In What Format Should I Rip My Music?

You never should "resample". In other words : a digital carrier like a CD just *has* a sample rate. For a CD this is 44100, and you should just leave it be hence "copy".<br />

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Things *can* be gained by resampling, but or this is done real time during playback, or it is done off line by good resampler software. iTunes for sure is not that.<br />

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So, don't worry, and just use the sample rate as it is on the medium.<br />

Btw, for DVD this is 48KHz (might you come to ripping those).<br />

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HTH<br />

Peter<br />

I have read several threads that discuss "resampling"/ "upsampling" and it is always a very techie. o/i kind of rap. So a friendly challenge to our fine, astute techie brethren, would be for someone with some patience, and a desire to reach a larger audience, please give us music lovers/semi techies a layman's walk through the world of o/i's in regard to this topic. eternal thanks. or links to non techie articles elsewhere would also suffice.

Whatever anyone or theory says, implementation is everything. I know the Benchmark Media website has some technical discussion as to why they resample to approximately 110kHz. It is largely based on finding the optimum and sweet spot for their approach, design and chips that they use.<br />

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Similarly you will find discussions elsewhere as to why the more mature 24/96 designs are superior to the higher spec, but less mature 24/192 DACs. You will also find discussions as to why non-oversampling DACs is the way to go.<br />

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Where the resampling or upsampling occurs is also important. And whether the DAC manufacturer will detail where this occurs in his DAC can also be a mystery or proprietary secret.<br />

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Generalizations can often lead one to erroneous conclusions and decisions. I was reading one of the high rez debates and I decided to play a recently purchased Telarc DSD SACD and an Eloquence Redbook CD. The Eloquence CD was excellent while the Telarc was ho-hum. That said, some of my other excellent albums are Telarc DSD SACDs.<br />

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As much as I enjoy the high rez offerings from Reference Recordings or Kent Poon, the lower rez albums of the same material are still pretty good. So if your quest is to find the best DAC, make a short list of whatever you’re willing to spend and evaluate by listening to them.<br />

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Technical discussions, debates and hype often make interesting reading. But when it comes to computer audio, we are just in its infancy with much room for growth and many barriers and theories to be shattered.<br />

Well put Zorro. Implementation is everything.

I originally chose AIFF since my original plan was to use my MacBook Pro laptop. iTunes on a Mac is easy to use, flexible and works so well.<br />

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I have since added two XP dedicated music servers and one Vista 64 part-time music server. Why? Because the CA “Audiophile Reference Music Server For A Song” was too cheap to resist (first XP music server). Then in my quest to evaluate audio players I found XXHighEnd that requires Vista to sound its best (Vista music server). Finally I stumbled onto cMP/cPlay that originally I thought too difficult but later realized that it wasn’t that bad (second XP music server).<br />

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I have tried the gamut of players (either full version or demo) including iTunes, Play, Cog, MediaMonkey, JRiver, foobar, Wave Editor, Wavelab, Peak Pro, XXHighEnd, Amarra and cMP/cPlay.<br />

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I have come to the conclusion that for me the WAV format is the best since it’s universal and everything seems to work with it. My FLAC files that I downloaded from Linn Records had to be converted to AIFF using Max since Mac computers do not support FLAC files without an unfamiliar third party plug-in. Likewise some of the Windows players do not support AIFF. But everything seems to work with WAV files.<br />

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So now I use dBPoweramp to rip my CDs to WAV files and get my album artwork. I use CPlayListEditor to create cue sheets that can contain all the information that anyone could want.<br />

Thanks for the info Zorro. It's pretty cool you've tried all these combinations and came to your own conclusion on what works best for you. Very cool.

I remain skeptical about the claims made on behalf of (never by the creators of, you'll notice) dedicated ripping tools. <br />

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Let's consider what can go wrong with a rip: clearly, at the scales and tolerances we're working to pull zeros and ones from more or less reflective pits in a CD's surface, read errors will occur. Better quality drives will have a better hit rate, naturally, but nothing's perfect. Hence error correction. EFM, C1 and C2 checks are implemented on almost all machines to ensure your spreadsheets don't mysteriously reprogram themselves when you de-archive them from optical media. EAC and dbpoweramp simply add Secure Mode error checking and (optionally) post-rip verification to double check - and no doubt, sometimes, improve on the accuracy of the rip.<br />

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Consider what happens with you 'rip' (open) a photo stored on CD in Photoshop. Data is read, checksums calculate, and you end up with a perfect facsimile of the TIFF in memory. If the disc is damaged, or insurmountable read errors occur, there might be problems. But what problems, exactly? If the header file is scrambled, the whole image may be rendered unreadable. If an error occurs in the main data section, you might conceivably get a pixel that randomly switches colour. I've never seen (or perhaps been aware of?)) this happen in many years (terabytes) of digital photography.<br />

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The point is that these are binary changes. What is implied by some users (going far beyond the claims made by EAC or dbpoweramp) is that somehow the ripping process globally alters the characteristics of the file - systematically. An exact analogue in photography terms would be that a TIFF read from CD looked less sharp, or intangibly less evocative - or 'real' - than one read from the HD. Unless you fail to save the colour profile with an image, it's just not possible for a non-random 'purposeful' change like this to take place.<br />

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What is possible, and what I can hear clearly, auditioning back six or seven years or rips made using all sorts of hardware and software in all kinds of formats coralled by iTunes, are occasional discrete errors: dropouts, clicks and glitches. No surprises: they sound like a CD skipping! Sometimes these imperfections are extremely transient; others are more audible; no doubt some are undetectable: too brief, or hidden in silence. Perhaps EAC or dbpoweramp would have reconstructed the data better than iTunes; perhaps not. <br />

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The second point here is that if you're serious about your music, you're not going to be using some Mickey Mouse tool to do such an important job, and iTunes, EAC and dbpoweramp all have 'better than firmware' error correction aimed at minimising glitches. They will not impart some magical lustre that other rippers won't.<br />

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However, what really, really DOES matter is playback. When it comes to audible characteristics, operating systems differ, playback software differs, methods of volume control differ, drivers differ, PCs differ, and formats differ. I'm not convinced that the storage medium matters per se, but it could impact acoustically in certain setups.<br />

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In order to provide the most level playing field for tests we've been running over the last six months, we've standardised on a high quality USB DAC (Burson op-amps, dedicated off-board PSU) and auditioned just about every file format, operating system, playback utility and driver we can lay hands on using very revealing amps/speakers (currently Adam P11A + Sub 8 studio equipment). And we've used four different hardware platforms. No resampling or upsampling; just straight dope 16/44.1. <br />

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The bottom line is that the most informative, neutral and across-the-board truthful setup we've heard on a realistic budget (Amarra not tested!) is Single Core Intel Atom + Linux Ubuntu + ALSA + Songbird + AIFF. Anything else sounds worse.<br />

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With a USB DAC, nothing under Windows XP or Vista is as sweet or detailed at the top end (ASIO, WASAPI, DirectSound 2, Fubar, (all versions), MediaMonkey, etc). iTunes has a boomy lower mid-range and is slightly forward, however you set it up. MacBooks sound better than Mac Minis running OS-X. But the streamlined nature of Linux, and the super-efficient, cool running Atom (no fans, please), combined with the inherently jitter-free nature of AIFF compared to 'code-on-the-fly' FLACs and ALACs is close to perfect. Why Songbird sounds so nice compared, for instance, to Banshee, is a mystery to me, but months of auditioning for us has all ended up pointing in one direction: less is best. Start with a small processor, use the leanest OS, and don't mess with the file while you're playing it. QED.<br />

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And if you haven't got glitches, your rip is almost certainly perfect, however you acquired it. I use EAC, incidentally!

After finding hi res (24/96) music downloads (FLAC from Linn) I needed a way to listen to them on my Mac. No app allowed me to do so. So I tried a conversion to ALAC with XLD.app. And hey: There is a conversion setting in XLD to use the original file's sampling rate. And the ALAC files I got are played perfectly fine in iTunes and sound absolutely great.<br />

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As I have no idea about the background of this all, I wonder if both iTunes and my iMac's hardware support 24/96 at all - and if there are any losses between the Mac and my preamp. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But at least I have managed to listen to hi def audio files. :-)<br />

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Peter<br />

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http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html<br />

http://www.linnrecords.com/<br />

http://www.hdtracks.com/

Hi phunge,<br />

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can I get a copy of your media player.<br />

Can it buffer an entire album in wav format to ram, or at least an entire track in wav format.<br />

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Regards

Hi phunge,<br />

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can I get a copy of your media player.<br />

Can it buffer an entire album in wav format to ram, or at least an entire track in wav format.<br />

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Regards

Hi Chris and everyone else in this thread,<br />

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I just found this site like an hour ago and already gained a lot of knowledge, best of all this knowledge seems to come without the usual (or so it seems) "audiophile attitude" that I seem to bump into on other sites. I'm only sorry I didn't find you before. Right now I only wanted to express my gratitude and go on reading the rest of this site. I'm sure I'm going to ask questions later, but first let's find out if they're already answered.<br />

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cheers,<br />

Ruud.

Hi Rudd - Welcome to Computer Audiophile. Glad you like what you've read so far. CA is a laid back site where you shouldn't have to worry too much about getting attitude when you contribute. We all enjoy this wonderful hobby and would like to keep it that way :~)

That was a great explanation of our options in the music ripping world Chris. I took your advice and am using dbPowerAmp to rip and convert. I will be using this app to do my ripping in AIFF. It's simple and quick. I have one question: when choosing bit depth and sample rate, which setting do you recommend? For example, I have been setting the bit depth at 24 bit and the sample rate at 96 kHz. I have been using these settings for the ripping of CD's into my hard drive. I will be running these AIFF files through a Music Hall DAC25.2 via a Kimber USB and on to my 2 channel stereo system. Thanks again for your help.

Dave, is this the case with Media Monkey? I have not been able to play AIFF files through this app. Unless I'm missing something here? Thanks for your advice in advance.

Hi Renerator - I will be posting a follow-up to this article in the near future. Anyway, when ripping CDs I highly recommend only ripping at the exact bit depth and sample rate as the CD. This will be 16/44.1 if it conforms to the Compact Disc standard. Personally I would never rip a CD at anything other than this. <br />

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As far as playing AIFF with MediaMonkey you will need to download the plug-in from the MediaMonkey website. I wish it came standard, but oh well. It works well once installed.<br />

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By the way, is that your dog in the picture? It looks like a MinPin.

I gather from the many discussions above that when ripping a CD one should leave the bit and sample rate at its original rate. That being 16 and 44.1. Is this correct? Thanks

100% correct.

Hi Chris and all, <br />

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can AIFF files be converted to WAV as I downloaded the Jazz Pologue III tracks, played them through foobar and they sound great yet would love to hear if this greatness gets better still through CMP/cplay.<br />

(here's the link to Kent's site for JP III samples:<br />

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http://www.designwsound.com/dwsblog/?page_id=318<br />

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Chris has provided more detail on these recordings and a direct link elsewhere on this site, thanks Chris<br />

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highly recommend the 2L site also:<br />

http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html<br />

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I have only downloaded one track by Ola Gjeilo,(96k Flac), yet it really illustrated the difference in musicality and enjoyment between foobar and cplay/cmp, I much preferred cmp/cplay...like removing a towel or blanket from in front of the microphone. (Yet I still enjoy Foobar, I think it's the yellow screen [display choice I've chosen for foobar], anybody who can create these players deserves some serious respect as do you Chris for creating and sharing such a wonderful site).<br />

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Cmp/cplay will only work with cue sheets derived from FLAC or WAV files as far as I know, please enlighten me If I know not what I say,<br />

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thanks for your help in advance<br />

*man<br />

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I personally find no difference playing FLAC vs uncompressed, but have no argument with those that do. <br />

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I use FLAC for tagging purposes and also because I find it extremely tedious whenever I have to copy a large number of files - the compressed ones just move through the system that much faster.<br />

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But isn't there another option? In dbpoweramp you can make an uncompressed FLAC file, i.e. an uncompressed file in a FLAC "shell".<br />

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You then have the advantage of the tagging compatibility of FLAC, and don't have the disadvantage - if you see it that way - of using your PC to uncompress the file upon playback. If you aren't concerned with file size, that method would seem to give the best of both the worlds of lossless compression and of WAV/AIFF.<br />

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Uncompressed FLAC is a great format that wasn't an option when I wrote this article. I've been using it for a little while and live it. Thanks for bringing it up firedog. <br />

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No longer is FLAC synonymous with compression. <br />

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Why don't you conisder WMP to be a serious audiophile application?

Hi Al - WMP doesn't allow selection of different output modes such as WASAPI, ASIO, WASAPI - Event Style, or Kernel Streaming. These are a must for the best sound quality.<br />

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If you consider yourself an audiophile, one fact we can all agree upon is that you must not use codecs are are lossy!<br />

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I'd guess the community is pretty much in universal agreement on this issue.

... and Mac OS X and iTunes both support all the way up to 192/24 and, no doubt, beyond that as well.<br />

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There are some important considerations when playing music back with iTunes itself. Are you familiar with the "Audio/Midi Setup" utility and how it affects the interactions of iTunes and Core Audio?<br />

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