Flac File Question

[psychoacoustic]

Hi All,

Current situation:

About 1000 Cds' , Summits, a bit of Krell, Perreaux, PS Audio Link DAC III, JL Audio Fathom Sub and minor etc.

Goal : I would like to convert the CD collection to Flac to then use for a squeezebox.

Is there a way to convert without feeding a single CD at a time?

I was thinking of:

A) buying a multidisc player then toslink to the PC??
B) buying a multidisc player then toslink to a Viewsonic FTA HD/PVR ??
C) ?? I dont know and welcome any suggestion that helps get the CDs to equal quality. {without changing 1 cd at a time }

Thanks Much

 

[amey01]

Pay someone to do it?

There are professional robotic CD feeders available, but I'm sure that wouldn't be cost effective for a one-off FLAC session.

We did have a few SCSI CD towers at work and I have often wondered if I could use those to do 7 at once? I wonder?

 

[Audiophiliac]

Maybe to save some effort, rip them all to .WAV first...then just do a mass encode to FLAC and let it sit for a day or so and do all the conversion at once. It will still take some time to rip all your CDs but it will go faster if you arent encoding on the fly.

 

[amey01]

Maybe to save some effort, rip them all to .WAV first...then just do a mass encode to FLAC and let it sit for a day or so and do all the conversion at once. It will still take some time to rip all your CDs but it will go faster if you arent encoding on the fly.

If you've got the space, yes - good idea. But you might have problems with tagging.

 

[ScottGardner]

C) ?? I dont know and welcome any suggestion that helps get the CDs to equal quality. {without changing 1 cd at a time }

First you don't want to use toslink or s/pdif. The problem here is that you can't record/rip any faster than 1x (normal playback speed). If you use toslink it will take more than 750 hours (avg 45 mins/CD). Plus you won't be auto tagging anyway (unless your using a tool that I'm unaware of - Slink-e is discontinued). Using a PC rip tool will be as fast as your PC's CD player up to about 30x. At this speed each CD will only take about 1 minute. 1000 minutes = 16 hours. Still a long time but if you put multiple Players in your PC you can speed this process up a lot but then at some point your PC's hard drive will become the bottleneck. You can speed up your hard drive by using a RAID (but I wouldn’t recommend it). You will still need to feed them one at a time to each player and confirm the tagging. If you have 4 CD drives you will be able to rip 4 CDs/minute. Total time more than 4 hours this is probably as fast as it can be done.

If you are really concerned about quality you should use Exact Audio Copy (EAC). EAC will rip and tag to FLAC. You can set the error recovery quality to get the best possible read; however, the higher you set this the longer it can take to read a CD. On a really bad CD it can take days to finish. This setting is really a waste because if it is taking that long to read it likely won't read it anyway and all you've done is waste a lot of time finding that out. It's better to just buy a new CD or set the quality lower (fewer re-read attempts). Your standalown player is just filling the gap with dup samples when it can't read and you can set EAC to mimic this behavior.

You may want to consider using WMA lossless instead of FLAC because Windows Media Center and Media Player don't like FLAC. You can get them to play and you can even get these players to recognize the tags but the album covers and tag lookup within these players is fragile at best and is prone to crashing. Besides WMA lossless is just as lossless as FLAC is and, if you use Media Player to rip it will get the album cover art in addition to the tags. (3...2...1... Here comes the argument...)


edit: I just noticed you're using a squeezebox so ignore the comment on WMA lossless.

edit: I just noticed that there is an Slink-e on eBay. Using an Slink-e you can control upto 12 carousels (you'll need 3 or more depending on size) and used with CDJ you can automate the rip and tag process. just set it up and take a vacation. When you come back it's all done. This may be the way to go...

Have fun...

 

[amey01]

edit: I just noticed you're using a squeezebox so ignore the comment on WMA lossless.

I know this is not a discussion about file formats, however ripping a large collection is something best done right the first time.

You may want to consider that FLAC won't play on an iPod, however Apple Lossless will play on the Squeezebox.

Just a consideration...

 

[ScottGardner]

I know this is not a discussion about file formats, however ripping a large collection is something best done right the first time.

You may want to consider that FLAC won't play on an iPod, however Apple Lossless will play on the Squeezebox.

Just a consideration...

Agreed, and agreed and more consideration...

AAC - often referred to as "Apple Audio Codec" actually stands for "Advanced Audio Coding" (thanks Roger), .m4a file extension, lossy codec, considered by some to be an improvement over standard MP3.

Protected AAC - AAC with DRM, .m4p file extension, lossy codec,

MP3 - "MPEG Audio Layer 3", .mp3 file extension, lossy codec, Probably the most widely used format.

MP3 VBR - MP3 using Variable Bit Rates, lossy codec, Allows for better quality and smaller files.

Audible - Basically used for speech (audio books, etc.), .aa file extension. More info.

Apple Lossless - A little difficult to explain. It uses the same file extension (.m4a) as AAC (but it isn't AAC). Creates a larger file than AAC but retains more information/quality.

WAV - Short for Wave, .wav file extension, lossless codec. Basically it is the same as the file on your CD. "Original" sound quality, large file size.

AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format, .aiff file extension, lossless codec, usually used on Mac's, similar to WAV ("Original" sound quality, large file size).

WMA - Windows Media Audio. Lossy (CBR/VBR) and Lossless

And more consideration

The Squeezebox v2, v3 and Transporter all natively support MPEG 1 & 2, layers 2 & 3, for both VBR and fixed data rates up to 320Kbps (the maximum for MP3), FLAC, WMA (CBR and VBR), as well as uncompressed AIFF and WAV audio.

Additionally, SlimServer can automatically convert many other formats on the fly for playback, including Windows Media Lossless and Apple lossless encoded audio. This means that the original data from the CD is being played digitally, without any compression or loss of sound quality. Additional formats like AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, and Monkey's Audio can also be played back this way.

(Note: some additional software may need to be installed on the computer in order to decode certain formats. For instance, to play AAC or Apple Lossless, Quicktime or iTunes must be installed on the computer)

Ok, ok, ok... I'll stop...

 

[psychoacoustic]

Scott - Amazing ! ! !

Thanks to everyone that answered - But now I am wondering if my strategy is flawed.

If the goal is to have the highest quality without the need for the CD what is the groups/your insight on what to do. {I am very flexible on format and equipment)

* I have $3K you can help me spend this weekend

{ I have 2 laptop pcs, 2 desktop and a few external hard drives }

Much Respect!

* Psychoacoustic *

 

[ScottGardner]

Uh oh... Now I'm really in trouble.

I think the only problem with your strategy is the desire to avoid 'changing 1 cd at a time'. Because: A. Any specialized equipment used in this process won't be needed after the process is complete and B. Haste has a tendecy to create waste.

Seems to me you have 3 questions:

1. How can I rip quickly and easily?
2. How should I rip to obtain the highest quality?
3. What format should I store my rips in?

I'll answer these in reverse order:

3. FLAC. Since your target player supports FLAC natively. Ignore any format thats lossy(mp3) and or has limited support for tags (wave).

2. EAC. I don't know of any rip tool that works as hard as EAC to ensure quality.

1. This is the ($3K) question. I say bite the bullet and use EAC, forget quickly. Take your time. As amey01 said "do it right the first time". Take your $3k and buy something that you'll enjoy for a long time.

edit: Looks like you have 4 machines. Make sure each has a good/fast CD player (usually DVD players are faster). If they're not networked then network them. Hook-up all your external drives and share them. Then rip 4 CD's at a time... Since DVD players are cheap you could even add a couple to your desktops and rip 6 at a time.

 

[amey01]

Scott - Amazing ! ! !



If the goal is to have the highest quality without the need for the CD what is the groups/your insight on what to do. {I am very flexible on format and equipment)


* Psychoacoustic *

Then you need a *LOSSLESS* format of some description - they're all the same, mathematically lossless.

That means that the full, complete file can be recovered exactly from these lossless files. Choose the one that is compatible with most of the equipment on which you intend to use it.

You can also change formats at a later date if you so desire - eg. FLAC --> Apple Lossless, with no loss of quality.

What you do have to get right is the rip - you want it as perfect as possible, and using EAC with error checking is a good start. I'm sure debate will ensue, but I don't think this is particularly important if your CDs are in good condition. eg. I encoded a FLAC file with EAC and all the options turned on, then I encoded the same track using iTunes to Apple Lossless. I converted both to .WAV and came out with exactly the same checksum.

One more note - you can also encode to .WAV (no compression, lossless or otherwise, but most importantly, no encoding (so you're not tied to any format)), but you'll lose the ability for complex tagging. If all you want is artist/album and you are prepared to store the files in a directory structure to match this, then yes, you can encode to .WAV with pretty good results.

 

[mosttoysrk]

I had a similar task a year or so ago, and I just bit the bullet and ripped one at a time watching tv or doing other things on a 2nd computer. I ripped 20-30 a day and it was not that big of a hassle and had the whole thing done in about a month or so.. I would recommend you back it up 2-3 times or run a NAS.
I have a Readynas running Raid 5 to make sure I don't lose all the time and effort I spent ripping to Flac. As others have said flac can pretty much be converted to any format after the initial rip.
I convert Flac files to mp3's all the time to put into my ipod...

 

[sleepysurf]

If planning to use a Squeezebox, I agree the best approach is DIY rips to FLAC with EAC. Yes, it's time consuming, and EAC can be a pain to set up, but once done, it's easy. There are lots of websites with tutorials. Here's a good starting place, for ripping, and other Squeezebox specifics...
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/BeginnersGuide

Frankly, I prefer to rip mine one CD at a time. That allows me to double-check the tags/spelling, and specify which directory in my NAS I want the album under. Classical music is difficult to tag, so you might want to save those albums for last, once you get the kinks worked out.

I rip my CD's on my home office laptop, while doing other stuff. I set EAC to pop out the CD tray after each rip. I also use Accurate Rip to ensure I'm getting optimal rips (http://www.accuraterip.com)

Lastly, and most importantly, don't forget about having a backup plan for your ripped files! Lots of options for how to do that. Personally, I'm now using www.elephantdrive.com (after my backup external hard drive went belly up).

 

[amey01]

Lastly, and most importantly, don't forget about having a backup plan for your ripped files! Lots of options for how to do that. Personally, I'm now using www.elephantdrive.com (after my backup external hard drive went belly up).

And now we're on to backups. Probably the most importat as you don't want to lose all your hard work!

...and as they say, one backup is no backup!.

Elephantdrive looks like a good option if you have a good 'net connection, but I don't. I use two external hard drives and run a shell script to keep them in sync. I then periodically take an external drive to work and run a few backups to LTO tape, and store a few tapes offsite. (It's easy for me 'cos I'm in IT).

I've presently got tapes of my music at work, at my parents' house and at my house.

 

[amey01]

.....and one more point - be careful of RAID - be VERY careful!.

It's great for high-availability (in servers, etc) but it is NOT, repeat NOT, a backup.

One of the most common occurances of lost RAID data is a corrupt RAID set. This can happen even if all the RAID disks are functioning perfectly.

I'll say it again - if you're trusting your backup to RAID, BE CAREFUL!

 

[Brian_74]

EAC is probably the best, but I've found another great converting and ripping utility called dbPowerAmp www.dbpoweramp.com It's got a really handy conversion program that works great for converting between formats. You can just select a group of folders or files, right click and choose "Convert". Speed seems to be great as well.

Like others have said, definitely rip to a lossless format right off the bat. From there, you'll never have to put those dreaded CD's in one-at-a-time again. You can convert to any other lossless or lossy format down the road.

It takes time, but just pop in a few CD's here and there as you're going about your day or evening and before long, you'll be done!