Article: Computer Audiophile CD Ripping Strategy and Methodology

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Rob - Great questions.<br />

<br />

1. FLAC compresses no matter what you do, but setting the compression level to zero offers the least amount of compression.<br />

<br />

2. AIFF should be fine for your working copy since it's working with your media players. <br />

<br />

3. Yes, still use the same settings because the CD is 16/44.1. The mastering was done at 20-bits, but changed to 16 for CD creation.

[markush]

There's still one question:<br />

Will copy protected CDs negatively influence the quality of ripping? Most CDs in my collection don't have one but about 25% do so I am realls concerned.

[kirkmc]

Only a handful of titles were ever copy-protected, and none are sold any more (unless it's old stock). In spite of that, I was able to rip a couple of them on a Mac with no problem.

[JR_Audio]

If you own a CD / DVD drive, which is able to give you the so called C2 errors (for example real Plextor drives, but also some others), than you can run Opti Drive Control (or the former CD-DVD Speed) or if you have a real Plextor you can run PlexTools and scan the CD to see weather you get some C2 Error (correctly named E32) and if yes, then you will have negative sound quality due to copy protection. It depends on the kind of copy protection. With a real Plextor and PlexTools you can even check the E22 error, which are correctable, but gives you an indication about the wellness of your CD, weather it is scratched or finger prints on, etc.<br />

<br />

Juergen<br />

[JR_Audio]

1. There are in total over 2000 different Audio CDs that are copy protected, but mainly top acts from pop and mainstream of major companies.<br />

<br />

2. I am sorry, but in the case that you rip with iTunes, even with error correction “on”, iTunes has absolutely no idea, weather C2 is happening of not.<br />

<br />

Juergen<br />

[mrchan]

Hi Chris,<br />

<br />

After gone through your article, it seems that you hasn't mentioned which playback proramme to be used for WAV and FLAC format. <br />

Pls advise, thx.<br />

<br />

Chan

[hudsondeal]

Chris, I am a neophyte here, though I have an "audiophile" system, e.g., five Sonus Faber speakers, the Linn Unidisk and amplifier, and the AKG 701 headphones (although I must admit have a crush on my new Monster Beats by Dr. Dre!), etc. I've struggled for over a year putting my 1300 classical and soundtrack CDs on iTunes in my Macbook. I sent all of them off to a ripping service a year ago. I was warned in advance the Metadata for classical recordings was a problem, which I already knew based upon my own attempt at ripping them. When the CDs and the external hard drive where returned about 60% of the recordings were completely intact -- thus, for the past year I have been spending many evenings literally hunting down the tracks, cobbling them together, finding artwork, and creating usable files on iTunes. (I could write an article by itself on how I learned to fool iTunes with my searches in order to find the missing recordings!) I am about 90% through the CDs, allowed ripped to Apple Lossless -- sorry! -- but they sound wonderful both through my headphones and my HRT Music Streamer. <br />

<br />

So here are my questions, sorry if they are too sophomoric for this blog.<br />

<br />

1. Is there any solution for getting Metadata for ripping classical music CDs?<br />

<br />

2. I have downloaded the demo model of Amarra and find it improved sound dramatically -- is the Amarra Mini sufficient for my needs?<br />

<br />

3. Here is where I am out of my depth and my question will expose that: Presently I am simply playing my music off my Macbook iTunes connected by firewire to a Seagate external hard drive (yes, it all backed up on another hard drive.) When I look at the your diagram I see you are connected wirelessly to your music source/server through Airport Extreme. It was my understanding that Airport Extreme did satisfy audiophile requirements. What am I missing?<br />

<br />

Thank you for any help you can offer, <br />

<br />

Deal Hudson

[Rick]

Chris,<br />

<br />

How do you enable dbPowerAmp on your Windows machine to write on your Mac drive? Have you formatted your Mac-drive FAT32, did you make a NTFS-partition on it, do you use special software?<br />

<br />

Thanks in advance for your reply.<br />

<br />

Rick

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Rick - I just share the drive over the network and it works no matter what format it's in. I believe the Mac OS X drive is Extended Journaled.

[Rick]

Thx Chris - I use boot camp, dbPowerAmp (Windows 7 32 bits) will not write to the Mac Extended Journalled formatted external drive directly connected to the same MacBook Pro. Maybe the reason is that it's the same computer and not shared over the network like in your case? What would you advise? Buy the Mac Drive software program? Make an NTFS-partition? (I currently use FAT32, but it's too slow and too risky IMO). Sorry to bother you with these questions, but I think your ripping strategy is great and I really want to implement it in my set-up! <br />

<br />

Rick

[MusicTrax]

After trying various Windows programs on the Mac, I finally decided that neither Boot Camp nor Parallels did what I needed to do. Ultimately, nothing was better than just buying a cheap (under $300) PC and just using that with the same monitor I use for the Mac.<br />

<br />

To use the Windows side, I just switch my monitor over to the PC, dismount the drive from the Mac, mount the drive on the PC, and fire up whatever Windows programs I need to process the files.<br />

<br />

I use dBPowerAmp for ripping, and Tag & Rename (from Softpointer.com) to handle all the metadata. Tag & Rename has 1000 more features than iTunes, and will work with Apple Lossless, FLAC, MP3, AAC, whatever you have. <br />

<br />

I do run MediaFour's MacDrive in order to read Mac drives on the PC. I've had no problem formatting even 2TB drives as FAT32, and they read and right fine. But I take the precaution of making at least two backup drives in the vent of failure.

[fpalm69]

Excellent ripping guide! Here's my question:<br />

<br />

Will using a USB external hard drive for primary playback instead on my laptop's limitied interanl drive be detrimental to sound quality? <br />

<br />

In your ripping guide you recommend using the server computer's internal hard drive but my laptop has a rather small hard drive (80GB) so I would like to use a larger ext. drive to play from. Optimal sound quality is my goal. Am I causing problems for myself?<br />

<br />

Thanks.....Frank

[kirkmc]

Is there any reason to rip mono discs (in this case, the Beatles set) in stereo? I've heard some say that it sounds better than pure mono, but I don't see how that is possible.

[ldolse]

At least all the ones I've listened to are... They just duplicate the same track across both the right and the left channels. The main benefit I would see is that it gets rid of the distraction of a speaker actually seeming to be the sound source, hanging it between the two where most users expect to hear it.

[hagar]

Nice article chris, Im a windows user. Ive bin hooked on Itunes for about 7yrs now.But after reading some of the articles on this site.Ive been missing out on some better pc sounding music.I started re-ripping my 2000 cds to aiff with dbpower amp and listening to in j river media center, I think it sounds alot better.Im new to db poweramp and was wondering about the dsp settings. Ive just been using replay gain for now when ripping.What settings do you suggest. Do this settings permentaly alter the sound quality of the rip.Or just add Data or info to the file for dsp supported players to use.Ive looked around for that kind of info but cant really find out.If I use replay gain on dbamp will a media player still be able to normalize track if if I check that option. Id hate to rerip these cds a third time.Thanks for a great web site i learned alot from reading posts on here.

[d.rey]

Chris, thank you very much for the most comprehensive and useful ripping monograph I've come across.<br />

<br />

I was wondering if anybody has any experience with, or advice about, audiophile-quality ripping services providing bit-for-bit rips. Any experience with or comments about www.musicshifter.com, www.readytoplay.com, www.readytoplaysecure.com, or www.getdigitalinc.com?<br />

<br />

Daniel.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Daniel - Here is my review of Get Digital Data<br />

<br />

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Ripping-CDs-Style-GD3-Review

[JR_Audio]

I personally rip with dbPoweramp just straight, without any dsp enabled, so I can’t tell you, whether dbPoweramp does only write an information about replay gain in the tag field or does change the audio data.<br />

<br />

For background listening, I use the “analyze Audio” (in library) and “replay Gain” (in playback dsp) both in JRMC. This doesn’t change the audio data, so with “replay gain” on / off, I can chose between background listening and serious listening.<br />

<br />

PS: Normalize Audio does not work so well, because it does make higher compressed music louder than more dynamic music, so replay gain in analyze audio does work better, not perfect, but better (and only for background music).<br />

<br />

Juergen<br />

[Forehaven]

Chris, great writeup! But I was wondering what software to use when I need to create a new Working Music drive of AIFFs from the FLAC files on the Archival drive? I see dbpoweramp has a "Music Converter" program...something like that?<br />

<br />

Chris

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chris - Two ways to accomplish this.<br />

<br />

1. Rip to FLAC and AIFF at the same time with dBpoweramp.<br />

2. Use dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert all the FLAC files at one time.

[Forehaven]

I thought so, Thanks Chris! (kinda a pain to use a pc for only mac usage, but the conveniance factor offered by dbpoweramp is huge) One other thing Chris? Since I am not going to use this pc as server, only to rip, (and only 55gig HD), do I have to rip something onto the pc as well as to my mac drives? If so, than I guess I could do mp3 on this for space?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chris - No you don't need to rip anything on to the PC is you don't want.

[Forehaven]

Great, Thanks Chris. I'm setting up dbpoweramp now, so I really appreciate the write up and instructions for dummies like me <br />

<br />

Chris

[Forehaven]

Chris, just to update you, I kept fooling around with every option/preferences and finally got the network drive to be seen. I've been ripping everyday since to the FLAC drive and AIFF drive with no problem.<br />

<br />

Btw, there's a plug in for the Music Converter that moves the .jpg album cover in the FLAC folder to your new folder with the newly converted AIFF/WAV whatever folder. Without the plugin, there's no album art converted.<br />

<br />

Thanks for all the help Chris, and dbpoweramp's forum getting the kinks worked out. Once setup and working, you're right, it's a great way to rip.<br />

<br />

Chris

[The Computer Audiophile]

Great to hear Chris. I'm glad you stuck to it :~)