FLAC natively then I will just use that and since my reciever does upconvert everything to HDMI it should work decently.....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Annddd..... XMBC looks to be a bit of a PITA to setup on an Xbox..... GRRRRRR my newegg HTPC build keeps looking better and better........
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • heiney9
    heiney9 Posts: 25,203
    edited March 2011
    I use Squeeze Commander on my Android phone for my Squeeze Touch and I have all that info on my phone screen. Previously I used iPeng on my iPod Touch.
    "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!
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    heiney9 wrote: »
    I use Squeeze Commander on my Android phone for my Squeeze Touch and I have all that info on my phone screen. Previously I used iPeng on my iPod Touch.

    HEHEHE, kicking it old school on my phone.... LG Touch and that doesnt look to be changing.

    I found a couple of installers for XBMC for the right release that require a copule clicks to install.

    The newer versions of it support HD playback (1080p) and all that jazz, I just need a FLAC media player lol.....Its I think 1080i or 720p max which is fine by me.

    Plus I have been wanting to try XBMC for years anyway, I just finally have an excuse to do it....

    And depending on how awesome it works, might just build a HTPC to store all our DVD's and whatnot.....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • SCompRacer
    SCompRacer Posts: 8,511
    edited March 2011
    EndersShadow wrote: »
    Dont like the Squeezebox since you cant display it on your TV and honestly at 10 feet away its kinda hard to scroll through artists on a 4.3 inch screen.....

    That is why I opted to add this to my Squeezebox Touch....cause I am old school cellphone as well.

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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    SCompRacer wrote: »
    That is why I opted to add this to my Squeezebox Touch....cause I am old school cellphone as well.

    So looking at the WD TV. It does to FLAC but apparently there is an issue with the bitrate????

    But its under 100. Like I said this is just for FLAC playback so keeping it cheap is the best.

    Apparently since I would be using RCA's for my XBMC connection it isnt as good as a HDMI one....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited March 2011
    EndersShadow wrote: »
    So it brings me to my next question. What ways, if any, exist to be able to play the FLAC files located on my computer in the office upstairs on my HT system downstairs, using either my Xbox 360 or blu-ray player? I do not believe Windows Media Player will play FLAC files, so I don?t think my Xbox 360 can unless there is a plug in to do so (in which case let me know).

    Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

    You can play flac and most other lossless formats in Windows Media Player if you install the correct plugin. The plugins are available for free online.
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Gatecrasher wrote: »
    You can play flac and most other lossless formats in Windows Media Player if you install the correct plugin. The plugins are available for free online.

    WMP doesnt help me much since the Xbox 360 does only Windows Media Center.

    I am looking to probably build a ~300 dollar HTPC that will run XBMC. I plan to get a really small HDD to start with and then eventually start ripping all my DVD's to it....
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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  • Gatecrasher
    Gatecrasher Posts: 1,550
    edited March 2011
    EndersShadow wrote: »
    WMP doesnt help me much since the Xbox 360 does only Windows Media Center.

    I am looking to probably build a ~300 dollar HTPC that will run XBMC. I plan to get a really small HDD to start with and then eventually start ripping all my DVD's to it....

    There are flac plugins for Windows Media Center too that are free to download.

    I too am in the planning stages of building an HTPC to plug into my sc-09tx receiver. I plan to have a RAID tower with at least 4 bays.

    There are a lot of cool cases out now too you can use to build an awesome HTPC with.
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  • EndersShadow
    EndersShadow Posts: 17,596
    edited March 2011
    Gatecrasher wrote: »
    There are flac plugins for Windows Media Center too that are free to download.

    I too am in the planning stages of building an HTPC to plug into my sc-09tx receiver. I plan to have a RAID tower with at least 4 bays.

    There are a lot of cool cases out now too you can use to build an awesome HTPC with.

    But how would one install them on their Xbox 360? That is the point I was getting at.
    "....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963)
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