Ripping a large cd collection, are these the basics?

My equipment uses Philips TDA1543 and Burr Brown PCM 1793 DAC's..One old-ish but well regarded.The second top of the range latest model.And for me WAV sounds better than FLAC through both.
But if FLAC sounds a good as WAV through your DAC's (as most on here are certain about),then FLAC is a sensible choice of format.

 

Your understanding is wrong, and your audio quality assumptions need to be reviewed. Humans suffer from "confirmation bias" aka "we hear what we want to hear". Confirmation bias means if we went out and bought expensive speaker wire, we will hear that it sounds better because we think we are supposed to hear better.

Digital audio converters never see the FLAC format. They see PCM audio output sent from their driver software, which receives PCM audio from the OS audio layer/mixer, which receives PCM audio from application software using one of many APIs (ALSA, Pulseaudio; ASIO, MME, DirectSound, Wasapi, Waveout).

FLAC only is converted back to the original PCM audio inside the software used to play it. The conversion process is lossless. You can convert from WAV->FLAC and then FLAC->WAV and will get the identical file back. This same lossless conversion happens in the software player.

FLAC is like a ZIP file for music. Knowing that the contents are audio allows FLAC to use tailored compression algorithms, but you still get the original back when unzipped.

 

any modern DAC can decode FLAC properly, believe me they sound exactly the same, you can change a FLAC to a WAV too with no loss.
I hear differences in lossy rates, interconnects, isolation tables but not WAV and FLAC

 

So if we believe FLAC sounds identical to the original source,then our ears tell us it does?.'Confirmation bias' maybe?

The fact remains that during the processing and playing of a FLAC file the information is manipulated..Ie it is compressed and then expanded by third party software.Scientifically this shouldn't affect the sound.But as we know in the audio/ Hi-fi world,there are many things that shouldn't affect what we hear,but often do.For example taking out extreme frequencies in a recording that the human ear cannot hear or process,should not scientifically make the recording sound any better and worse,but for some reason can do.

 

All this Flac versus Wav conversation is fascinating but what are the views on the Marantz NA8005 versus using the Bluestream Vault 2 to provide music into a Marantz Pearl Lite Integrated amplifier.

 

Yes looks like the Vault will play and rip. You still will need some sort of pc, phone or tablet to interface.

 

You can make uncompressed FLAC files for which this would not apply. I consciously choose to rip to FLAC because of compatibility (FLAC happens to play nice with everything I have/use), but I also consciously set everything to be completely uncompressed. Yes, the files are larger than most FLAC files, but considering how little space full-sized redbook audio actually takes up relative to modern storage volumes, it just doesn't matter.

This ceases to be a fact in the conditions described above.

 

CAn't you rent a machine that will rip many cds at once? Of course you have to be able to set it correctly for accurate rips.

 

The fact is rather that “the information” for all file formats, uncompressed, lossless and lossy, are manipulated. But the audio information in uncompressed and lossless formats are identical and that’s not even remotely the same as your analogy to filtering audio. The often repeated attempts by some to “hear” fault in lossless audio is based purely on speculation and not repeatable, verifiable evidence.

 

The Numero Uno basic is patience.

 

Apparently the Blue Stream app, on say an iPad, will manage the interface.

I'm just concerned that the Vault will have a noticeably lower quality DAC than the Marantz NA 8005.

I can't imagine that my local retailers will give an expert unbiased opinion

 

"Large CD collection" isn't a good indicator... for someone it could be 500 cd, for others 10000.
If you're above the 1000 CDs the best helping tool is a robotized cd drive, so you can load 50 or 100 at once and let it rip.

When i did my big ripping task, since i'm not retired yet and i had to work, i have followed that route:
1) rip with dBPowermp and a 50-disc drive to WAV+CUE, single wav file, speed limited to 8x max in order to avoid CAV speed. Plenty of time for the PC to chug happily while i was out for work... and when back home
2) load the ripped library to Foobar 2000 so it is immediately evident what rips were tagged well or what cue sheet needed correction; done that,
3) encode the ripped library to Flac on a different BIG drive.
4) second copy of 3)
5) Deletion of the WAV rips of 1), loading another 50-disc and repeat.

 

Why not simply convert to FLAC during ripping? Takes virtually no time and eliminates unnecessary steps.
What's the advantage of ripping to a single file? I find it much more natural and flexible to have a separate file for each track.

 

Fair point.

I've got about 1,800 cds.

That is why I'm considering the Blue Stream Vault2. It only rips one cd at a time but avoids using a PC and rips would be done in my lounge room rather than in my office. The concern is whether the DAC is noticeably lower quality DAC than the Marantz NA 8005.

 

OK, but the Blue Stream Vault2 is a PC. Or at least one using an ARM Cortex processor.

At that price I would rather have a standard PC and all the flexibility that one provides, including having multiple CD-ROM’s, better control of the metadata and its use a media center. And yes, a PC can be fanless - silent.

I believe that there's a thread and/or review of the Vault over at Computeraudiophile.

 

First of all, the most critical goal for me was to find a way in which most of the time the work was unattended (not easy rip +- 5000 cd with work and family matters going on...). Now,

Q1) ripping to wav+cue is used as a intermediate step has just one advantage: allows for editing metadata stored on the cue sheet in a quicker way than anything else i've tried, since it is just a plain text file. WAV is choosen exactly because it doesn't store any metadata, so the following task must rely only on the metadata provided by the cue sheet, corrected if needed.
The workflow was simple:
morining: coffee, loading 50disc, let it rip;
work
HONEY I'M HOME!
evening: check out of the ripping and correction of cue sheet if there was a need
night: flac encoding to other drive
morning: repeat from coffee

Q2) when i did all the work, gapless playback was still a BIG issue and very few players did it, so i settled on single flac+cue as a final format since 2009. Now i could split into single tracks since gapless is more widespread.

 

The Bluesound Vault 2 uses cdparanoia, so it can do secure rips, but they say it takes 20-25 minutes for a 60 minute CD. Even with one drive you can rip much faster with dBpoweramp if the CD is in the AccurateRip database.

What kind of support does the Vault 2 have for HDCD and pre-emphasis? I'd want to know that before choosing it as a ripping solution.

 

When you store your digital audio files on hard drive then you can play them on any device. I would not rely on a single device holding everything without at least one backup. Hard disk does die, sooner or later.
Since i did the big ripping work i have changed several dac connected on several different pc or tablets, and all works fine.

 

Good points.

My understanding is that it does not cater for HDCD or Hi Res.

 

Rip accuracy is but one concern. The other main concern it getting the tagging consistent and correct. This has already been gone over in this thread. But I will repeat it for you. The tagging databases are user generated. That means that spelling and writing style are all over the place. If the database being pretty screwy looking is fine by you, then no worries, automatic ripping could work.
But then handling errors is really handled best by a real thinking person, one that can decide to re-rip with different drive, or re-rip with same drive but in secure mode, or clean disc with soapy water (I've never seen a plastic disc that could not handle water), and try again. Or accept the result as the best you can get from that disc, and not in comments that tracks 7 & 9 might need to be replaced due to errors. But on playback might sound perfect anyway.

Now you see why automatic is not going to cut it?

 

The one time I could see a need to rip an album as a single file is when ripping to a lossy format like MP3. From what I understand, part of the MP3 standard is a small audible gap between the individual songs. Attempts were made on digital audio players to get gapless playback with MP3 files, I don't know how successful the efforts were.

On some albums (like Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon) there are not supposed to be gaps between the songs and hearing an audible gap distracts the listener. By ripping to a single file it eliminates the gaps between the songs. In the case of Dark Side... before moving to FLAC (which is naturally gapless) I maintained two versions of the album, one consisting of the individual tracks and the other with the album ripped as a single file, allowing me to listen to the entire album gaplessly if I chose.

 

Newbie, just trying to get started.
What's EAC? what is a geed external drive?
I only want to copy CDs to a USB external drive and play through the USB port on my Oppo BPP-95.
Do FLAC files played this way sound better than the original CD because you've eliminated the drive system?
I do have SACDs, HDCDs, and DVD-As, also

 

I can't speak to all of the above, but I will do my best:

• EAC: Short for "Exact Audio Copy." From what I've heard, it is supposed to be the best CD ripping program and can rip CDs that other programs have a problem with. The main drawbacks I've heard about it are:
  • It is that it somewhat difficult to use since it relies on the command line for its settings (it is possible that there is a graphical user interface for it which makes it easier to use).
    
  • While it can rip CDs that other programs have trouble with, it can take a very long time (like hours) to rip some very difficult CDs.
• The sound quality of FLAC: A FLAC rip of a CD should sound the same as the CD original regardless of what device is used to play it. While FLAC does compress the size of the file, it is still lossless so none of the audio data from the original source is lost. If there is a difference it could be because of the hardware used to listen to it.

 

'While FLAC does compress the size of the file' You can choose uncompressed also for FLAC as an option
If someone is going to be using a program to rip long term, DBpoweramp is well worth the cost

 

Good point, I am now using DBpoweramp and throughly recommend it for making the ripping process simple and relatively painless. Well worth, the modest, cost.