dbPowerAmp to iTunes?

Hi Gavin

I'm using dBPoweramp to rip cds via a PC on to a NAS drive in AIFF, then replaying via either itunes server (on the NAS drive) or uPNP (also on the NAS drive).  I can then stream play the music from the NAS via a Mac mini into ndac in the main music system or from the uPNP server to a unitiqute in another room.

I found getting itunes to recognise FLAC to be too difficult (needs another app to do it), whereas with AIFF it all just works, at least on a Synology NAS drive.  This choice of codec can be a bit tricky, especially if you want to use itunes & apple devices, which is why others go the windows home server route.

Hope this helps.  FT

Are you Mac or PC Gavin ?

PC.

Anyone rips from dbpoweramp to WAV instead of AIFF or FLAC? 

FT

I'm reasonably happy about how to stream the files if I do that, but what about getting them on to an iPod?

Gavin,

Just curious, but are you aware how big FLAC files are?  An album may take 200-300 megabytes.  A lot for an ipod.

Hi Gavin

I set the NAS drive as the folder for itunes, then synchronise to the ipod & iphone only those albums that I select with the ticks on the left side.  This means that I can only select some of the music for the phone & ipod, but 25 or 70GB of lossless is enough to keep me going!

Hi Gavin, I think your issue depends a bit on what is your preferrable tool to maintain your music library. If that would be iTunes, than I suggest to directly rip your cd's into Alac or aiff which can be natively loaded into iTunes. 

Personally I both use dbPowerAmp and iTunes to rip cd's. In terms of quality of the results, I cannot hear any difference. ITunes is a perfe t ripper but lacks some flexibility on tagging if you'd compare with dbPoweramp

i-tunes is perfectly happy to scan in and playback WAV files though of course it won't rip to WAV. That you can do with dBPoweramp. 

I could do as suggested above by McGhie and batch convert stuff I want to MP3 for the i-pod using dBPoweramp but as Foot tapper does I typically just pick out tracks from my WAV library on my NAS for iTunes which I can then sync to my i-pod as WAV. It gives me enough portable music for my needs.

I don't use i-tunes as a server I run Asset UPnP for that . You can put Asset on your PC and point it at you're music folder and it will happily serve your music to whatever DAC you are using without having to have i-tunes running. You can transcode various file formats such as AIFF, ALAC & FLAC to WAV using Asset as you stream as well if you wish.

regards

Geoff

My Flac library comprises some 210 GB. I produce a 160 kb AAC copy by standard for the iPod. the complete copy of my library in this format takes up about 45 GB on the iPod. 

The Ipod is synced using the foodop addin in Foober2000.

Apart from that I cannot see the point in ripping to WAV. All this does is consume disk space, though this may not be problem anymore nowadays. But it won't suppor tags and is thereby useless for serious archiving. Anyone who is concernd that the decoding process of a Fac file might be interfering with SQ should rather chose a server that will transform to WAV before streaming to the audio device.

For info:

dBPoweramp DOES support tags and embeds them fine when ripping to WAV. It also allows you to review the tags supplied by multiple databases and edit them as you so wish as you set up to rip a CD. Album art is also flexible, on request you are taken to an internet link page displaying a large range of album images at various resolutions from which you can select your choice. I typically use something like 800 pixel sq.

As to the two main opinions on WAV vs FLAC. One side argues pure logic says there is no difference, its exactly the same 'bits'. The other which I am guilty of subscribing to is that WAV sounds better. This is not chalk and cheese and it behoves the individual to do a test to decide for themself but for me FLAC files seem to take on a slight hard edge at high volume which WAV doesn't.

Let the debate rage on. One think nice about WAV is you can transcode it to whatever format you like if you change for mind or need to. Disk space is cheap as chips nowadays so not a problem.

regards

Geoff

Goeff, are the tags that dbpoweramp writes into rhe WAV files correctly recognised by the common servers, i.e. Tonky, Asset ...?

Don't know about Twonky but Asset recognises them correctly. I use Asset on my NAS and I can find albums by: Artist, Album/Artist, Genre, Folders & Filenemes, Playlists including ones it creates for you based on what you have been listening to most, and there are other 'containers' in Asset's configuration window you can setup for yourself.

I actually use 'Folders & Filenames' most because I have a found I prefer to file Classical for example either 'By Composer', 'By Artist' or 'Various' dependent on my preference and have subfolders with those titles (among others) in my Music folder.

regards

geoff