CD-ripping

Hi Thomas…..Welcome to the forum.

If you are using a PC then I can recommend dBpoweramp as an excellent solution, just take the time to set it up as per Spoon’s instructions on the Illustrate website. It doesn’t take long and is simple to do even if you know little of the technical side of things.

Another option is EAC (Exact Audio Copy), this to me was less easy to know if I had set it up correctly but is also well regarded.

Course if you use one of those white plastic thingies , then sorry can’t help; someone else will be along soon I’m sure.

Peter

Dear Thomas,

Completely agree with Peter; EAC and dbPowerAmp are fine tools. As an alternative you might be interested to sort our Switch File Converter.

If I am informed well, than your Unity soon will be able to natively access Apple ALAC Lossless files, given the update/patch that becomes available to you soon. In that case, also iTunes is an option since iTunes can rip into ALAC quite easily.

Good luck,

Iver

Thomas,

there are a number of threads on thsi subject over in the Streaming Audio room - I'll move this thread there now.

Personally, if you aren't going to use a Naim ripper then either EAC or DBpoweramp seems to be the best solutions for Windows users.  I use DBpoweramp mainly because it allows rips to WAV (i.e no data compression or reduction) and gives rich metadata.  However, this does limit you to upnp servers that can fully understand the metadata - DBpoweramps's own Asset is ideal here.  There are other options though and much will depend on what server you will use.

Dear Richard, Iver and Peter,

Thank you so much for these initiated and kind answers. I will dig into them first thing after work. If you have another minute, I have another small, but cumbersome problem: I can´t get the volume control to work on the remote, which is fuctioning in all other aspects. Have a feeling that I´m plain stupid...but cannot resolve this. Is there anyone who has met the same problem?

Sincerely, Thomas

EAC is free whereas dB Poweramp you have to buy.

If you use a PC then people have already advised (I avoid Windows PCs as much as I can).

dBPowerAmp is definitely a good program though.

So no surprise my answer is 100% Windows free and it doesn't require a Mac either (though you can make perfect rips on a Mac very easily if you have one) . 

If you just want to make perfect rips and forget all the nonsense about magic ripping engines then make or buy yourself a Vortexbox (the software is free including the operating system, but you need something to run it on) - it will rip everything perfectly using CD Paranoia and it serves music to my UnitiQute, Sonus and iTunes faultlessly. Just google Vortexbox and you'll see it is free. 

Whether ripped with iTunes, XLD, Toast, EAC or Naim UnitiServe or CD Paranoia all the tracks I have compared have identical PCM content and identical sound. There is no difference between them. If your CD is badly damaged then there can be differences, but I had to deliberately scratch  a CD-R quite aggressive to get different results. 

Metadata is different - some don't store information about the music in a Naim friendly format. 

If you use a Vortexbox then you'll have a ripper and music server with as much disk space as you care to buy. It is Naim friendly and it can look as good as any other item of hi-fi you have. 

If you want to spend more to get Naim support, guaranteed build quality and match it to other Naim kit then, of course, use the Naim UnitiServe. 

If you use a Mac then XLD will do the trick or iTunes if you set it up right, 

All the best, Guy

Dear all,

I have problems with the wire-less connection. The Uniti seems to locate most of my naighbours´ net-works but my own. Any suggestions?

Sincerely, Thomas

Hi Thomas -

EAC and dbpoweramp are both very good, but they also both have a bit of a learning curve.

An alternative to consider is MediaMonkey, which is very easy intuitive -- easy to learn -- and has a very good built in ripper.  MM does a good job of automatic tagging, but also allows you to easily edit any field.  And like dbpoweramp, MM allows you to copy and convert from one file format to another (e.g., you may rip to a lossless format like FLAC, but also create an MP3 file for listening on an iPod).

Good luck.

Hook

Osteoclast,

On the off chance that you are using Linux - Rubyripper works well.

M