ripping NYAR "reference tracks" CDs

[Packfill]

So I've started the process of ripping my CD collection.  It will take a while.
I'm using the squeezebox touch as my front end.  Using iPeng to control it on my iPhone and have an iPad2 on order.  Using my PC to rip with an internal and external backup 2TB drives.   My ripping software is dBpoweramp.  Creating AIFF files.

The squeezebox touch is the greatest value in digital audio if not in all of audio.  This $300 product made by a consumer electronics company would cost $2000 if made by a traditional audio company.  The plug-ins take it to another level--I can see lyrics, bios, and reviews while listening to a song.  FWIW, I think Sooloos, Olive, Linn, PS Audio etc are dead men walking in this "space".  (Unfortunately, I'm not sure if a "high end" DAC will ever be made by a consumer electronics company given its limited market.  So that's a $2000 savings we won't see.)  The squeezebox internal DAC is good.  But to squeeze out that last marginal goodness you have to spring for a separate DAC.  But still it beats the aforementioned companys' bundled products where you are paying a fortune for commodity storage and their interface.

dBpoweramp is way better than iTunes for ripping--much faster, and more metadata and encoding options.  yes its $40.  pay it.

For custom CDs you have to enter your own metadata.
Hence my delight--and the real impetus for this posting--to see that the metadata for NYAR "reference tracks" years 2006 and 2007 had already been uploaded to freedb (one of the 4 sources that dBpoweramp uses).  Thanks to whoever did that!!  any interest in doing 2008,2009?  I haven't figured out how to upload to freedb yet.

Thanks again to Chris, and the contributors, for the compilations in years past.  
Was there a 2010 reference CD?

cheers
Robert

[mfsoa]

And if I may add on to your query - Is there a way to get the metadata after you have something ripped by dBpoweramp?  (like if the data for the last 2 Rave discs appears, as you say)

I have a bunch of stuff w/ no album art because my subscription to whatever service ran out. I though meh, why do I want album art?  But then I re-upped for the service and if there's an easy way to use dB to "ask" for the album art after the fact, maybe I'll start doing so.

Ideas?

[mgalusha]

Hence my delight--and the real impetus for this posting--to see that the metadata for NYAR "reference tracks" years 2006 and 2007 had already been uploaded to freedb (one of the 4 sources that dBpoweramp uses).  Thanks to whoever did that!!  any interest in doing 2008,2009?  

Not sure if anyone else submitted it but I did, figured it would help someone eventually.

[mgalusha]

And if I may add on to your query - Is there a way to get the metadata after you have something ripped by dBpoweramp?  (like if the data for the last 2 Rave discs appears, as you say)

I have a bunch of stuff w/ no album art because my subscription to whatever service ran out. I though meh, why do I want album art?  But then I re-upped for the service and if there's an easy way to use dB to "ask" for the album art after the fact, maybe I'll start doing so.

Ideas?

I use mp3tag and just query Amazon for the album, drag the art to my desktop and then use mp3tag to add it to the tracks. Free, works well and doesn't take long.

[lonewolfny42]

Robert...

Was there a 2010 reference CD?

No....I took the year off...but there will be one for Oct. 2011....


Mike....

Not sure if anyone else submitted it but I did, figured it would help someone eventually.

Thanks Mike....

[mdconnelly]

dbPowerAmp is very good for ripping and tagging and definitely worth the price.  But for those stringy like me,  EAC (free) has always been an exceptional ripper that now can lookup up album art as well and handles all initial tagging if the album is already on file.   I use EAC on initial rip and it now gets me 98% of what I need.   In cases, where I still need to set or update tags or album art, I followup with MediaMonkey.   

MediaMonkey also provides a great way to do on-the-fly flac-to-mp3 down-convert and sync with my iPhone.  Personally, I think it beats the pants off managing this with iTunes (but, to be honest, I haven't checked out the later versions of iTunes for managing music).

[rollo]

Robert...

Was there a 2010 reference CD?

No....I took the year off...but there will be one for Oct. 2011....


Mike....

Not sure if anyone else submitted it but I did, figured it would help someone eventually.

Thanks Mike....

   Thats a bummer. I am still enjoying the discs you made for me for the Rave. All six of them. The cuts selected are great and the time you took priceless. Chris thanks again for dong this. No one does it better. Again we can't thank you enough.



charles

[evan1]

Robert...

Was there a 2010 reference CD?

No....I took the year off...but there will be one for Oct. 2011....


Mike....

Not sure if anyone else submitted it but I did, figured it would help someone eventually.

Thanks Mike....

I think they coincide with RMAF

[Packfill]

And if I may add on to your query - Is there a way to get the metadata after you have something ripped by dBpoweramp?  (like if the data for the last 2 Rave discs appears, as you say)

I have a bunch of stuff w/ no album art because my subscription to whatever service ran out. I though meh, why do I want album art?  But then I re-upped for the service and if there's an easy way to use dB to "ask" for the album art after the fact, maybe I'll start doing so.

Ideas?

Using windows explorer, with dBpoweramp installed, you can right click on a track and edit the ID tags.  I don't know about downloading metadata but the program will go out to the internet and find the album art if you have the album and artist fields filled in.  Just select the cover from the choices provided and you are done. This is easier than finding the art somewhere else, copying or saving it, and then pasting it into your file. For doing a whole album of tracks, select all the tracks before right clicking on the mouse.  That way you can add the album art to all the tracks at once. 

dB has a free trial if you want to give it a shot.  (I will admit that like most programs these days there is no great instruction manual.  Send me a PM if you want to discuss further and we can connect by phone.)

[ua100k]

MediaMonkey also provides a great way to do on-the-fly flac-to-mp3 down-convert and sync with my iPhone.  Personally, I think it beats the pants off managing this with iTunes (but, to be honest, I haven't checked out the later versions of iTunes for managing music).

A few experiences I have found. Please confirm if this true or just my mistake.

I tried saving everything to the highest resolution of each type - FLAC, Aliff, MP3 etc. I found that WAV was the only one that would actually convert to the other formats without loss of information. Even when using lossless FLAC to WAV, the sound was quite bad.

Since Disks are so cheap, I store everything in WAV and convert to the appropriate formats for iphone, mpe3(car), CD (Wav) and flac for fun. My car will will FLAC but only the lower sized files. It seems to a conversion/CPU issue.

I also found Media Monkey very good and it can run of the NAS drives with the data on the NAS for multiple system to access. It will sync ipod, iphone, USB and do conversions without problems. Plus it is cheap - $40. The ASIO driver is free.

[mdconnelly]

MediaMonkey also provides a great way to do on-the-fly flac-to-mp3 down-convert and sync with my iPhone.  Personally, I think it beats the pants off managing this with iTunes (but, to be honest, I haven't checked out the later versions of iTunes for managing music).

A few experiences I have found. Please confirm if this true or just my mistake.

I tried saving everything to the highest resolution of each type - FLAC, Aliff, MP3 etc. I found that WAV was the only one that would actually convert to the other formats without loss of information. Even when using lossless FLAC to WAV, the sound was quite bad.
...

Wow, that surprises me and not my experience although I can't say I've done much in the way of comparing.  WAV and FLAC are both lossless so assuming they stay so (e.g. no going from FLAC to MP3 to WAV), bad sound can't be related to the WAV or FLAC file itself, but rather to whatever is playing it back.    This has me scratching my head.

[ua100k]

I have someone else also telling me that converting FLAC to WAV does not produce good sound. As you have said perhaps Media Monkey does not do well in converting FLAC to WAV or there may be some technical issues in converting from FLAC to WAV.

Perhaps the kind folks in the forum could try the conversion from CD to FLAC to WAV to see if there is sound degradation. It would be good to see if this is software application related or format related or just operator error - mine.

[richidoo]

FLAC is a lossless file format. When the flac is decoded the resulting new WAV file is identical to the original WAV file used to make the FLAC. Flac has internal measures to ensure this.

From flac.sourceforge.net:
"Lossless: The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing."

It is my opinion that decoding flac files on a consumer player increases the jitter at the D>A chip. If you remove jitter before D>A conversion then the (lossless) file format of the data source is irrelevant. On Logitech players using a PC based server you can do the flac decoding on the PC and stream PCM to the player which removes the problem of increasing jitter by decoding on the player. There is still jitter created on the player, but not the additional amount from local decoding.

[mfsoa]

I wonder how the buffering happens in the SB Touch (for example)-

If you send a FLAC file to the buffer, when does it convert it to WAV?

If done at the last instant before the internal DAC chip, or before being sent to the digital output, I could see more chance of jitter than if it converts immediately, then sits around in the buffer as a WAV file for a few seconds before D/A conversion.

Likewise, FLAC converted on the server to WAV prior to being sent to the Touch buffer has a higher chance of being the same as a native WAV file. Maybe?

Just a wild thought - I have all WAV, except for FLAC files downloaded from hi-rez sites.
-Mike

[AcidJazz]

Sooooo....opinions and theories aside...
Has anyone actually done the conversion, WAV>Flac>WAV, and compared the modified music file with the original?
Jus' curious...