Also going lossless, help me out guys.

Hey guys, I was triggered by another thread about somebody going lossless, didn't want to hijack his thread so here is mine.

(A bit more than a) couple of years ago I ripped all my cd's (somewhere around 500+) to 192kbit mp3's for use in iTunes. Yeah, I know. But I did. Obviously time and other things have progressed and demands and costs for storage as well. While I still play my CD's I also have a burning urge to re-rip in a lossless format, for storage on my NAS system for example.

A few questions come to mind:

• I only have Apple computer stuff at home. Yeah, I'm that guy. I've got an iMac, Macbook, iPad and iPhone. And of course the aforementioned Synology NAS.
• I would like to abondon the iTunes library route and treat my music as files, not an iTunes library anymore. I get that that means manual syncing to my iDevices. I don't mind that.
• What would be a good / great / the ultimate 'ripping' tool for use on a Mac? Paid is no problem.
• Is the CD drive in a Macbook Pro suitable for these rips? Are there quality or other audiophile issues to be concerned about?
• Related, what would I need to play these files on my home set? I'm currently using a Marantz PM6004 amp, ST6003 tuner and a DV-something DVD/(SA)CD player. (And my turntable). So no DAC (I believe I need that, right?) around. Is anything available that offers a nice user interface or something for playing? Or how does that work?

Lotsa questions, but I want to do it right this time around . Any thoughts?

 

Greetings!

§1 The ultimate 'ripping' tool for use on a Mac?

XLD (it's the EAC of the MacWorld), and it's free. Save your money on the DAC and the playing app.

§2 Is the CD drive in a Macbook Pro suitable for these rips?

Sure. Certainly not the best possible but good enough. Study the Accuraterip website. I think there's still a list of the most reliable drives (based on Accuraterip statistics).

§3 Are there quality or other audiophile issues to be concerned about?

Always. But don't worry about them now. First get a good DAC: prices... I'd say: look for the € 500-1000 price tag gear. Don't go into extremes - the price/quality relation has been getting better in recent years.

While choosing the DAC, look for usability: what inputs it has? Prefer the DAC with USB and optical and coax inputs. Why? Because when you'll use the USB for the Mac, you can connect your DV-something player with coax or optical. That way you'll get soundwise a lot more out of your DV-something player (and you can also play DVD-Audio records using the external DAC).

§4 Related, what would I need to play these files on my home set?

A good app. Like Audirvana: http://audirvana.com/ . It costs but it's worthy of that.

 

I'm currently ripping my collection using a Macbook Air and free XLD software. After a few false starts to figure it out, it's going ripplingly (yuk yuk) although very slow. I started a month ago and am only into the D's in my collection. I'm putting the flac files onto a 1T USB drive that I plug into my Oppo 95 universal player and play through my system. Of course, I'm also backing up those files on another drive. It sounds great and so far so good, although I can see where navigating all those files on one drive will be slow and cumbersome when I finish. I see the files on my flat screen. Maybe it would be wiser to use more than one drive.

 

makes no difference whatsoever. Macs & PC's can play any type of file in 2014. the type of Operating System you have plays no part in the files you play.

XLD. free and the best there is.

nope. cd drive is fine.

don't overthink / over analyse. they're just files. rip them all to lossless in iTunes... you won't hear any difference. of course if you need a log file to tell you that something sounds good then by all means.....

 

I ripped my entire colection to flac. I can't really speak to your first two questions because I used a windows program. As for 3, I wish I could detect the improvments from tweaking a system with upgrades like a standalone DAC, but I can't. Old ears, I guess. And most of the time I am not concentrating so intently on what is playing that subtle improvements are that noticeable.

I really am writing about 4. About six years ago I purchased a SONOS system. I couldn't be happier and it does what you want. All my music is on a NAS. It plays through my receiver. Everything is indexed for easy search on Ipad, phone, or computer. It is a bit pricey, but a snap to set up. And here is the best part as far as I am concerned: SONOS has great product support. I have had a couple of instances where I needed something straightened out between server, computer and SONOS. SONOS has live customer support that can take over your computer, if necessary, and work through the problem. I am very happy with the sound quality, but have researched whether a DAC would add anything. The answer seemed to be that if I wanted the most bang for the buck, speakers or amp would be a better investment.

I usually do not gush, but I wanted what you want and I have been really impressed and satsfied

 

Also, to be clear about this, the SONOS box that connects to your receiver has a DAC. Do not hold me to this, but I believe that if you connect to your receiver using analog plugs, you use SONOS' DAC. If you connect with digital or optical cable, you use your receiver's DAC. If that is important, I'd research before relying on that.

 

JRiver Media Center is a great upgrade from Itunes.

 

Yeah, I was looking at a Sonos Connect. Seems to do exactly what I want. And I am not blessed with audiophile hearing as well, although I do know what I like regarding sound and quality.

 

Wall-to-wall Mac guy here.

1. I've used XLD (still do every now and then) and it is a great tool, but came here to say that I've been pleased with the beta of dBpoweramp for OS X, downloaded from here. Once it is generally available, I'll end up buying this software because it works well. Also has tons of conversion options, in case you want to rip to FLAC but keep AAC or ALAC copies for your iDevices.

I also use Tag from Feisty Dog sometimes (not often) to do touchups of metadata (you don't have to care about this stuff but I happen to). Oh, and I've used Flac to Any (Pro) (in App Store) to do conversions between formats, but not so much anymore.

4. I can not emphasize enough how important a good browsing, searching and playing User Experience is for getting to all of your music and playing more of it. Others have mentioned SONOS and I agree that this is a great way to actually get to your music and enjoy it once you've made the leap to ripping it all. I use something like it and I love sitting on the sofa in front of my rig, iPad nearby, and flow through my entire collection.

 

Isn't the Sonos more geared to wireless distribution? I would think that if wireless is not the primary need then a better DAC could be had for the same $.

 

I don't own Sonos but I have something similar. It's true that Sonos is well known for the little wireless speakers you can sprinkle around your house, but it also offers an interface to control your music via a smartphone or tablet. So, you can buy a Sonos Connect (I believe) and plug it into your DAC, preamp or integrated amp and use the Sonos control software without using any of the wireless speakers. Some will then point out that Sonos without tweaks is limited to 44.1/16 bit audio and this is the next part of the discussion if you care about such things.

Again, I'm not advocating Sonos as a brand (I don't use it myself) but as a concept: A central music repository with a very convenient way to play your entire collection, preferably without having to sit behind a computer. Even high end audio stores with fancy and costly DACs, amps and speakers will hand you some portable device for you to choose the music you'd like to demo their equipment with. Often, you're looking at a Sonos interface.

 

Well, I personally had a few occasions when I ripped a CD in iTunes and found out much later that there were read errors which caused nasty digital artifacts in the ripped song files.

I'm glad that never happened to you, but that doesn't mean that it cannot happen. For me, using XLD or some other tool that logs errors is the best way to ensure that a rip is successful and that I won't have to do it again.

 

I did all my ripping in Windows with dbPowerAmp. Wanted to mention that if you have a LOT of CDs to rip, buy an extra external drive ($30 on Amazon) as dbPA does a great job of using multiple cores and ripping 2 drives at once. Will truly cut your time in half. Will also simultaneously rip lossless and a lossy version for portables and put in separate locations**. Great app.

**But I actually preferred using the included Batch Converter after I ripped a pile of CDs. Reason: While not all of your rips will match the AccuRip database, you'd probably never hear a problem (and after listening to dozens of these and never hearing an issue, I stopped worrying). BUT, if a track's rip had an audibly bad section (skip, unEarthly sounds, etc), the Batch Converter would usually fail on that track; so I then knew I needed a new copy of the disc to rip.

 

Tonight I took a look at the ripping software and both dbPowerAmp (the OSX beta) and XLD seem to do the job just fine. I'm just deciding on which format to rip to. As I said, I use almost exclusively use Apple stuff and think I will be doing that for the foreseeable future. Of course I started with FLAC in mind, but that would lock me out of playing these files on my iDevices and using iTunes (I know workarounds are available but I like to keep it standard). Using ALAC would solve that. And it seems ALAC is getting more and more supported, even Sonos plays 'm and my DS Audio software on the Synology plays 'm... Tough call.

I'm still kind of deciding on what my 'audio workflow' will be I guess. I want my CD's stored in high quality, on my NAS, but accessible for use with my iPhone or iPad. Or Sonos (which I'm nowhere near of buying anytime soon), or something else. The dual rip function of dbPowerAmp is quite handy, I can rip in 1 go to both FLAC and something small and lossy for mobile use, for example. But, do I really want my music stored in two formats... seems a hassle.

I will sleep on it tonight I guess .

 

This may not work for you, but I will offer it in case it does.

First, ALAC is perfectly fine as both an archive and playback format. You lose nothing.

If your devices are Apple devices and you use iTunes, there is an option to convert higher bit rate files to 256K AAC. I use that feature. It works well and saves me the work (and disk space) of maintaining everything in two formats. I believe you said you wanted to ditch iTunes. I don't quite understand that, but to each his or her own. I think iTunes can work well as a library application, especially if your peripheral devices are Apple devices.

 

Not sure about ditching iTunes, just want for my music files to be independent & free and in my current iTunes library, everything is a mess (i let iTunes manage and organize my files). Right now I let dbPA rip to FLAC, ALAC and mp3 into three separate folders on my NAS, to see if space becomes an issue. I tend to like ALAC right now because it's losless, but also playable by iTunes and iDevices. And it keeps the road open to (near) high quality playback through something like a Sonos Connect.

 

I let iTunes organize my folders and things couldn't be more orderly. I have some tricks for getting that to work, but most folks are going to jump in and say that's a waste of time. I only know what works for me, and I am anal about organization, lack of duplicates, etc. If you want more info, I'll offer it. If not, that's OK too.

 

I encourage you to use an external drive to rip. They are so cheap and I'd much rather burn through one of those than put all that wear and tear of ripping thousands of discs using your internal drive.

 

Great tip, Synthfreek. Will think about that.

As said, I slept on it and I think this is what I'll do:

• Rip everything *I OWN* to ALAC on my NAS. I'm gonna toss out all those CD's I copied (boo-hiss!!) years ago and try to replace them with original versions, or determine if I want to own it on vinyl or something.
• Add the alac folder to iTunes for quick playback on my laptop and syncing with my phone/tablet
• Use ds audio for playback on my phone when i want to listen on the go to something that isn't synced
• Look into a sonos connect as an add-on for my living room setup for easy playback
• In time, add a DAC to the system if needed

Can't believe I actually lay awake trying to figure out how to organize my music collection... . But I guess you guys can relate. My music collection is important to me, and I want to treat it as such. And I think having and keeping an organized and accessible cd collection will keep me from buying everything in multiple formats as the vinyl collection is growing as well .

 

This is almost exactly what I did. Except I gave away all my CDs (got some money for the vinyl, though). I use a Sonos Connect for the main system, for reasons of not having to go turn on a computer. Airplay and or DS audio does the rest of the house, for background sounds (and breakfast dance parties with the kids). I use an Airport Express and active Quad monitors in my studio, when I'm working.

Basically, get the lossless files on the NAS, and the rest is detail. Also, and this is vital, you need TWO backups of the data on the NAS. I don't care if it's a RAID whatever. Two backups. Always. It's easy to do - I have two external USB drives attached to the NAS. One backs up nightly, one backs up weekly. And my dad in another country has one. I can send him new albums over Dropbox. Sorted.

I have a Rega DAC attached to the Sonos, but it's built in DAC is really rather good. If you stream to an Airport device and iTunes is at max volume you are streaming a bit perfect file (up to 24/48, I think). Which is cool.

 

Why would the iTunes volume control have anything to do with the song file resolution?

 

I suspect because iTunes uses a digital volume control that messes with resolution.

http://wiki.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/ITunes_Distortion_Measurements

 

+1 on what Eric said, having two is a great idea, I have some discs my internal has problems with where my external does not, example-those pesky German Warner cd's from the 2000's with some kind of odd CW protection

 

Since today is my day off, I started ripping away at the couple of hundreds of CD's that are laying around here, you have to start somewhere and sometime, don't you. Though the prospect of ripping a large amount of CD's might seem tedious to some, I am thoroughly enjoying it! I come upon some albums I haven't played in ages just because the CD was put away and the mp3's weren't all that to play and enjoy. Great stuff.