Ripping advice required for NDS

Posted by: MauriceD on 25 March 2013

Hi all,
I'm hoping you can help me out with a few ripping questions that i would like to solve before my shinny new NDS arrives.

I had a demo of the NDS a few weeks ago running off my ReadyNas duo and found that the 50 or so albums of wav files created using XLD on the mac would not show up.

Interestingly, my more compressed files ripped using iTunes did show up.(note these are only for iPod use)

My question is did I do something wrong when recording the wavs' as I presume this is a meta data issue, that is causing the UPnP server to fail to find them.

Is there an easy way I can fix them by using some software or should I consider FLAC.

The reason I mention FLAC is that I notice that the studio masters on the Linn's website all use FLAC.

If I were to buy a uniti serve sometime in the future would it be better to stick with wav ?

As i am new to this area, I don't mind starting from Scrath and re-ripping all my cds but want to make sure i use a format that will work well with n-stream and show full metadata.

My ripping strategy could also be to use a windows based software ripper. dbpoweramp??
Does dbPowerAmp rip cds into wav's perfectly for the NDS with all meta data?

It would be great to hear from people especially the strategies of those who don’t use a unitiserve and rip for a target  ndx /nds


Thanks in advance,

Maurice
Posted on: 25 March 2013 by PinkHamster

Hi Maurice,

 

Naim streamers are said to be optimized for wav files. I will refrain from any comment on this. Fact is they also work perfectly with flac files.

Wav files are not designed to be tagged. There are obviously some workarounds though. MediaMonkey and some others will add ID3 tags into wav files. ID3 is originally intended for mp3s and adding them into wav files means corrupting the files, strictly speaking. I cannot comment on the practical use, as I haven't tried it and probably never will.

My advice is to move to flac. 99% of all audiophiles use flac, only a very small miniority swears by wav, with all its shortcomings regarding tagging and filesize.

 

The tagging structure is independant of the streamer in use. It is rather more a matter of compatibility with the server. Naim servers are rather special in this respect. If a CD is ripped on one of them, they are stored as wav files. These are not tagged but only indexed. This index is matched with the ROVI online data base. For externally stored files they should recognized most standard tags.

 

If you want to move to flac, you do not need to rerip your CDs which you already have as wave files. Programs like Foobar2000 and dbPoweramp can transcode them in one go. But please don't try to do this with the files you stored as mp4 (aac) or mp3. These are lossy codecs and transcoding to a lossless format will not restore the data lost on the initial compression.

 

When ripping a CD the tags will only be as good as the data base used to provide the required tags. Usually they will need some reworking. I am quite anal about my tags, and I haven't seen a single set of perfect tags coming in from the internet yet. But they are a big help anyway.

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by AntonD

Hi Maurice

try the following test.

using xld, open one of you current album folders that contain the wav files. Change xld preferences to output to AIFF. check the contents of the displayed tracks in the xld window and use the "edit metadata" option to modify accordingly. You can also multi select to set same value to multiple tracks, e.g. Album Artist.

put the out into a new folder on your NAS and see if the nds can now see them?

ATB, Anton

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by AntonD

Oh, just to add I also have many albums in high def from Linn. As you say they download as flac. I run xld as above and convert them to AIFF and place these on my NAS. My nd5xs can read them perfectly.

currently listening to Prokovief Violin Concerto, absolutely beautiful! 

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by Bart

Hi Maurice,

 

For playback on my NDS, I am happy to have .flac files.  My server is a UnitiServe, and for cd's I rip on it, it is only.wav as that is the Naim way.  But for files purchased from elsewhere, such as the B&W online store, or Linn, or HDTracks, .flac is fine with me.

 

And perhaps the simplest solution for you is to convert you .wav files to .flac and tag them.  At least that will get you started.

 

Enjoy the NDS -- I love mine!

 

Bart

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk

IPinkhamster, agree with most you say other than WAVs are not designed for tags. This is so not true and i dont know where this comes from.. but you are not alone thinking this. Clearly read the wav standard, even the original one and its there in black and white and original WAV info tagging precedes by many years the ID3 tags used by FLAC.

Now WAV was not designed to incorporate album art, and here there are work arounds. But I don't recommend art in the file as over 10s of thousands of files this can get inefficient on space.

I'll get off my soap box now..

 

Maurice, I really wouldn't re rip... There are better things to do with your time I'm sure. You can transcode to WAV on the fly if you feel you need to or do a one time file conversion using various applications such as dbpoweramp.

 

Simon

 

 

 

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by PinkHamster

Simon,

I've been waiting for you to jump in on this.   Yes, the wav standard does indeed forsee some rudimentary tagging, but by no means enough for things like compilations (i.e. Albumartist). Anyhow, if ID3 tags can be implemented thats also fine. Where I really have to object is, that flac uses ID3 tags, as they don't. They use Vorbis Comment tags.

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Glad to be predictable 

Ok now you mention it, I seem to remember about FLAC using Vorbis tags. I stand corrected sir!

Simon

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by Harry

I prefer WAV to FLAC. But perhaps my ears are broken. Or my system.

 

Use whatever works for you technically and sonically. If I download FLAC I convert it to WAV. I use dBpoweramp for occasional ripping and mainly converting to WAVs and  tagging them. It works beautifully. I've never had a problem tagging files, having them read by the HDX will all the correct information and more recently having them accurately passed to the NDS. It could be that the HDX is the key here. Whatever it's server does, it does it very well for WAV.

 

All the best with it.

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by MauriceD

Hi Pinkhamster,

 

Thanks for you reply.

I noticed your comment about naim using ROVI and had a quick look at their website.They seem to add lots of good extra information.

 

Would i be correct in saying that i will still get all of this extra information in n-stream no matter which format i use or do i have to rip using naim gear to get the added extras?

 

I'm presuming the app will just read the meta tags presented by the UpnP server and send a request to ROVI for the info.

 

Based on the numerous replies, FLAC seems like the way to go , but to play devils advocate, if i was to keep using my ripped wavs, what would i need to do to get the NDS to read them.

 

For each album that a unti serve rips, does it bypass upnp and go straight to the ROVI using the index file you mentioned. In that case could i do something similar?

 

 

Cheers,

 

Maurice

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by MauriceD
Hi Harry,
That sounds promising from the point of view of using wav's.
Its nice to see that using dBpowerAmp seems straight forward and the NDS reads the result just fine.
 
XLD just didn't work, even though i had applied all the information...but still maybe it was user error.
 
Would dBpowerAmp re-tag my already ripped wavs?
 
Thanks,
 
Maurice
 
 
Originally Posted by Harry:

I prefer WAV to FLAC. But perhaps my ears are broken. Or my system.

 

Use whatever works for you technically and sonically. If I download FLAC I convert it to WAV. I use dBpoweramp for occasional ripping and mainly converting to WAVs and  tagging them. It works beautifully. I've never had a problem tagging files, having them read by the HDX will all the correct information and more recently having them accurately passed to the NDS. It could be that the HDX is the key here. Whatever it's server does, it does it very well for WAV.

 

All the best with it.

Posted on: 25 March 2013 by Iver van de Zand
Originally Posted by MauriceD:
Hi Harry,
That sounds promising from the point of view of using wav's.
Its nice to see that using dBpowerAmp seems straight forward and the NDS reads the result just fine.
 
XLD just didn't work, even though i had applied all the information...but still maybe it was user error.
 
Would dBpowerAmp re-tag my already ripped wavs?
 
Thanks,
 
Maurice
 
 
Originally Posted by Harry:

I prefer WAV to FLAC. But perhaps my ears are broken. Or my system.

 

Use whatever works for you technically and sonically. If I download FLAC I convert it to WAV. I use dBpoweramp for occasional ripping and mainly converting to WAVs and  tagging them. It works beautifully. I've never had a problem tagging files, having them read by the HDX will all the correct information and more recently having them accurately passed to the NDS. It could be that the HDX is the key here. Whatever it's server does, it does it very well for WAV.

 

All the best with it.

Hi guys,

 

Very usefull/helpfull info here. I have been reading Simon's comments on Wav and Tagging in other threads and recently ripped some new CD's into wav. I tagged them (all my other music is Flac) with simple tags like album, albumartist, year, genre, score etc .... Works perfectly fine. For basic tagging I set the tags when I start ripping with dbPoweramp. If I want to do more detailed tagging, I use MediaMonkey afterwards.

 

@Maurice, given you will have an NDS shortly from now, you might want to consider ripping a few CD's in both Flac and Wav. I only have an Nd5xs, but think ((!) or is it imagination) that wav might be slightly better. Especially your streamer could show these differences (if they occur) better than mine. 

also what upnp software do you use? If you use Assett, you can transcode Flac into Wav "on the fly". It would allow you to rip in Flac, but provide yourvstreamer automatically with a Wav file

 

cheers,

Iver

Posted on: 26 March 2013 by Harry
Originally Posted by MauriceD:
Would dBpowerAmp re-tag my already ripped wavs?

Yes.

 

I use a PC. The application will incorporate a Tag menu into the right click for music files and batch tagging is possible.

Posted on: 26 March 2013 by likesmusic

dBpoweramp lets you change tags manually via the right click, but I don't think it will retag from any of the online databases it uses when you rip in the first place, which could be nice. There is however an associated product called PerfectTUNES which sorts out artwork, checks ripping accuracy against Accuraterip and tries to do other helpfull things like add missing metadata.

Posted on: 26 March 2013 by Bart
Originally Posted by likesmusic:

dBpoweramp lets you change tags manually via the right click, but I don't think it will retag from any of the online databases it uses when you rip in the first place, which could be nice. There is however an associated product called PerfectTUNES which sorts out artwork, checks ripping accuracy against Accuraterip and tries to do other helpfull things like add missing metadata.

Jaikoz for the Mac does this as well -- will identify music, and will re-tag and/or add missing metadata.  I used it to (finally) fix one cd rip that I could not get my UnitiServe to index.