Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat CD-R ripping

Hi,

In the near future I'll start ripping my complete CD collection to FLAC.
For playback I'll buy the MC200 or a Mac mini (via HD621 with Pure Music).

Most CD's are originals but I also have some uncompressed CD-R's.
Will ripping CD-R's result in lower quality FLAC's?

Regards,
Bob

If the files on the CD-r are playable in a CD player then they will rip without problem, if they are FLAC or ALAC or similar on the 'back up', they should be just copied to the Mac and not ripped (because they already have been).

Steve.

Thanks Steve,

I'm still wondering if there is a quality difference between CD-R rip & original CD rip (both PCM to FLAC).

Cheers,
Bob

There isn't, as long as the discs are 1:1 copies of the originals.

Depends what you use to rip them. I use and recommend dBpoweramp with Accurip. Some other rippers sacrifice quality for speed.
Stuart

If you have original CDs I recommend XLD configured to output WAV files.

I appreciate the file sizes are larger but the sound quality is excellent.

Hi David,

Care to add any reasons for the choice to rip to WAV?

They are bigger but also don't have the same meta data tag options (afaik).

Sound quality is excellent as it would be for the same track as a FLAC etc.

Just wonder if you have compared one vs t'other. Not trying to be confrontational btw....just curious.

The WAV format (which is a container) is one of the most abused riff variations out there. It's a linked chain of "chunks", only three of these chunks are mandatory, and you can add any type of metadata (new linked chunks in the file) that you deem necessary to it without altering its playability by ANY player (software or hardware). Problem is that there's way too many ways to encode that metadata, some are specific to the player/rip application and then portability has to suffer.

I too would preffer (at least in theory) a PCM loaded WAV - on the sole grounds that it does away with real-time decoding/decompression processing requirements and I have a personal tendency not to consider necessary storage size a sustainable restriction with today's technology.

Hi Nick

That�s a reasonable question as there are alternatives to WAV. There are also easier alternatives to XLD such as iTunes.

Using XLD is a real pain. First of all, it can take ages to rip each CD and all the information on the CD, such as the order of the track, name, artist and album name are all together under �Name� in iTunes.

Thankfully, I can use the Multiple Item Information feature in iTunes to add Artist and Album information in bulk. Of course, this is less useful for compilation albums. Then the order of the tracks has be input track by track and the track name cleaned up (as it contains all the other information I mentioned).

There is no album picture added automatically, so I�ll have to add that manually as well. Not sure how to do to this but one thing at a time.

The stupid programme doesn�t always rip the disc with a last few tracks missed with an error message. So I have to go back and select these again.

Ripping CDs is a boring, repetitive task � especially as I did this seven years ago when I originally ripped all my CDs to AAC. I can�t really believe I�m doing it all again!

I�m about 2/3 of the way though and, compared to many people, I don�t have a huge CD collection as I have about 350 CDs. So far, I have used 81.45 GB so about 100 GB - 120 GB will probably be needed.

I am using all my limited spare time to rip the CDs onto my NAS and could think of better ways of using my time at the moment.

So, with this background (and, yes, I feel much better having got this off my chest), I wouldn�t be doing this if there wasn�t a very good reason. That reason is the astonishingly good sound quality achieved when listening to the music which is being stored on my NAS. I spent some time comparing WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless etc. when using iTunes and XLD. I also used alternatives to XLD.

After quite a lot of testing there was no doubt that the sound quality using XLD and WAV was considerably better than any other approach. If there was a more user friendly, less time consuming and less data hungry way, I would have taken it. Honestly!

Lossless does really mean Lossless and

a) as long as adequate care is taken when Ripping the CD (e.g. using EAC, AccurateRip and other tools)

b) That any Sound Comparisons use the same actual Source (I.e. Not comparing a Computer Output to a Meridian Player)

Then Apple Lossless (ALAC) and FLAC files will sound exactly the same as WAV Files

Ronnie

I really don't think it is as simple as that. It is necessary to take into account the equipment being used and the overall context of the system being used, i.e. how the various components interact with each other. My personal experience is that there is a considerable difference between Apple Lossless and WAV.

Your experience may be different and I agree, technically, Apple Lossless and WAV are the same. However, we are dealing with the dark art of sound quality here and technical theory and how this applies in practice is not always the same.

I said this previously, and just decided that maybe using iTunes was not the best as I too hear a difference between WAV and Lossless.

Ripping on MacBook Pro and then playing via an Airport or AppleTV I prefer the AIFF to Lossless, there is a definite smoothness to the AIFF.

I guess I should try another ripper??

What do people suggest for a Mac? What does Sooloos use?