CD to FLAC on a MAC ?

Has anyone mentioned XLD...?

 

I know, searching must be extremely hard work

 

There isn't going to be an audible difference between two AccurateRip ripping programs. They're both going to get the same verified data off the CD. The difference in rippers is going to be how well they handle scratched CDs, how well they handle metadata and tagging, and how well they handle file formats and conversions.

I'm PC. Not Mac. The big advantage for dBpoweramp is the tagging. It gets tagging data from AllMusicGuide, Sonata (for classical), MusicBrainz, and FreeDB. Then it combines all that using its PerfectMeta algorithms for the best and most consistent tagging. The problem with FreeDB is that it is very inconsistent in naming conventions. MusicBrainz is consistent, but is missing many of the sorts of odd music albums I tend to buy. Relying on FreeDB and/or MusicBrainz is not a good solution for me. dBpoweramp can save me a lot of time it tagging and gives me consistent tags (consistency is very important). It saves a lot of time when ripping a stack of CDs. If you're ripping an entire collection of CDs the time savings will be huge. If you're ripping odd-ball music like classical, less common jazz, indie labels, audiophile labels, etc. the time savings will be huge. It's that time savings that makes dBpoweramp so worth it.

 

I use dBpoweramp (Windows version) on an old Macbook through Parallels and it works just fine. I had looked at other programs for Mac and PC to do my flac ripping but they were not as full featured as dBpoweramp especially with the file tagging. If you plan to rip a lot of CD's dBpoweramp will probably save you enough time to justify the price vs. any free solutions.

 

You can always get some karma points and add missing stuff into MusicBrainz yourself via their web UI (or their own Picard software)!

 

I should learn how to contribute to MusicBrainz. I do contribute occasional corrections and new albums to FreeDB. And I contribute edited album art to AlbumArtExchange. But I've yet to contribute anything to MusicBrainz. I should. I need to learn their procedures and standards for contributions. I generally like what MusicBrainz offers. There's a lot of potential. Great tagging data that is consistent and they're even doing album art.

 

Hi Ham -
I tend to add compilations (like the CD from Uncut magazine) and those are kind of annoying. But normal single-artist CDs aren't too cumbersome, though getting a hang of the workflow takes a few tries. I also try to link to album art, for taggers that try to pull that in. I took a look at the Picard app just now, and it does have a "submit" function, but I've not used it yet.

 

So long as you put them in a single folder first then you can just use the Open Folder As Disc... option in XLD. From there you can edit the metadata as you would for any other XLD rip.

 

D'oh! Never saw that option. Thanks so much!

 

Why wouldn't you just go ALAC?

 

This is somewhat off-topic, but IIUC (still) the Touch has a 'bug' where it doesn't send the correct 'bits' flag to the DAC. I have a Touch -> Cambridge 840C external input, and even with 24/96 files, the 840C shows "<20 / 96" as the input. The 840C shows "<20 / 44.1" with CD-quality files sent from the Touch, but "16 / 44.1" with CDs played in the drive, and "24 / 96" or whatever when high res disc-based audio is sent from my Oppo DV-980H ...

This has been discussed on the Touch forums/bug fix request board, and since it's "cosmetic" will apparently not be addressed. ARRGGGHHH, but what can I do? I "believe" I'm getting 24/96 to my DAC thru the Touch, as everything is set that should allow me to do so.

I didn't want anyone to use what the Touch reports as the 'final word' on bit depth in this discussion ...

 

Interesting - I haven't checked the Touch itself, but when I use the web control interface it shows 24 bit for 24 bit files.

 

I only use the touch in wireless streaming mode with digital out to the DAC ... So don't know about other modes etc..

I can try to find and post the link to the forum if anyone's interested, in fact I'll do so in a minute. Haven't looked at it for a year or more, but the behavior is still there.

http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=16641 is the link to the 'bug' discussion. It wasn't originated by me but I put my 2 cents in ... guess it's "no big deal" to those who could have possibly fixed it. I guess it only bothers those who have a DAC that displays bit depth in addition to sampling rate - not that many apparently.

 

Would you share the bumps and false starts? Thanks!

 

Curious if the EDO plugin fixed this, my dac only show sampling rate

 

It has to do with me being a little computer-challenged more than anything else. I just find a lot of this stuff doesn't come with very good instructions and it took me a while to figure things out. I ended up having to re-rip a few things but once I got going it was clear sailing. I did my entire collection of about 1,500 CDs in a couple of months.

 

This page will help you with setting up your preferences:

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=XLD_Configuration

 

Since I only do wireless and use the toslink output, I have no idea.

 

dBpoweramp has a beta for Mac. Try it out.

 

XLD for the win. A little tricky to set up (especially getting the CD rip/write offsets perfect), but then it becomes your best ripping friend. Free and continually updated. And the few times I've emailed the author, I've gotten responses back fairly quickly.

I've also been using Metadatics for tagging. I find it to be superior to Tag, but YMMV.

 

dBpoweramp is on Mac now, in beta, but close to an official release per their website. I don't see any reason NOT to use that. Easy to setup, easy to use, it's fast.

 

VLC.is a great program that plays everything.

 

no support for 10.7.5 (Lion)

that's me out

 

Can somebody post the link to the Mac version.....I can't find it.

 

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/dBpoweramp Music Converter.dmg