Best way to rip my CDs to a lossless format?

[Agent]

Then,why have they included an uncompressed option if it makes no difference(I understand what you mean as lossless encoding would mean lossless decoding during playback)?? Is it to reduce processing overhead on weaker systems??

I think it's just for completeness. There is no point to it whatsoever, .wav would make much more sense - I can't imagine there's a system out there that supports FLAC but not WAV.

Wav is limited to <4Gb due to the way the header is encoded. This can easily be an issue if you're working with uncompressed / long / high frequency data.

It's also actually proprietary (Microsoft & IBM), even though it's easy to use and you can easily make a program to read and write them. Doesn't make it any less 'clean' though if you want to start using it in your programs (patents anyone?)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I will go for the level 8 FLAC files,since they seem to be the smallest,and encoding speed seems to be not an issue either.

[Funkstar]

These days Level 8 should be fine. There has been issues in the past with some payback systems not liking Level 8 encoding. I remember this from when I was following the Squeezebox forums regularly, they had processing issues with Level 8 material, especially at high bit rate and sample rates (24bit 48KHz and above), but this is with downloaded material rather than rips. These issues have sincce been rectified.

All mine are Level 8 FLACs. I saved about 15GB moving my whole collection from Level 3-5 and an older version of FLAC to Level 8 and 1.1 I think it was at the time, whichever version brought a new encoding scheme that introduced the possibility of breaking backwards compatibility in the future.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have been looking at various media jukeboxes. I actually do like the interface of iTunes,but it is bloated and MediaMonkey seems a tad rough. However,I actually settled on foobar2000:

http://www.foobar2000.org/FAQ

It is more basic,but quite lightweight and supports WASAPI too. With WASAPI it did sound a bit cleaner(maybe its my ears deceiving me?).

I am going to try this skin for it:

http://foo-nation.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2ngroi

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

After trying a few skins these seemed to be the ones I liked:

http://arnie77.deviantart.com/art/Nu...24533224&qo=20

http://matthijsb.deviantart.com/art/...24533224&qo=18

[g8ina]

so, no other fans of my Easy CDDA Extractor then ? Must say I am a tad surprised

Gonna do some tests today to see how it stacks up against the others you've been testing.

[kalniel]

so, no other fans of my Easy CDDA Extractor then ? Must say I am a tad surprised

Well it's very expensive!

[g8ina]

Blimey, just checked and it is isnt it !!

I have the lifetime upgrades and only paid 15 quid for it wayyyyyy back.

mind you, there is also a free 30 day trial, of this

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well if you download the dBpoweramp R14.3 BETA,it only expires in September!

[Pob255]

Granted I'm not a big enough audiophile to bother with lossless formats, but I use freeRIP for mp3's and I know that can do lossless FLAC too http://www.freerip.com/

[Godric]

Ive used Easy CDDA Extractor for several years now, paid but superb.

i am the same as you mate ... used to use audicatalyst on the old windows 98se ... Easy CD DA looks the same layout

[dbbloke]

Urm, if you want good sound quality then mount the cdrom and do an iso image. Quite which program is the best I don't know, but open to suggestions. Then you don't get like 20 layers of converting to flac or dodgy programs in the middle or on playback, missing error correction information etc.. I did ask if Msoft would include as a feature in win8, not actually checked, too busy atm. Easier in a linux VM or something probably.
But if you don't have golden ears or at least 3-5k or best Chinese (better value) hifi or cheap bastard (search) hifi then I would go for flac, seems 98% listenable. In the past I used EAC on account of it's error correction handling. The accurate rip only works if you don't have an obscure collection.

[polar]

i ripped my entire cd collection over about 6 months - i have alot of cds all to FLAC, i then have converted some of them to mp3 for phone use etc, which is very easy using foobar

I used EAC which takes about 30 min a cd - ensure you use test and copy not just copy
I then play on windows with foobar2000 and on ubuntu with exaile

ps: ensure you backup your hard work!

[KrisWragg]

I've ripped a few hundred CD's to FLAC and I've always used EAC as set up correctly it gives the best possible rip, there is an easy to follow guide on hydrogen-audio:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....e=EAC_and_FLAC

Beware of their forums though, lots of audiophiles that like to argue about meaningless things!

[peterb]

I use grip on a Linux box. It is a front end to the command line tools, but uses cdparanoia to do the ripping, which corrects errors in the source.

This rips to a lossless (but large!) file, and a second pass compresses it to the chosen format. I use lame for mp3 (very customiseable).

FLAC and Ogg-vorbis encoders are usually shipped with a distro.

Obviously you should only rip CDs you have purchased and for back-up purposes!

[aidanjt]

Obviously you should only rip CDs you have purchased and for back-up purposes!

Yes, 'backup purposes', *nudge* nudge*