dbpoweramp or?

[diver110]

At home I listen to CDs. On the road I have just begun migrating to headphones, a headphone amp, with music stored on my MBP running windows. I ripped my CD's using dbpoweramp. How is it for playback? Something better?

[StephenJK]

At home I listen to CDs. On the road I have just begun migrating to headphones, a headphone amp, with music stored on my MBP running windows. I ripped my CD's using dbpoweramp. How is it for playback? Something better?

 

I wouldn't expect dBpoweramp to have any affect on the sound, unless you're talking about using different file formats. There have long been debates over which file format sounds better, but I think a lot of us are now agreed that any lossless format is preferable and that any lossless format can be converted to another with no loss of information.

 

The big appeal of dBpoweramp for ripping CD's is that it does what they call AccurateRip, where your files are compared to an online database to see if the results are without any errors.

 

It's a big deal and very important. Without AccurateRip you would have to play every album that you ripped to ensure that the transfer was without dropouts or errors.

 

Pick a lossless file format that you like. I use FLAC with the default level 5 compression. I don't use any additional filters or enhancements of any kind.

 

What is important is how you use the ability of dBpoweramp or any other program to tag and organize your files. I use:

 

Album Artist/Album/Track No. - Artist - Track Title.

 

If for example, Lou Reed with Coney Island Baby that would give you Reed, Lou/Coney Island Baby/01 - Lou Reed - Crazy Feeling

 

That gives you the ability to sort by Album Artist or Artist. The only thing you need to do is to make the separate fields for Artist and Album Artist are the way you want them.

 

With this you can sort the folders on your PC by Album Artist alphabetically but still have the choice of using Artist with your playback software if you so choose. I don't mean to dwell on this but many of us ripped over 500 CD's and then did them again because the tagging was incomplete or wrong or the file format was a lossy type to save space.

 

Let us know how things go for you.