Ripping my CD collection - Any reason not to do it all as .WAV files?

Yeah it was a Christmas special!

You don't need an MQA hardware decoder to listen to 24/192. Only if you want to 'unfold" the extreme frequency range deemed inaudible. Software does most of the unfolding.
Im in NO rush to buy a new DAC for MQA decoding. But I DO enjoy the clarity and fidelity of HiRes MQA.

 

I'm in the market for a new DAC anyway. If all else is equal, then MQA decoding could be the decider.

 

I'll bet you could if someone could point out what to listen for.

 

I think you and others are missing the point, the problem is not the file format it is how the Media Player / DAC's handle them internally. more cpu cycles can cause problems... FACT!

 

If you are an Apple person, go with am Apple lossless format. If not, go with FLAC. With modern equipment there is no reason not to.

I use dBPoweramp for ripping my CDs, and do the ripping on my desktop computer. It is extremely quick (clean CDs are 4 to 7 minutes each). The program makes ripping automatic. It confirms the rips are bit-perfect, and 98% of the time searches for the metadata and downloads (and links) it automatically. Manual entry of metadata is pretty easy when necessary. The program also allows you to adjust sound levels from one CD to another when ripping so that they all have similar loudness characteristics. If any song isn't bit-perfect the program will try to come up with a relatively clean rip and will let you know (although these rips can get pretty slow depending upon how you set up the program).

The program allows you to later convert your FLAC files to whatever format you want, lossless or lossy. And all the metadata is great if you later want to run most any media server software. I've ripped about 1200 CDs and now use my media server (computer) almost exclusively for these albums. The sound is great and setting up lists of music to play is effortless compared to swapping CDs or programming my old 200-CD Sony units.

 

WAV is untouched ! by any recoding program, must be best. Every manipulation hurts even if you dont hear it now.
Put everything you really want on CD rom. (or harddisk) Cost nothing these days.
Rename the files on harddisk. Or:
Write the filenames on the CD rom box/sleeve/map/ or in some book.
Everything now futureproof.

 

If you wanna end up starting all over again once you figure it out, be my guest.



A FLAC!

 

Off topic but needs correcting.

MQA comes as 18/48 in a 24/48 container. There is only one unfold that gets the output to 96khz sampling rate, 18/96. Everything above that is upsampling. Therfore 24/96 is higher rez than anything out of MQA.

Someone on another forum even wiped out the data to be unfolded and the display still read 192k MQA. There was nothing playing higher than 48k sample rate in the file because the data was removed. In that case it was 100% upsampling if it even did that.

The light on the display may not be tied to actual playback sample rates.

Back on topic, Flac. Make sure the rips are checked against Accurip.
Do it once with tags at CD resolution. You can always decode it to something else later.

 

Love your post. No gobbledygook. Although I rip to ALAC, I cannot discern the results from AAC. And these days I rarely buy CDs since Apple Music in AAC sounds on par to SACD and hi-res downloads.

 

no, ripping to separate tracks is fine and even preferred. There are some ancient rips floating around from a time when it was more commonplace to rip to a single track + cue, probably due to common playback software having difficulties with gapless playback. But we are long past those days, that shouldn’t be a concern anymore.
The .cue still contains important data pertaining to the original disc even if you are ripping to separate tracks. I don’t consider it a truly lossless rip if that data is lost or discarded, even though the audio content itself may be encoded via a lossless compression standard. Simply ripping to a lossless format is only half of the equation. You need a properly configured ripping program that compensates for drive offsets, verifies that the rip is bit-perfect, and generates a cue sheet.

 

I understand the advice but just am hesitant to use FLAC. Will I be able to convert back to wav and then make an exact duplicate of the CD without any loss of audio quality? Please explain it to me like I'm an idiot(and I may be one, the jury is out).

 

The reason you rip to a lossless format is for archival purposes.

 

Why? I save my CDs.

 

If I had unlimited HD space I would do WAV...that's just me. ; )

 

Yes

 

There is no difference in the input signal by the time a DAC is involved - it's just PCM. Before the data is presented as PCM, the processor must seek the filesystem, load the file into memory, perform decompression (in the case of a lossless compressed format) remove the headers, perform integrity checks and address the device driver. This happens with WAV as much it does with FLAC - all that is missing is the decompression. The decompression happens early in the cycle and is not happening during the playback of the PCM data. There are as many audio engineers and reviewers that will give opposing views to the one you've quoted.

The Well-Tempered Computer

By all means, if your perception is that WAV sound better to you than FLAC, indulge yourself. If you suppose it is the compression however, feel free to try FLAC without compression. You can easily encode PCM data in a FLAC container with all the attendant, commonly supported metadata. Perhaps that too will suit your perception.

 

Depends on the definition of exact duplicate of the CD. If you want to be able to burn the audio back to a CD-R and be an exact duplicate then you'll need to rip in a format that creates a CUE file and keep that CUE file with the FLAC files. The CUE file contains the exact location for track index points and the length of the gaps between the tracks. If you want an exact duplicate of the CD including the exact track lengths and index points then you'll need the CUE. If you don't care about the exact index points you can burn the FLAC files to a CD-R without using a CUE and you'll get an exact duplicate of the music content, but some of the track lengths that the CD player displays can be off by a second or two compared to the original CD. But the audio data will be exactly the same as the CD.

If you want an exact exact version of the CD then things get more complicated because you'll also have to account for the offsets of both the ripping CD drive and the burning CD drive. The offsets are a handful of samples to a couple hundred samples. The offsets are different for different brands and models of CD ripping/burning drives. If you don't account for the offsets and the length of the pre-gap before track 1 then the track index marks will be off by a handful of samples or a couple hundred samples. There are 44,100 samples per second. So being off by a few hundred samples is a very small fraction of a second. Not enough to be noticeable by ear. But enough that if you're really strict about making an exact duplicate of the CD then it does matter.

 

I have 4 TB and not more than 400 CDs. I am going to use EAC and rip to FLAC and I have unchecked the "Delete Wav file" in the compression settings. I'll separate them by type and put the flac folder and generate a cue file while keeping the wav files as well. I have 2 4 terrabyte HDs

 

sounds like a good plan.

 

I would suggest looking at using CUETools/CUERipper instead of EAC. CUETools and CUERipper have some features that EAC doesn't.

CUETools is free. Runs on Windows. It can do secure rips. It will verify rips using AccurateRip and also the CueTools DataBase (CTDB). You'll get good rips and be able to verify that they are perfect.

CUERipper can rip to a single FLAC file and also embed the CUE sheet as a tag in the FLAC file (because FLAC has tags while WAV does not). It will also write out the CUE sheet as a separate file. So you'll have two copies of the CUE just to be sure (one in the FLAC tags and one as a separate file). Belt and suspenders, just to be sure.

Use CUERipper to rip to a single FLAC and embedded CUE. Save that to your archive for if/when you want to make an exact copy to a CD-R.

Then open that CUE file and single FLAC file in CUETools to split the rip to separate FLAC tracks. Copy those FLAC tracks to your media player directory.

Your ripping process will be two steps. One step to use CUERipper to rip to a single FLAC and an embedded CUE. Second step to use CUETools to split that into separate tracks.

The CUETools software is available here: CUETools Download - CUETools
It doesn't have an installer. The download is a ZIP file. Extract the ZIP file to a directory like C:\CUETOOLS. Then manually create shortcuts to cuetools.exe and cueripper.exe to run the programs. You can put those shortcuts on your desktop or copy them to the start menu to make them easier to access and run.

I personally don't see the benefit of being able to make an exact copy of the CD to a CD-R. I've been ripping CDs for 20 years and in those 20 years I've never actually needed to make an exact copy or an exact exact copy of a CD. I know how. I've just never needed to. I've ripped about 4000 CDs. I have a fair experience with ripping.

I do archive my audiophile CDs and collectable CDs. I archive with a single file FLAC with embedded CUE along with the separate CUE file and the log file. I do that just because. I do it because it makes me feel better and makes me feel like I'm giving special treatment to my special CDs. But why? In 20 years I've never gone back to actually use one of those archive versions of the CD. I've never used the archive version to burn an exact duplicate. Why am I doing this? I do it to make me feel better about giving special treatment to my special CDs. All that has accomplished is feelings and wasted hard drive space.

 

If nothing else, then metadata support. In Flac file you can even embed pictures with album art. Flac is free and thus will be supported for a long time. Any audio processing tool supports it. You will also save 30% of storage space without loosing sound quality.

 

That's possible. But that's probably not the way you listen to music. Like the way you could see the difference between analog and digital fotos by getting real close with a magnifying glass.

 

I've been ripping for 15 years, over 5000 CDs. I started ripping in 2004 to 320kbit MP3. Unfortunately I never switched to .flac except for a few special things. I regretted it for a while but didn't want to start over. Now it's a habit I can't stop. Since Spotify I don't need my collection in different locations anymore. It's a dying hobby. It get's difficult to buy a CD-rom drive by a known brand on Amazon.

 

I also started by ripping to MP3. I first ripped my collection of CDs to MP3 back in the early 2000s. I did a ABX listening test where I didn't hear a difference between MP3 and lossless. So I decided to rip everything I owned to MP3 to save space because hard drive space was expensive back then. Then 10 years later I bought better gear and discovered that I could hear a difference between MP3 and lossless. Darn (my words at the time were more colorful than just darn). So I re-ripped everything to FLAC. When I say I've ripped 4000 CDs I've ripped many of those more than once because the first time was to MP3.

This isn't a dying hobby. I'm still buying CDs. I'm still buying ripping gear drives. I just got a Plextor PX-891SAF drive from Amazon a couple days ago along with a Nexstar USB enclosure. I'm actually in the middle of importing a CD rip that was done using that new drive and enclosure. It's a good drive for ripping. It works well. Easy to buy. Still very much available on Amazon and easy to buy.

 

You could easily fit all that on a 2TB drive. Probably a 1TB, actually.