'Best' iTunes format to rip with

What are you ripping on/with?

I am both ripping onto & with my laptop hard drive for now. Once I get a an external drive I will transfer to that.

There is no such thing as a ' best encoder' . There is lossless and lossy. Even though WAV is lossless, it does not support tags (metadata). Therfore it is not my preferred format. 

As you are using iTunes Alac is your format of choice. It is lossless and supports tags.

But why the hell is everybody using this freaking iTunes??? It is the pits!!! Use dbpoweramp, foobar or whatever and rip to Flac, ... and please send iTunes to the galleys. 

But why the hell is everybody using this freaking iTunes??? It is the pits!!! Use dbpoweramp, foobar or whatever and rip to Flac, ... and please send iTunes to the galleys.

Couldn't agree more! 

Typically because they have Macs.  There are some using it on PCs but I bet most of them would be more than happy, or would prefer, to use a Mac, they just dont have one.

If you have a Mac there are really no other viable options for media players.  At least not any I would use.

Cheers,

Patrick

+1 for dBpoweramp (and +1 for lossless, whether Wav or FLAC)

Yes it is more about lossy vs non lossy times. For Naim (although NDS may now be different) WAV is arguably the best non lossy format to use.

Although WAV supports  metadata, apple have decided not to support this in iTunes perhaps trying to encourage people to use ALAC or AIFF for whatever reason.

Therefore if you want to use WAV and use a non crippled WAV encoder, there are plenty to chose from and may favourite is dBpoweramp.

Simon

WAV DOES NOT SUPPORT METADATA.

Just because dppoweramp has found a way to put them in anyway, does not change this fact.

I am afraid you are wrong..

Wav supports metadata using the LIST INFO  contruct using exif attributes. It's in the standard.

I don't know where this myth that WAV does not support meta data comesFromm, it's SOO wrong.

Dbpoweamp and some other software ALSO use the id3 method AS WELL and this format based on the mp3 id3v2 format. The ID3 is widely used but not in the standard.

Therefore WAV DOES SUPPORT metadata, both formally and informally?

The standardised LIST INFO attributes are summarised here, if you don't want to read the WAV specification

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/WAV.html

Simon

Well, what's the use if no other media player will accept those tags? I don't want to b stuck to dppoweramp just because of that.

Not even MP3TAG will deal with WAV files.

Most quality and commercial WAV RIFF parsers read info list as it is widely used in commercial files.

Id3 is used in the consumer space but not everyone reads it in WAV files as you point out, but most new software outside the apple camp does. Id3 is however more flexible, ie you can create your own tags and embed 'art'. This is why encoders like dBpoweramp write both types.

Of course it's completely your choice whether you use it or not. I just wanted to correct the incorrect notion that WAV does not support metadata, as I have read it before and causes confusion for consumers (perhaps perpetrated byApple iTunes's crippled WAV encoder)

A very good bulk WAV tag editor is Media Monkey....

Cheers

Simon