CD ripping - which format?

Whilst I use Apple Lossless due to my all-Apple world, I'd actually recommend FLAC for decent tagging and an open, platform agnostic approach (Apple notwithstanding). WAV will potentially give you tagging issues.

Wicherver format you choose, it must comply with the following:

1) Lossless (compression is ok, but no reduction)

2) It must support tags. Otherwise you won't be able to manage your library other than by the file/folder structure.

This excludes mp3 and AAC. These are fine for having as a copy for any mobile devices, but not as "originals".

WAV is also out, because it doesn't support tags. Though I have come across the one or other WAV that did have tags; no idea how that worked ...

Leaves ALAC, FLAC, AIFF and ... dunno, there are some more, but hardly anybody uses them.

I have a natural dislike of ALAC as it used to be a proprietary (as opposed to open source) codec of Apple. I believe it is now also open source, but still .... Apple - not for me, but maybe for you.

I use FLAC. Why? Because it has always been open source. It offers a certain degree of compression (which you can choose on encoding). It is widely used an accepted.

Maybe you should also consider only to have formats in your library that support the same tags. Otherwise you may be surprised at the results you get after the server software has scanned the library.

There are folks, especially on forums like these, who claim, that they can discern between different formats. I let them claim their stake and rather listen to some music instead of pondering on (im)possible miniscute sonic effects.

Hi

The main thing (rather than format) is that you get a lossless and accurate rip.  Once you've achieved this, you can convert between different lossless formats.

The main two are Wave (Wav) and FLAC, though there are many others, including the Apple proprietary ones.

Wave is uncompressed and lossless.  Some say it produces the best results (being uncompressed, the player has minimal work to do).  However, it takes up the most space (not generally a problem given the cost of a GB - a CD will take up roughly 0.5GB in Wave format); it isn't handled by all streaming devices (e.g. many NAS drives don't do Wav and VortexBox doesn't); and it does not handle metadata (tags) very well (they are not in the file format standard, though some ripping/converting software works around this, but it isn't then very portable, e.g. you can tag it with one application to find that another can't read the tags).

FLAC is compressable and lossless.  You can usually specify how much compression you want - the more compressed, the smaller the file and the more work the receiving device needs to do to unpack the data; the less compressed, the larger the file and the less work the receiving device needs to do...  Some ripping apps can save uncompressed FLAC.  FLAC can natively store metadata and seems to be more widely used than Wave.

I rip everything to Wave and back that up, then I convert to FLAC and store on a server that I use to stream from (using VortexBox).  So Wave is my master and archive, and FLAC is what I use (and I don't back this up as if I lose it I can recreate it from the master Wave or the backed up Wave.

I don't know much about the other formats.

If you want to choose one of these then it's down to two things:

- Can you get either Wave or FLAC to the SU?  I'm using VortexBos so I'm stuck with FLAC.

- Do you believe that Wave sounds better than FLAC?  I have toyed with the idea of switching from VortexBox to Asset to stream Wave but I haven't done anything about it yet, and may never.

If your ripping workflow is like mine then you'll end up with your files in Wave and FLAC.

But, to me the real question is how you are going to rip your CDs, since you want an accurate rip and you want to be confident in the accuracy.  I use dBpoweramp.  It is very good but possibly off topic.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Ian

Ian, you are mistaken in your statement that a higher compressed FLAC will engage more processer capacity on decoding than a lower compressed one. I am not into the math, but it is one of the key features of FLAC.

An alternatve to dbpoweramp is Foobar2000. It is free but extremely recomendable!!!

You can tag WAV files, all the usual tags and artwork - not sure how standard this is but dBPowerAmp will tag WAV files perfectly well. However, if you use WAV be careful with your server selection. My installation of Twonky wouldn"t play nicely with the WAV tags but worked perfectly with FLAC. Asset is known to work well with WAV files but is not generally available for many of the more common NAS drives e.g QNAP and other *nix based solutions. FLAC probably offers the most flexibility in terms of tagging and server platform compatability.

Wow, what a lot of helpful replies already! I must say that as a Naim owner for only a week, I'm really impressed with the help and support one gets on this forum (take a special bow, Simon from Suffolk).

It very much sounds like the choice for me is between FLAC and ALAC. I've always been a PC user, but the purchase last year of first an iPad then an iPhone has got me drifting towards the Apple world, and I may before this year is out buy an iMac. But either way, any reason why I should use, say, dBpoweramp recommended by Ian rather than simply stick with iTunes? This may be a naive question, but I'm feeling my way on this topic.

To answer your question regarding ITunes, I highly recommend that you get MP3Tag. This is the reference in tagging tools. Don't be put off by the 'mp3' in the name. It works on all codecs. It is also freeware, so no investment for you. Install it and have look at the tags in a file that is maintained in iTunes. It's sickening!!!

The real killer, however, is the fact that it doesn't handle FLAC files. Have Look around on the highres download shops - some will also offer a version in ALAC, but FLAC (and WAV) is the standard here.

I've been using dBpoweramp for several years - it's flexible, uses various techniques to ensure bit perfect rips, can rip to FLAC, and supports AccurateRip to give you confidence the rips are correct.

I rip to FLAC as I think it's the best compromise format, and is well supported by most players.

Regarding tag editors, I use Tag&Rename - it does everything I need and more...

dBpoweramp music converter is used to transcode to apple formats, then iTunes is used to manage music on my iPhone and iPad - I don't trust it for 'real' music.

Ian, indeed it is.

You make a very convincing case for both uncompressed FLAC and dBpowersmp, and that's probably the way I'll go. But can you (or someone) explain what it is I'd be losing by the simple solution of ripping in iTunes using lossless?

Cheers

Paul

Actually, answering my own question, seems like PinkHamster answered it several messages ago. Though I suppose if I'm content to live in an Apple world and use ALAC rather than FLAC, iTunes becomes a stronger contender.

Ian, 1+.

dbPoweramp is indeed the most versatile and powerful tool. But I consider Foobar2000 a real alternative. BTW it also supports AccurateRip ... and there is a plugin to administer IPods ... yes, I also have one, eventhough I will not trust Apple with my main library ... and this posting is created on an iPad ... so there .....

I find iTunes tagging to be pretty good, actually. Occasionally hard to convince it that a group of songs belong to the same album.

It uses a comprehensive database. Rarely, if ever misses an album.

I'm a Cox's Orange Pippin man myself, and had my music library stored in ALAC (Apple Lossless). I've tried converting ALAC files to AIFF (good for tagging and uncompressed), and they sound better to me, so I'm going with AIFF on my MacMini, which is USB hard-wired to an M2 Tech 'Young' DAC.

One theory I have read for this, is that the CPU doesn't have to work so hard at 'unpacking' the data, and the effect becomes audible. True or tripe?

I'm also using the outrageously good and inexpensive BitPerfect. Currently appearing at your local app store for £2.99

The ripping format is starting to look like a lot of Hi-Fi implementation to me. Simply use what works for you. I don't think there is a definitive answer.

John.

I'm no expert, but I have been after sound quality + compatibility with both Naim streamers and Apple mobile devices.

So I've also been ripping to AIFF format, and replaying through itunes on the mac mini.  I've also added BitPerfect to itunes.

If I was using a windows home server machine, I would probably use FLAC, dBpoweramp and Asset.

Either way, the Synology NAS works a treat, though QNAP and Netgear almost certainly make equally good NAS drives.

Best regards, FT

iTunes isn't great with the underlying file structure, placing far to many albums into a "compilations" folder. But this is transparent/irrelevant in iTunes itself. Everything organized neatly and correctly. No issues other than the one described above.

iTunes lets me find and play any song, any artist, any album instantly. Add the occasional use of "Genius" and it is all I need. One day. I might look at alternatives, but for now it is fine.

This day will be the day when you MUST go over to another solution because there is no Apple/iTune any longer ... or whatever.

This will be the day when you'll be cursing iTunes and your own wanton approach.

Any idea how to find it for $20? Looks like $38 to me on their website. Seems like I went to bed and left the battle raging all night! But I've woken up pretty much determined to go with FLAC and dBpoweramp.

Paul

Hi Paul, I can certainly recommend dBpoweramp. However I would recommend wav. I had experimented using FLAC and transcoding via upnp, certainly for cheap, poor quality media CD it had prooved fine. However I had ripped some quality Redbook to FLAC recently, for onward transcoding via upnp. However to cut a long story short, the results were not transparent and the differences irritated. I did all the checks, there was no loss of data. I have my suspicions of what is happening, and I need to set upWireshark to span a port to confirm. But in the short term I have used DBpoweramp 's batch convert program to convert FLAC to WAV on my NAS and all is ok again.

Simon

h i simon      how do you access batch convertion  on ripnas db.  i spent lots of time comparing wav/flac stored on nas and sticks but i couldnt say i could identify the difference every time.  all down loads seem to head toward flac. i was concerned to about metadata so i went flac.

i ripped several favourite cds in flac /wav so i could listen to each track but again wasnt sure.  i run electrostatics  quads . allan

So what are the downsides of WAV?