What choices for ripping software Mac

[Jamesroy]

What are my choices for ripping software for Mac. Thanks

[wwaldmanfan]

What are my choices for ripping software for Mac. Thanks

 

There are other programs, but XLD (X-Lossless Decoder) is probably the best one, and it's free.

[Jamesroy]

Thank You so this is better than dBpoweramp that everyone talks about?

[kennyb123]

Thank You so this is better than dBpoweramp that everyone talks about?

 

You get what you pay for. dbPoweramp has a much feature set - particularly in the area of tagging. Try both and see if dbPoweramp is worth the dollars to you.

[Skywatcher]

Qualitywise you'll get the same.

 

Try both. See which one you fancy the most.

[Jamesroy]

You get what you pay for. dbPoweramp has a much feature set - particularly in the area of tagging. Try both and see if dbPoweramp is worth the dollars to you.

I'm a newB on a Mac what is "tagging" I'm still a long way from hoping up because my last item MacBook I haven't bought yet.

[Audio_ELF]

I'm a newB on a Mac what is "tagging" I'm still a long way from hoping up because my last item MacBook I haven't bought yet.

Tagging is adding metadata (information) to your music files such as the artist name, album name and track titles. The basic information is available from sources online and utilised by XLD, but dbPowerAmp has some clever tricks to compare multiple sources to try to ensure the correct information is stored.

[kennyb123]

I'm a newB on a Mac what is "tagging" I'm still a long way from hoping up because my last item MacBook I haven't bought yet.

 

The ripping software identifies the CD and then retrieves information from online databases. This information includes artist name, album name, song names, genre, etct. The ripping software will then write these tags to the files.

 

dbPoweramp has a feature called PerfectMeta. Here's their description:

 

PerfectMeta™ uses 5 meta data providers simultaneously, allowing inevitable spelling mistakes to be corrected. PerfectMeta offers the best metadata solution obtainable today. Many competitors rely on a single provider, which can be sadly lacking, PerfectMeta uses three premium (pay for use) meta providers: All Media Guide, SonataDB (Classical) and GD3, in addition to MusicBrainz and freedb.

 

Part of the license fee covers the cost of the premium providers, which can provide higher quality results.

 

dbPoweramp also allow you to manually grab from any of these providers, so you can pick the results you like best. I've elected to use this a few times.

[Jamesroy]

Tagging is adding metadata (information) to your music files such as the artist name, album name and track titles. The basic information is available from sources online and utilised by XLD, but dbPowerAmp has some clever tricks to compare multiple sources to try to ensure the correct information is stored.

Thank You

[hesson11]

It's just good ole iTunes for me. If there's a difference in sound quality between the original CD and the ripped iTunes version, I sure can't discern it. I've ripped hundreds of CDs without any errors or other problems at all.

 

As a classical listener, I have my own method of tagging (iTunes doesn't really understand classical music), so I tag everything manually without relying on online sources. It all works great for me.

-Bob

[Jamesroy]

Will dBpoweramp have anything to do with sound quality, and while I'm on that subject. After all this and I get improved sound quality when start listen to music thru a HD will it sound any better than my Rotel CD player. I realize that may be a difficult question to answer. At least I will be going thru a good Preamp B&K Reference 5 S2 and a B&K 200.2 S2 Power amp

[Jamesroy]

What is the minimum MacBook Pro or Mac Book air I need? Budget is an issue.

[burnspbesq]

What is the minimum MacBook Pro or Mac Book air I need? Budget is an issue.

 

All current Mac models come out of the box with everything you need to build your music library. I consider 8/256 the minimum acceptable amount of memory, so I would stay away from the base models. I have an 8/512 11' MacBook Air for work and a 8/256 13" MacBook Pro at home.

 

If your music library will take up more than half of your onboard SSD's capacity, plan on an external drive. I have a 4 terabyte G-RAID at home (and a 4 terabyte WD My Book Duo for Time Machine backup) and a 4 terabyte WD My Passport Pro at the office.

[Jamesroy]

All current Mac models come out of the box with everything you need to build your music library. I consider 8/256 the minimum acceptable amount of memory, so I would stay away from the base models. I have an 8/512 11' MacBook Air for work and a 8/256 13" MacBook Pro at home.

 

If your music library will take up more than half of your onboard SSD's capacity, plan on an external drive. I have a 4 terabyte G-RAID at home (and a 4 terabyte WD My Book Duo for Time Machine backup) and a 4 terabyte WD My Passport Pro at the office.

Thanks, I have a 4TB WD external so why can't I just use that to run my music out of in place of an internal HD. And since budget is an issue s a MacBook Air good enough?

[wwaldmanfan]

Thanks, I have a 4TB WD external so why can't I just use that to run my music out of in place of an internal HD. And since budget is an issue s a MacBook Air good enough?

 

Before you pay $899 for a basic 4GB MacBook Air, consider this:

 

The 2012 13" MacBook Pro is still available new from Apple for $1,099. You can also buy a refurb from Apple for $829, or used ones elsewhere. This is a better laptop for audio. Why?

 

The 2012 MBP has a faster processor than the MBA, as well as a larger screen.

 

The 2012 MBP has user-replaceable RAM SIMM's, and can be configured for up to 16GB RAM. The OWC 16GB RAM kit is $155. The MB Air only goes to 8MB RAM ($100 upcharge from Apple), and is not user-replaceable. If you are going to run HQPlayer to upsample your redbook CD rips to 4x DSD, you are going to need more than 4GB RAM.

 

Unlike the MBA, the 2012 MBP has a user-replaceable HDD as well. You could swap out the 500GB HDD for a 60GB SSD from OWC (only $57), or 120GB SSD ($80) which would be super fast, then install the old HDD in an external enclosure kit as a spare backup drive.

 

The 2012 was the last model MBP to have a built-in SuperDrive. Obviously, this is useful for playing, burning, and ripping CD's and audio from concert DVD's. Without it, you need another solution. You could also swap out the SuperDrive and install a second HDD or SSD with a kit from OWC.

 

The 2012 MBP was the last model with FireWire connectivity, as well as USB 3, Thunderbolt, and Ethernet. You do not want to plug your external music drive into the USB bus if you are using USB to output to your DAC, because it can potentialy confuse the signal.

 

Some of us here at CA like MacBook Pro's. The hardcore purists prefer Mac Mini's, but the laptop gives you a self-contained server with no need for remote control devices or apps, wifi, bluetooth, IR, external monitor, keyboard, or mouse. It can run off its battery, while bus-powering an external drive, so no need for AC power at all, which can be advantageous for a number of reasons.

[Jamesroy]

Thanks very much for the great tip. So what your saying is if I use the ifi nano iDSD then don't connect an external HD, I bought at Best Buy a independent LG Slim Portable DVD writer. I had to because in my 2009 Mac Pro tower super drive isn't so super any more going bad. Making much noise and this is the second one i Put in. In my tower I'm very confident in swaping out HD's and ram but have no experience with a book doing the same. After all this reading I thought I would be playing music out of an external HD and just using the Book and iTunes to manage music play lists and stuff.

[Jamesroy]

If I'm going to use my Mac Pro Main computer with: 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon and 12 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC to do all ripping and other stuff you guys have told me about then why do I need 8GB ram in the MacBook?

[wwaldmanfan]

Thanks very much for the great tip. So what your saying is if I use the ifi nano iDSD then don't connect an external HD, I bought at Best Buy a independent LG Slim Portable DVD writer. I had to because in my 2009 Mac Pro tower super drive isn't so super any more going bad. Making much noise and this is the second one i Put in. In my tower I'm very confident in swaping out HD's and ram but have no experience with a book doing the same. After all this reading I thought I would be playing music out of an external HD and just using the Book and iTunes to manage music play lists and stuff.

 

I'm assuming your external HDD is USB, since you haven't said otherwise. And, the nano iDSD can only be connected by USB. It's not that you can't have two USB devices connected, you can, it's just not the best way to do it. Some folks here are very fussy about things like this ;>) Others, less so.

Don't worry, there are a number of workarounds. If you add additional RAM, you can create a RAM disk, and copy many hours worth of music files to the RAM disk from the external drive, then unmount the external drive. Or, copy files to the internal SATA drive(s). Or copy files to an SD card, and play them from that. Lots of folks here do that. This way, your external USB drive can remain plugged in, but, since it won't actually be transferring data through the USB bus during playback, it won't have much effect on SQ, if any.

 

As far as changing RAM SIMMS or internal drives in an older MBP, believe me, it is very simple. Other World Computing, and others, have YouTube videos on how to do it.

 

As I said before, if you are just going to play files through the laptop at basic resolution, you can probably squeak by with 4GB RAM. On the other hand, you have a very fancy DAC. Why not utilize its state-of-the-art capabilities? This means a music player app like HQPlayer or Audirvana that can upsample to 384kHz PCM or DSD in real time, and that requires processing power.

 

When I bought my first Mac IIvx CPU (4MB RAM/80MB HDD, $2,199), an extra 16 MEGABYTES of RAM was $800. And, twenty years ago, that was real money! Now, you can buy 16 GIGABYTES of RAM for $150. RAM and storage drives are cheap.