CD Ripping services

Ill do it for you.

I enjoy it.

Seriously though. Once EAC is set-up properly, you simply press a couple of buttons... Easy as pie.

It also gives you the opportunity to listen to everything in your collection!

It took me a couple of years to get my collection where it is today. It takes time. Which is a good thing in my opinion. I think a proper library should be carefully collected.

If money is no object?? Hire a local kid to do it for $1 a disc.

I am a great lover of EAC. Great programme.

PC, you must have a lot of spare time! The time and energy of duplicating over 1,000 CD's in WAV. surely isn't something you want to do. Little back of the envelope math would indicate it would take you 5.5 days, 24 hours a day or 16 days on 8 hours a day, to complete.

I agree with you both, that EAC is the program to match, and that was what I was wanted to find out. Pickled Productions sent me this nothing response, when I inquired about their program for ripping CD's, quickly putting them on the bottom of my list.

"Thank you for your interest in our service. We use a custom built application that was designed specifically for our business and is a complete end to end solution for our ripping service."

You can actually buy the machines they use for a coupe grand. They are just CD duplicators, used in reverse. I know that another music server company that provides duplicating service, uses one of these and uses EAC as the duplicating/ripping program.

Given the lack of response from either company, I have started duplicating these on my own, but know I will end up sending some off.

I am not going to send my at least 600 cds out to a company just because rripping takes time. Most of us listen to certain records often and the latest new disks, so take the time to rip these 50 to 70 disks, and when a new disk is bought rip it as the first thing you do. The last many disks can be ripped over time taking some hours once in a while to rip the disks while you are doing something else.

Claus

quote:

Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:
I am not going to send my at least 600 cds out to a company just because rripping takes time. Most of us listen to certain records often and the latest new disks, so take the time to rip these 50 to 70 disks, and when a new disk is bought rip it as the first thing you do. The last many disks can be ripped over time taking some hours once in a while to rip the disks while you are doing something else.

Claus

Claus, thank you for speaking on behalf of "most of us".

I come from a different school of thought. That is, with instant access to my entire collection, I will listen to CD's that I haven't listened to in years. Personally, my music listening is as often back ground music as it is "critical listening". The ability to punch in a certain Genre of music and let the system pick and choose is immensely appealing to me. Further, instead of having to flip through 1,000 CD jewel cases, I can now very quickly flip through these same titles, on a digital tablet.

You mention in another post that you demoed the Linn DS. It is your choice in digital players that likely isn't allowing you to see this. The user interface on the Linn is crap, totally useless. I would suggest you seek out a company called Sooloos, just to see what a difference, a user interface can make on how you listen to your music and how it might change your listening patterns of the past. I would say that Naim one falls in the middle in terms of user interface. The Sooloos unfortunately, is just a mediocre player in a very pretty box.

C

This is an area that is being investigated, not least of which revolves around treatment of the metadata of ripped discs, with respect to the server's Extended Music Database.

Basic access of music files and artwork via NAS with the 1.3.x server software has been discussed on other threads:
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

Cjones,

Yes it takes some time. But I did not attempt to do it in one sitting. Nor did I have the need to convert it all at once.

I did it over time as I listened to my discs. When one was completed I stored it away. Eventually they were all done, although it was over about 18 months I'd say. Now I just have the new purchases to rip and I do them as I buy them.

I might have misunderstood your needs. I thought perhaps you wanted to use a ripping service so you dont need to learn how to do it on your own. Or perhaps you thought it is more difficult than it is.

If it is purely a time issue, then I would once again, have a local teenager do it for you. That way you can stipulate EXACTLY how they are ripped, tagged and organized. It would most likely be cheaper as well.

Whatever you do, make sure that a "Proper" rip is achieved.

Ensure you have the following:

- Secure Mode (most important)
- Test and Copy. It should read each track then copy each track while comparing the bits to ensure a 100% perfect copy.
- Correct your drive's read offset (very important)
- Log file (showing ZERO errors, or where the error occurs if it could not rip wihtout an error)
- Cue file
- Disable cache
- No C2 error correction
- Pre-track Gap detection
etc......

This should be done regardless of whether you do it yourself with EAC, dbPoweramp, or a ripping service.

quote:

Originally posted by Cjones:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:
Claus, thank you for speaking on behalf of "most of us".

I come from a different school of thought. That is, with instant access to my entire collection, I will listen to CD's that I haven't listened to in years. Personally, my music listening is as often back ground music as it is "critical listening". The ability to punch in a certain Genre of music and let the system pick and choose is immensely appealing to me. Further, instead of having to flip through 1,000 CD jewel cases, I can now very quickly flip through these same titles, on a digital tablet.

You mention in another post that you demoed the Linn DS. It is your choice in digital players that likely isn't allowing you to see this. The user interface on the Linn is crap, totally useless. I would suggest you seek out a company called Sooloos, just to see what a difference, a user interface can make on how you listen to your music and how it might change your listening patterns of the past. I would say that Naim one falls in the middle in terms of user interface. The Sooloos unfortunately, is just a mediocre player in a very pretty box.

C

I hear from many people that the availability of all music on the remote whatever that is makes a difference, so it would probably be the same when I choose a digital sollution. However because I am blind the practical implications of finding a way to just be able to get the needed information is more important than the visual user interface. Having seen the Linn in action when you have to update the DS whenever you rip a new record adding the time to rip and the time to update the ds list, gives a good perspective on why the Naim HDX is maybe a good idea, simply put in a cd have it ripped and then it will start playing without a lot of action required by the user.

Back to my real concern here wich is will I as a blind person be able to buy Linn or Naim streaming sollutions? The Linn gui will probably not without serious alterations ever be able to work! There is a Java alternative that seemed to have the same problems. I am hoping that there are other sollutions, especially using a web browser to both celect the music and to control the streamer. I am going on with the Naim DS, because one of my friends maybe would like to get a new Linn system, but my main concern is to get Naim to create something that will work, not necessarily this summer but at least a few years down the line when i want to get a quality digital streaming sollution.

quote:

Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:

quote:

Originally posted by Cjones:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:
Claus, thank you for speaking on behalf of "most of us".

I come from a different school of thought. That is, with instant access to my entire collection, I will listen to CD's that I haven't listened to in years. Personally, my music listening is as often back ground music as it is "critical listening". The ability to punch in a certain Genre of music and let the system pick and choose is immensely appealing to me. Further, instead of having to flip through 1,000 CD jewel cases, I can now very quickly flip through these same titles, on a digital tablet.

You mention in another post that you demoed the Linn DS. It is your choice in digital players that likely isn't allowing you to see this. The user interface on the Linn is crap, totally useless. I would suggest you seek out a company called Sooloos, just to see what a difference, a user interface can make on how you listen to your music and how it might change your listening patterns of the past. I would say that Naim one falls in the middle in terms of user interface. The Sooloos unfortunately, is just a mediocre player in a very pretty box.

C

I hear from many people that the availability of all music on the remote whatever that is makes a difference, so it would probably be the same when I choose a digital sollution. However because I am blind the practical implications of finding a way to just be able to get the needed information is more important than the visual user interface. Having seen the Linn in action when you have to update the DS whenever you rip a new record adding the time to rip and the time to update the ds list, gives a good perspective on why the Naim HDX is maybe a good idea, simply put in a cd have it ripped and then it will start playing without a lot of action required by the user.

Back to my real concern here wich is will I as a blind person be able to buy Linn or Naim streaming sollutions? The Linn gui will probably not without serious alterations ever be able to work! There is a Java alternative that seemed to have the same problems. I am hoping that there are other solutions, especially using a web browser to both celect the music and to control the streamer. I am going on with the Naim DS, because one of my friends maybe would like to get a new Linn system, but my main concern is to get Naim to create something that will work, not necessarily this summer but at least a few years down the line when i want to get a quality digital streaming solution.

It would seem that your requirements are pretty specific and certainly are not the ones that most people have to face. I cannot even begin to conceptualize what it must be like. It would seem however, that the idea of not having to actually rip each CD would be of significant benefit to you, as would a CD ripping service. I know that Symbian makes a text dictator that is pretty sharp and can work on a very small processor, such as a cell phone. My Nokia/Symbian cell phone can dictate my emails to me, so I have to imagine that a creative soul could do the same with a Nokia Tablet, that also runs the Symbian platform AND is one of the interfaces that Naim recommends.

Beyond that, I will go out on a limb here and guess that Netstreams has some experience with specialized applications such as yours. They might be a good place to start with questions and they are also a Naim partner. I can give you a couple contacts at Netstreams, they love me down there...., don't they Dave!

quote:

Originally posted by Cjones:
Back to my real concern here wich is will I as a blind person be able to buy Linn or Naim streaming sollutions? The Linn gui will probably not without serious alterations ever be able to work! There is a Java alternative that seemed to have the same problems. I am hoping that there are other solutions, especially using a web browser to both celect the music and to control the streamer. I am going on with the Naim DS, because one of my friends maybe would like to get a new Linn system, but my main concern is to get Naim to create something that will work, not necessarily this summer but at least a few years down the line when i want to get a quality digital streaming solution.

It would seem that your requirements are pretty specific and certainly are not the ones that most people have to face. I cannot even begin to conceptualize what it must be like. It would seem however, that the idea of not having to actually rip each CD would be of significant benefit to you, as would a CD ripping service. I know that Symbian makes a text dictator that is pretty sharp and can work on a very small processor, such as a cell phone. My Nokia/Symbian cell phone can dictate my emails to me, so I have to imagine that a creative soul could do the same with a Nokia Tablet, that also runs the Symbian platform AND is one of the interfaces that Naim recommends.

Beyond that, I will go out on a limb here and guess that Netstreams has some experience with specialized applications such as yours. They might be a good place to start with questions and they are also a Naim partner. I can give you a couple contacts at Netstreams, they love me down there...., don't they Dave![/QUOTE]

In a way the requirements I have to a remote sollution to a streaming device is special, or rather there has to be a way to transform the visual interface to an auditory or braille interface. Normally with a remote for the hifi system you just memorize the functions of each buttons and forget about any displays on the hifi or even on newer remotes. But with a streaming system you have to be able to select albums and individual tracks. This limits the devices we can use, one option is a computer, the other is a symbian mobile phone, since the screen readers for mobile phones are made for symbian phones, but not for the tablett phones, because on these phones you have to be able to see the icons and text on the screen and point to these things to perform actions. One of mthe main ideas for a screen reader no matter what it is runnning on is to be able to use a keyboard to find out what is on the screen by using keyboard commands to move around the screen, and have the different controls read when you navigate to these controls.

Actually I have Exact Audio Copy on one of my computers and it works without any problem, and if I had a nas drive I would be able to rip music to the drive and then browse the drive like I can with a local hard disk. The problem is with the current Linn software I can perform some commands like, play, next track and previous track, and a few other commands, but I cannot see the albums and tracks or playlists wich means that with the current open source Linn applications it is not possible to select all the ripped files, and this is the important idea about streaming music, if you could not select tracks or make playlists, nobody would give up cds or records for this new technology.

I am hoping that Naim has taken another approach giving users choices that will work with the special software I am using, but for now nobody really knows.

If your netstreams contacts can help out I would like to get in touch with them. For me it is not at all clear where the Netstream technology stops and the hifi manufacturer takes over to customize the system.

Claus

Claus,

It appears that a PC/DAC set-up would be best for you.

EVERY single interface I have tried or seen outside a PC application have been average at best. Even ones that use a PC monitor as the Linn or Squeeze Player do.

The only acceptable player I find worthy are programs such as Foobar, or dbPoweramp. Some like Winamp, although it is not my cup of tea. Of course Itunes is a great player, but without FLAC support I find it unusable.

If you keep the PC as the central piece of hardware, then options for a player and the interface are limitless.

I imagine that your current method of "reading" a computer screen works with most softwares?

just a thought.
Patrick

An interesting paragraph from Foobar's own website:

"Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now. "

Hmmmmmm ?!

quote:

Originally posted by thesherrif:
An interesting paragraph from Foobar's own website:

"Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. ......"

Hmmmmmm ?!

Meaning??? No one said foobar sounded better than anything else. At least I didn't.

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

quote:

Originally posted by thesherrif:
An interesting paragraph from Foobar's own website:

"Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. ......"

Hmmmmmm ?!

Meaning??? No one said foobar sounded better than anything else. At least I didn't.

No criticism at all pcs, I was admiring foobar's honesty ! Quite refreshing

quote:

Originally posted by thesherrif:

No criticism at all pcs, I was admiring foobar's honesty ! Quite refreshing

It is nice huh?

The things I know it CAN do that most others dont are:

- True gapless playback
- 1000s of 3rd part plugins (although I dont use them)
- Infinitely customizable (so good)
- 24/96 playback
- EQ for "fixing" rips from CD with pre-emphasis.
- It is one of the best and fastest converters available.
- It is fully void of anything "commercial". No one is trying to sell you anything.
- It does not retag files or download album art indiscriminately.
- It is a tiny program that requires little resources.
- Extended support and information on hydrogenaudio.com
- MOST IMPORTANTLY, it can easily handle HUGE playlists without bogging down or freezing.


Previous to Foobar i used WMP. After I had about 10000 songs it started to seriously bog down and crash. It took 5 minutes to simply open the program as it loaded the playlist.

So i moved to Itunes b/c i was told it could handle bigger lists. To a degree it was true. But the same things happenede around 30,000 tracks. Also without support of FLAC, Itunes is dead to me.

When i found Foobar, i was home sweet home. I now have over 150,000 tracks and it is lickity split.

Hmmmmm..... interesting thing this Foobar.

Hey PCS, what is your route from Foobar to speakers? I'm running itunes and using an Aiport Express connected to a Supernait.

What hardware are you using?

Sherrif,

Foobar > USB > M-Audio Transit > Toslink > Beresford DAC > Chord Crimson RCA-to-DIN > 102...

Lately I have been simply using my Riviera soundcard on my PC (it has toslink output) rather than the "transit". although my soundcard is only 24/48. So my hi-res files are getting down-sampled. I just haven't been playing the 24/96s lately. And they are only about 300 in number and less 10% of library.

Then it is Foobar > Riviera > Toslink > Beresford....

It sounds amazing. But i know it is far from ideal.

I am patiently awaiting a proper USB DAC solution, and trying not to spend more funds in the meantime.

PCS

so am I right in assuming that all your connections are physical ( ie non wireless) ?

What I want to achieve is wireless from laptop to dac at the highest resolution. Itunes via an Airport Express would be perfect but itunes doesn't support FLAC. Foobar supports FLAC but how do I get it wirelessly to my hifi set up?

Your assumption is correct. There is nothing wireless going on. Other than the internet connection for the PC.

I have never found a "streamer" or "player" I like in any fashion. never.

I have tried many, from Sonos, SB, Transporter, Roku etc...

Although the sound was fine, the interfaces were deplorable.

That is why I use a PC and my HDTV as an interface, with Foobar, a blutooth mouse and keyboard, and the ability to EASILY manage and browse over 3500 titles.

Bad picture, and old kit, but you get the drift.

quote:

Originally posted by thesherrif:

...but how do I get it wirelessly to my hifi set up?

http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware

any of those will fit the bill. Although why not just have it hard wired? These are VERY expensive ways to get the audio to your DAC. A long USB cable or toslink should do the trick.

If you dont need or want a display such as I use, i would simply get a cheap laptop to dedicate to your hifi. Put in a separate area of your room and run a USB to your DAC.