NDS has arrived

With storage cheap, I'd just rip to flac 0 (biggest sized files).  That part is easy.

I'd not rip a large number until you've ensured that the metadata is getting done correctly, meaning, maybe wait til everything is up and running before you rip a ton.

While you may not have to re-rip, you also do not want to have to manually edit metadata for 3000 cd's either!!!

Enjoy the NDS.  I know you will!

dBPoweramp's also my choice, but I rip to the default settings - 5 I think. Slightly more compression, but all levels are lossless and as I transcode to WAV using Asset all the extra processing is remote from my NDS so no issues.

The NDS is fantastic, you have a real treat in store.

Bert, the real challenge with ripping is the consistency of the meta data. dBpoweramp gives you a lot of control here. my suggestion is rip 30 or 40 discs with a consistent use of metadata, ie recording date, naming of multiple CDs, naming of compilation tracks, genres and styles. Live with it for a month. One you are happy and you have set your house rules, then go for the blitz.

I initially ripped to WAV, but since using Asset upnp server, I have found no issue or sonic challange in live transcoding and I rip new discs to FLAC (5) now, and transcode to WAV.

Congratulations on the imminent NDS. You're in for a huge treat and I look forward to hearing how it develops. The golden rule is running a fast and stable server. I am in the fortunate position to run an HDX, so the NDS gets on with it real fine. I use dBpoweramp for all the tagging of files I haven't ripped. And I stick to WAV only. Presentation of my music, at its various resolutions, from its various sources (ripped by HDX, downloaded and home ripped DVDs and BDs) and in various shares is presented seamlessly in nStream and the operation of the system is clunk free.

dBpoweramp will let you rip to a number of formats simultaneously.  I rip (using an iMac) to low compression FLAC, WAV and AIFF (for potential loading into iTunes for portable listening). Files are stored on Synology NAS.  I use JRiver Media Centre to tweak the metadata and n-Stream to control my new ND5, (which along with a HiCap/NPSAC upgrade, I am delighted with), although I can control the ND5 with JRiver or JRemote if I leave the Mac running.  I find it is very important to re-index the media files on the Synology NAS (using the Synology utilities) after a JR metadata session or n-Stream will produce very random and unpredictable results.

Absolutely agree with Simon-in-S, live with your metadata for a bit. See how files appear in searches and lists, and whether or not you can find favourite albums.  A consistent approach to Artist and Album Artist can make all the difference, although compilations can still be tricky. If you don't want lots of single-track albums set Artist to 'Various Artists' and make sure Album Artist and/or Composer are filled in correctly. Experiment with different rips of the same CD and observe the results. Get the rips as close as you can and then finesse with something like JRiver.  If you are using and 'album - artist - track' filename structure you can also put illegal characters back into the metadata, such as colons. For example I get different filename results (and hence different metadata) with WAVs and FLACs as they each have slightly different rules regarding illegal characters.

I prefer FLACs as they can be embedded with more metadata than WAVs. With FLACs as your master archive you can't go far wrong.

Really good advice to do 30 - 40 then test.

There are 2 aspects of the metadata I find tricky: genres and albums.

- Genre's - I would take a look at your collection and decide how you want to categorize your genres.  The metadata that dpPoweramp sucks in from the 'net comes from various sources, and is mostly user-contributed.  So, people tag a solo piano disc very differently: Classical, Chamber, Klavier, Piano, etc. Likewise "Alternative" could be Pop/Alternative, Grunge, Alt. Pop, etc. Record labels are also terrible at being constant with the metadata they contribute. I find Genres my favorite way to browse my collection and create play lists, but it was also the most inconsistent.

- Pay attention to how the software you are going to use (assume N-Stream) looks at Album and Album artist data. I don't use N-Stream, but somehow, the first time I ripped Sgt. Peppers it got split into 2 albums, with the George Harrison tracks looking like another album when I browse by Artist using several different apps. This  means you can't play it straight through as an album. See what Artist tag is being used to browse by artist, and be sure you group the album together.

If you have a lot of classical, its especially tricky. Decide if you want the artist to be the ensemble, soloist, Orchestra, conductor, etc. Also pay attention to track names, some will start with something like "London Symphony Orchestra plays Ravel - IX. Bolero - Adagio in…" in which case, you'll only be able to see "London Symphony Orche…." when you are viewing the tracks. 

Bottom line, its worth the time to do it right, even if it takes you a year + to rip your collection. You'll enjoy re-discovering your music as you do it.  Also, pick some system for marking your CDs as you rip, or just go in order.

Completely agree with all of mutterback's post.

Genre is particularly difficult, and I must admit there are albums that i struggle to classify.  Develop your own system based on how you want to search.

I will sometimes choose to deliberately split an album into two in order to separate, for example, Elgar Enigma Variations from Holst's Planets, which had different orchestras, same conductor on the one CD.  JRiver etc. will let you create all manner of bespoke searches, but n-Stream relies much more on what comes straight off the NAS and the embedded metadata.

In a nutshell, always review the metadata before you rip.

I am now enjoying the process and rediscovering my music collection.

Another quick example: I have a large number of CDs collected over the years that were given away with Mojo Magazine. They contain many classic tracks from many genres that would be hard for me to accumulate without obtaining a serious number of CDs. If I rip them as a compilation of 'various artists' I don't end up with multiple albums when organising by album, but I can still search for, or organise by, individual artists.  However, it's still a case of suck it and see, so don't be surprised by surprises!

Hey Bert,

Wow, .... NDS !! ..... I wish yoou lots of music-fun. It is a marvellous machine and you will enjoy it. As long as you do not stop posting in "What are you currently listening-thread", because a "steal" a lot of your suggestions :-)

All the above comments apply and are from very experienced forum-members here. The only thing you might want to add is to install a media-management-tool for additional tagging after you have ripped with DbPoweramp. I use MediaMonkey, but there are alternatives. DbPowerAmp does the basic-tagging, but if you want to do additional (especially applying with the Classical music you love) tagging for composers, genre, groupings, ranking etc ... ,such a tool is worth considering. They are in most cases free to use.

Cheers and keep us posted (!!) on your NDS experiences

Iver

I did the same about a month ago. I strongly recommend you to buy a batch ripper e.g. http://www.acronova.com/brand/nimbie.html 

Use it with dbpoweramp batch ripping SW which is built in: http://www.acronova.com/produc...21/9/compatible.html 

When ripping done you can keep/borrow/sell it.

IMO rip it to flac or flac & wav. In dbpoweramp there are flac compression levels 0-8 but also now uncompressed selection, I used that one.

Thanks all for the valuable advises - this definitely will help me get started with the daunting task. Besides the advises about the way of ripping, two do stick out to me:

• Start with 30/40 and get some experience
• And the media management tool.

And Iver no worries - I will keep on posting on what I am listening as it is also for me a source of getting to new suggestions. I am just sad that EJ is not posting anymore as he always had a good and fresh view on classical music.

I've been ripping to FLAC compression level 0, but would you recommend I move to uncompressed?  The implication is that level 0 is uncompressed, but i can now see that it isn't.  Strange thing terminology; in most cases 0 means zero!

Quick experiment suggests uncompressed FLACs are between 20% and 50% bigger than level 0, i.e. they are now the same size as an equivalent WAV.  Could have storage implications for 3000 CDs?

So the beast has arrived. And it hasn't been a very successful landing so far. We had quite some problems for setting up the 2nd network and connect it to the 1`st...... And then the brand new NDS showed a error 36....So got now a new one exchanged. So after quite a number of hours I am right now set and started ripping and listening.

Not yet overly impressed. The sound is of course still going in a number of directions. Bass is still a bit different. It can't yet beat the engagement level of the old combination - but of course it first needs a long run in with the new 555PS DR and the new NDS and the still pretty new 552...... So let's play and rip some music.......

After a couple of hours the total thing started to evolve and I had a nice evening with my new NDS. Now I am ripping and ripping. Will give a status update on sound etc by the end of the day.

Bert, I suspect it will take a few weeks to truly settle in from new.

Simon

I wouldn't do much serious listening until it has been on 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. Mine did not really begin to sing for a month.

To Dozey's remark, the results still vary a bit. This morning a great delight with some piano jazz, due jazz type of music. Now listening to Pain of Salvation and a couple of things emerge, in comparison to my old set:

• Imaging already much better;
• Real high much more rounded - nice
• Low much more there, rounded as well
• Treble is the area in which I still find it a bit rough for progressive rock

I guess much to follow while the 555PS DR and the NDS and even the 552 further evolve themselves (552 is only one week older).

Bert,

Congrats on the NDS.

dbPoweramp with Asset is a very good combo. To get Asset to transcode flac to wav you need to go into the manual settings.

If you take the time to get your metadata settings right you with have a fairly easy time browsing your music on the NDS or with nStream. For each music genre you have you should create a profile that makes sense. I sort my classical differently from my rock or jazz.

That said even if you garble up a few discs, Illustrate has another product, PerfectTUNES, that promises to really clean up metadata. I am going to check it out. Spoon @ Illustrate is a very clever programmer. (He even has new RaspberryPI version of Asset.) 

If you have an enormous collection you may want to get a cd drive with an auto-loader. I picked up an Acronova Nimbie to re-rip my collection after I finish ripping it with my UnitiServe. (I am strange that way. I want to see if there is a difference. NAS > US > NDX versus NAS > Asset > NDX.)

Ron

Today a bit of a bad hair day with the NDS. The airiness I had from the first moments is a bit gone now and it sounds not as rounded as it did before. So I guess I am victim of the normal burn in stuff.... But of course one likes to avoid it. I think I soon will rip a refernce CD which will guide me through the journey with deep understanding of what is happening along the ride.

Hi Bert

I've had my NDS just over a month now and its sounds so much better than it did over the Christmas period.  I agree with Ron; I have mine playing random ripped cds all the time (with my 52 on mute) if I'm not in the room.

Just a thought on metadata: at the recommendation of Ian at UHES I made up a set of folders, classical, jazz, modern, spoken word, Irish, Klezma etc (this was in addition to ripping with dbpoweramp on my iMac running windows 7 - BTW I cannot wait for dbpoweramp to be completed for Macs).  This makes browsing my broad genre easier.  I will get round to sub dividing classical and modern stuff later.

I am experimenting with Asset on my QNAP NAS  and am thinking about a Raspberry pi if I get Asset to work for me; in the meantime its Twonky (I've not had too many problems with it).

Happy listening ...