The way I use Foobar for ripping CDs which are affected by the Loudness War that tend to overload the DAC and create very bad distortions, is to use Graphic EQ in processing with gain set to, let say -2, h3dB, flat EQ, since many of my well recorded audio is lower in levels. This will create copy with lower signal that doesn't hit 0dB in editing software like Adobe Audition, Audacity, Cool Edit, etc. Also Foobar allows to convert DSD files to to other formats such as FLAC, and by default during playback DSD are converted by Foobar to PCM so there is no need for DSD capable USB DAC.
Thanks Hans for the excellent summary of ripping. One thing I might add is to consider cleaning your CD before ripping it. I have often encountered CDs that somehow have accumulated obvious crud on them that should of course be cleaned off before ripping. But I've also ripped CDs that appear spotless yet trigger the retry algorithms of my ripping software at times with bad results. Some of these have then ripped perfectly after washing them lightly with mild soap & water. Now I always lightly rub-clean each CD I rip on a fleece-like surface before ripping it and I've found it greatly improves the results, not because I'm a lunatic perfectionist but because on average the CDs rip faster and cleaner. Thank you again!
Very good info and I use Exact Audio Copy and Foobar, but primarily EAC and have had no problems. I rip my music to a separate hard drive within my computer which is only for music, lossless wav. I have made a back up on an external hard drive that is connected to Aurender NH100. I stream through both, if my PC is off I use the connected drive, if it's on, I use the PC and I copy the new music from the PC to the external through back up. The only problem with EAC is sometimes it doesn't have the proper meta data for the cover art.
As someone who struggles explaining this stuff to my friends/family, your video offers a comprehensive explanation. Very nice! I use primarily CDparanoia from Linux. Many softwares you mentioned for Linux actually utilise CDparanoia. But it's a command line interface and does not support adding Metadata, either through CDText or a CDDb server. Another thing I found out was CDRDAO. It rips the entire disk as is. Useful for archiving some strange CDs or if you wanna make a backup copy.
Michael Lambert I recommend Exaile for a GUI program similar to Foobar and mpd for a server library/network streamer. To get the best audio quality from Linux, use players capable of bit perfect reproduction like the ones I mentioned. This means programs that can send audio directly to hardware devices, avoiding interference from PulseAudio and the ALSA subsystem. In my experience these layers resample even when it's unnecessary. Within a program change the output protocol to ALSA (not OSS or PulseAudio, etc). Then select your hardware device. Sometimes there is a convenient drop-down menu or you have to enter something like "hw:0,0" to select the first recognized hardware device and its first output, for example. The programs alsamixer, amixer and aplay are important; they let you configure your hardware or view their properties from the terminal. I think MQA devices require unadulterated input to work properly. My Meridian Explorer 2 DAC/amp indicates an MQA file is playing only when it receives a bit perfect audio stream from Linux or Windows.
Have you done an update of this video recently? Also is it better to let the ripper create both FLAC and MP3 at rip time or just use FLAC and then use a different piece of software to create MP3 from FLAC? For ripping I’ve been using Phile with I think good success.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I use Roon so all my CDs are ripped to FLAC. I just use MP3 for some portable devices still so always have both formats but in to separate libraries. Thank you.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Now a new can of worms with AAC. With my conversion software I have to select a profile (AAC-LC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC V2), a bitrate control (CBR, ABR, CVBR, or VBR), and I guess a BitRate of 256. Sorry to bother you. By the way I am using With Switch Plus by NCH Software and using my ALAC files as input instead of FLAC.
Hans: Thanks again for great intelligence. You mention there is no reason to chose between FLAC and ALAC, but for equipment compatibility. Then it is true there is no DIS-advantage to playing FLAC on Apple equipment? If not, why ever use ALAC, where it could limit a move away from Apple in the future? Also, Have you any contribution to mp3 VBR? And why state a bit rate when the bit rate varies?
It's really very simple, Rip your CDs with a program called dBPoweramp (Windows or Apple IOS compatible).to WAV format . Storage is currently inexpensive enough to copy at the original bit rate of the CDs you are archiving to your Computer. You can always make compressed copies at a later time, but you can't expand the bit rate of a CD that was ripped to a compressed format at a later time. Rip to a compressed format to save space ? You might as well use anything available,but watching the grass grow might be a more worthwhile activity .
+Steve Assante I wished it was! If your computer is set up perfectly, your optical drive is working perfectly and your cd's are in good condition, then using all the rippers I mentioned or use dBPoweramp is effortless. But the questions I got after publishing this video made more than clear this is not common place. Often the optical drive has a dirty lens or a worn laser, drivers work not good enough and so on. I see no reason not to use lossless compression like FLAC. It is a better choice than WAV since WAV is rather limited in metadata storage. If you don't want to use any lossless compression, use AIF that does offer full metadata support.
+The Hans Beekhuyzen Channel . for me your reasons for using FLAC or AIF are not of any use to me ,since , 1_ I do not care about space, 2_ I do not need metadata junk, all I need is name of the artist and track number. WAV files eliminate clutter this way, while preserving all the original CD music information. 2_ I can hear subtle differences between FLAC and WAV files, ( only with Cds that are made direct from the masters, I am working on the ones that are not ) so why should I use FLAC conversion ?. Let the music play, ONLY THE MUSIC.
I don't understand what clutter is caused by metadata. FLAQ and AIF both also preserve exactly the same data. The only reason there might be an audible difference is if your player doesn't handle reading AIF and uncompressing and reading FLAC very well. But the important thing is that you're happy with WAV en can enjoy the music.
You can't regain data lost in the conversion to a 'lossy' format, but you can certainly convert compressed FLAC files (back) to WAV using dBpoweramp with no loss of quality.
Hi - so if you rip the music with dBPoweramp on a Windows Box, do you then create a network share using SMB on the windows box and then point the RuneAudio player at the network share?
Hans, that was exactly what I was alluding to ! (For the most part we're in agreement , so I'll simply defer to your comment. ; It is your channel after all ) Have a great day !
+Steve Assante Some think technology is complex, I say inter human communication is far more complex - to me anyway;-) Have a great day too and enjoy the music.
Hans, I only have one question : what's a CD ? ;) OK - I'm from the era where all we had was vinyl/cassette/8-track and I was ecstatic when CDs first appeared. For all the talk of spinning discs disappearing, there appears to be no shortage of brand new CDs on sites like Amazon - dirt cheap compared to what you'll pay in the few brick and mortar stores that still sell them. Thanks for the vid.
There were websites dedicated to perfectly ripping media. Some of them compared various drives with identical settings with intentionally damaged discs to see which performed the best in the worst cases. There were clear winners and losers. I don't know if that's still the case or if those sites are still up. Often the difference was in firmware, otherwise it was due to the quality of key components.
Hi Hans, this video is very informative whilst also being very approachable - good work! I have come to this thread quite late, but you did mention that you would make a video about file management, but I have not found it. For me, correctly cataloguing the music is almost as important as finding a compatible format, and for my part I use dBPoweramp to rip and MediaMonkey to catalogue. What I (and many of my customers) find annoying is trying to find the music they have ripped among their catalogue, so I tend to advise them to select in advance the categories they want to be able to search by and then place their music into one of these either at the ripping stage or, afterwards, using MediaMonkey. Classical music is often the worst culprit for this - they want to search by "Classical" to create playlists, but the discs often default during ripping to "baroque", "chamber music", "ensemble", etc. My guidance to them is to create easy categories such as "rock", "pop" "classical", etc, and then use MediaMonkey to batch convert the genre of the relevant files.
That's a good one. I really forgot about it. It's on the list now. I would not use file management to catalogue your music. Although it does work and if it works for you that's fine. But since we're using computers, let them do the job. Any modern piece of music cataloguing and playing software can at least select on 'Genres' and modern tagging programs can easily do the first tagging for you. Very advanced software like Roon even provides sub-cataloguing, for instance: Classical, Baroque or World Music, Fado.
Any hard disk is fast enough for audio use. Audible differences can occur due to differences in design, not due to differences in interfacing architecture. For audio interfacing - connecting a DAC to a computer or network bridge - USB2 is preferred over USB3. More bandwidth generates more noise in the analog signal that represents the zeros and ones wich can lead to jitter.
I used to use Exact Audio Copy. There's another one I like, but I forgot the name of it. Overall the pickiest audiophiles would use a ripper that does everything it can to make a bit perfect copy. Even a brand new disc has errors. Those are usually corrected by the cd drive using ECC that's part of the CD format. But sometimes that disc was stamped later in the life of the master disc that was degraded to the point it can no longer produce discs that can have every bit perfectly decoded every time and the slightest non-correctable error augmented by the slightest surface flaw can make the sound annoying. This is why I use a ripper that reads multiple times, compares reads to make sure they're identical, and then compares to an online database using Accurate Rip. If in the end I get an error, I'll do a listening test, discard files that have annoying audible flaws and put that album on a list to buy another copy; if the miscopied tracks would be missed.
For myself I don't particularly think that using a PC (unless it is a Music Dedicated PC) is a very good way to listen to CD files that I've ripped ! Even a burned CD-R of the same files ripped can be an improvement over the original CD, if you're not placing the ripped files on a HD for play on another playback device.. That is the reasoning for choosing WAV format, as it's a more traditionally recognizable Component Audio format. My apologies as I was'nt taking into to consideration those interested in a simple PC usage as being sufficient for their needs. I feel that most CDs are "let down" by ,the many times, losses that occur during the CD pressing steps of their production.
+Steve Assante Again, I agree with you on the first statement. Listening to a PC isn't a good way of listening to music, unless it is specially built or selected and adapted to that task. You could also use a streamer and use the PC for storage only. A burned cd/r can give a better sound but also worse, depending on the equipment and disks used. Most (though not all) CD-R's age rapidly resulting is a lower contrast and thus read errors and jitter. If you use CD/R's metadata is no concern. But you're an exception, most viewers here will use a audio-optimized set-up containing a computer and/or streamer.
I have a Toshiba laptop, with windows 7 and have ripped CDs to multi media player, the library shows the albums to be untitled,they are all grouped together .111 222 333 etc, it will play the first track of all the albums then the second track etc.not from track 1-10 your thoughts?
I am no Windows user but I suppose it has to do with the metadata. Check of the album artist field is correctly filled out and if the Compilation flag is not set.
I have Samsung laptop that use to rip cds. I do this with iTunes program using a lossless format. The music on the laptop sounds identical to the cd. I can also change the song to an aac file so it can be played on my Samsung phone. I don't really notice any difference between the two versions.
Hey Hans - great channel, always enjoy your content. You really should add dbpoweramp ripper to your list. Not many people would dispute it is one of best audio ripping products on the market. Don't forget to include Tag&Rename in your upcoming meta-data / tagging video! Peace.
David Wiblin I'm very surprised Tag&Rename isn't listed. Many user's are aware of this application. I myself haven't tried dbpoweramp, which I will today. But I've been using Power amp for YEAR'S.
The compression factor was designed in to choose between higher (lossless) compression if your playback device has sufficient computational power to expand properly. For devices with limited power, a lower compression should be chosen. Today this is hardly relevant but ten years ago a lack of computational power could result in a lower audio quality.
i've been using windows media player to rip to .wav files. for me it seems fine because the files do have 1411kbps but should i change my software or is this fine?
Hi there. I want to rip my cd collection using MacBook Pro and SuperDrive. I plan on using Roon for playback. Is there a specific software program for ripping that I need to be using for roon to catalog the music. Also what format should I use when ripping to get the highest resolution? Thanks
I tried to use Exact Audio Copy software today. took a lot to set it all up. then it wouldnt work for some and it seems it has a very hard time finding a lot of CDs in the database. I had erros I couldnr figure out and now I think I will have to quit using it :( Seems like more work just to have the assurance you get a faultless rip. In the past I have used the Windows Media player to rip my CDs and then use MP3Tag software to add album art as needed and confirm the ID tag info. That goes a lot faster and seamlessly. Just tryng to find the best and quickest solution to RIP CDs into FLAC as I have a LARGE CD collection of over 3000 to go thru and right now if I try and use Exact Audio Copy it will take me 2 lifetimes :)
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I uninstalled EAC and reinstalled it and now its working again and I have it set up per online setup recommendations. I purchased another UltraHD Bluray optical drive so I can have 2 laptops ripping 2 CDs at a time to speed up all my CDs to FLAC project which is going to take quite a while :) not just to rip but ensure metadata tags etc is all correct. But my Plex media library is growing and Im enjoying my music again that I havent listened to in a while.
Just use Easy Audio Copy, it is build by the same guy who created Exact Audio Copy (Andre Wiethoff). It is MUCH MORE user friendly and produces the same results as Exact Audio Copy.
I use it with no problems but then I'm no expert. You could give it a try, they do give you the full thing to try for 29 or 30 days (can't remember which) before it has some of its features turned off.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I just watched both videos. But I didn’t see the let about rioping cds to dsd. At the moment I’m ripping to wav. But I wondered if dsd would be even better.
@E. O. I have to pay for a lot of things. That's why money exists. The quality and convenience of DBpoweramp is well worth the $50 (or whatever) I had to pay for it.
@E. O. It's awesome that there are good open source options! People shouldbe getting quality FLAC rips of their optical content without having to pay for the software. I used EAC for years. dbPoweramp is just more polished and has maybe access to better metadata? Anyway, I'm happy to pay the trivial fee for what amounts to a valuable tool for me.
It seems about on par with EAC that is available for Windows but not Linux. The problem is it cannot use Accurate Rip or an equivalent. The final check of whether it's bit perfect is to compare a rip from another disc by another drive. People might think this is going overboard but not going this far might contribute to their abiltiy to determine a lossy encode has audibly lost definition.
There are many more codecs (see here:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs) but only FLAC and ALAC are widely used and of course the container formats WAV and AIFF.
Hahaha, MusicMatch Jukebox and WinAmp!! I used those exclusively until I discovered J River Media Center. I still retain MMJB and WinAmp, largely for nostalgia. MMJB was what I used for ripping and playback (then WinAmp was used for playback), but JRMC won out as primary CD-ripper and audio file player, cos unlike MMJB and WinAmp, JRMC would play back my WAV files seamlessly - no glitches or hiccups between the tracks like in MP3 or WMA files. "Linked" or connected WAV files play back perfectly, uninterrupted. JRMC also provides a very good audio file editor, which is great for snipping off those long bits of mute space or silence, or cutting and pasting those parts of tracks that were improperly separated during the rip (and ended up on the start or end of the neighboring track) due to poorly placed track marks on the CD, or even combining tracks into a single track or diving a larger/longer track into smaller tracks. You can even modify the volume output to get a more even-keeled audio level across all tracks, no matter how the original CD sounds! No more whisper-quiet tracks (even when playback volume is cranked to the max) followed by tracks BLASTING audio that sounds like full blast at 1 or 2. Not pleased with JRMC's CD burner software though. CD text always gets botched up, and some playback yields skippy/chirpy errors. But it rips quite well (depending on the optical drive being used) and the playlists allow all the metadata you could need, even for WAV. The ripper also allows selecting output directory before ripping, as well as filling in all metadata, either manually or by connecting to the database (either via manual prompt or automatically when CD is inserted and read). As for ripping, I found a brilliant software that does it all, even in "trial version". I have never had better burned CDs.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Ahhh, that would explain the mention of MMJB and WinAmp, then, lol. TH-cam for some reason keeps giving me these old videos as recommendations. Not that I mind, but I guess I should be mindful before commenting to be sure if what I wanna say is even relevant or not, lol. They're still good little softwares. Well, they were at the time I stopped "upgrading". I think I held firm at v5.5 for WinAmp (while still retaining the v5.1 in a separate directory), and v10 for MMJB. I also stopped upgrading JRMC, stopping at v10... I figure as long as the program launches and runs, and performs well, why upgrade? If it aint broke DON'T fix it... nor upgrade it. Most upgrade versions just get dumbed down and all the best features are removed with useless and/or redundant ones taking their place (if any at all), and the reliability of functionality also wanes, too. Technology peaked in its practicality and usefulness during the XP era. Once Vista was released, it was all downhill from there. Just dumbed-down end-user-unfriendly garbage via incessant re-inventing of the wheel for no other purpose than to better enable the elitists and globalists better ways to spy on you, steal your information, and control you.
@@BlackieNuff with the software I have in my laptop, is enough to record CDs with name artist, track and album. to be displayed wherever available, of course in my fav device.
The way I use Foobar for ripping CDs which are affected by the Loudness War that tend to overload the DAC and create very bad distortions, is to use Graphic EQ in processing with gain set to, let say -2, h3dB, flat EQ, since many of my well recorded audio is lower in levels. This will create copy with lower signal that doesn't hit 0dB in editing software like Adobe Audition, Audacity, Cool Edit, etc. Also Foobar allows to convert DSD files to to other formats such as FLAC, and by default during playback DSD are converted by Foobar to PCM so there is no need for DSD capable USB DAC.
Thanks Hans for the excellent summary of ripping. One thing I might add is to consider cleaning your CD before ripping it. I have often encountered CDs that somehow have accumulated obvious crud on them that should of course be cleaned off before ripping. But I've also ripped CDs that appear spotless yet trigger the retry algorithms of my ripping software at times with bad results. Some of these have then ripped perfectly after washing them lightly with mild soap & water. Now I always lightly rub-clean each CD I rip on a fleece-like surface before ripping it and I've found it greatly improves the results, not because I'm a lunatic perfectionist but because on average the CDs rip faster and cleaner. Thank you again!
Thanks for sharing
Your videos are very well explained in detail, keep up with that hard work Hans.
Thank You Mr. Hans. I have learned very much from your Channel. Enjoy very much how you present the data.
I salute you from Colombia South America.
🙏🙏
I ripped my entire cd collection to .wav files using EAC (secure accurate rip) & use bliss to add metadata.
@@PrinceWesterburg hard drive is already half empty.
Very good info and I use Exact Audio Copy and Foobar, but primarily EAC and have had no problems. I rip my music to a separate hard drive within my computer which is only for music, lossless wav. I have made a back up on an external hard drive that is connected to Aurender NH100. I stream through both, if my PC is off I use the connected drive, if it's on, I use the PC and I copy the new music from the PC to the external through back up. The only problem with EAC is sometimes it doesn't have the proper meta data for the cover art.
As someone who struggles explaining this stuff to my friends/family, your video offers a comprehensive explanation. Very nice!
I use primarily CDparanoia from Linux. Many softwares you mentioned for Linux actually utilise CDparanoia. But it's a command line interface and does not support adding Metadata, either through CDText or a CDDb server.
Another thing I found out was CDRDAO. It rips the entire disk as is. Useful for archiving some strange CDs or if you wanna make a backup copy.
Thanks for sharing
No mention of foobar? Used by more audiofiles than any other.
Front 242 what would you recommend for Linux? I'm new to Linux. Thanks in advance.
Michael Lambert I recommend Exaile for a GUI program similar to Foobar and mpd for a server library/network streamer.
To get the best audio quality from Linux, use players capable of bit perfect reproduction like the ones I mentioned. This means programs that can send audio directly to hardware devices, avoiding interference from PulseAudio and the ALSA subsystem. In my experience these layers resample even when it's unnecessary.
Within a program change the output protocol to ALSA (not OSS or PulseAudio, etc). Then select your hardware device. Sometimes there is a convenient drop-down menu or you have to enter something like "hw:0,0" to select the first recognized hardware device and its first output, for example. The programs alsamixer, amixer and aplay are important; they let you configure your hardware or view their properties from the terminal.
I think MQA devices require unadulterated input to work properly. My Meridian Explorer 2 DAC/amp indicates an MQA file is playing only when it receives a bit perfect audio stream from Linux or Windows.
Bennett Joseph thank you very much for your reply and suggestion. 😃
I love Foobar! Plays DVD Audio and SACD images from my hard drive.
Have you done an update of this video recently? Also is it better to let the ripper create both FLAC and MP3 at rip time or just use FLAC and then use a different piece of software to create MP3 from FLAC? For ripping I’ve been using Phile with I think good success.
No, I haven't. And I don't know about MP3. If you want the best result, use FLAC
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I use Roon so all my CDs are ripped to FLAC. I just use MP3 for some portable devices still so always have both formats but in to separate libraries. Thank you.
Consider using AAC. Most portable devices support that too and the quality of AAC at 256 kbit/s is better than 320kbit/s MP3
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thank you for the recommendation. Take care.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Now a new can of worms with AAC. With my conversion software I have to select a profile (AAC-LC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC V2), a bitrate control (CBR, ABR, CVBR, or VBR), and I guess a BitRate of 256. Sorry to bother you. By the way I am using With Switch Plus by NCH Software and using my ALAC files as input instead of FLAC.
dBpoweramp is my ripper of choice. It pulls the metadata correctly 95% of the time and also compares your rip with the Accurip database.
Thanks for sharing
Hans: Thanks again for great intelligence. You mention there is no reason to chose between FLAC and ALAC, but for equipment compatibility. Then it is true there is no DIS-advantage to playing FLAC on Apple equipment?
If not, why ever use ALAC, where it could limit a move away from Apple in the future?
Also, Have you any contribution to mp3 VBR? And why state a bit rate when the bit rate varies?
This is a very good and well explained video on archiving home audio cds.
Thank you very much sir.
👍🏼
Hans you are ridiculously smart...Thanks for all your hard work!!!!
[blush]
Front 242, I guess your mother never taught you any manners.
Hans, thank you for opening another "door"! Enriching ones life seems to ask the question, "did you open at least one door today?"
...as in Light my fire? Those were four Doors in one:-)
Indeed!
It's really very simple, Rip your CDs with a program called dBPoweramp (Windows or Apple IOS compatible).to WAV format . Storage is currently inexpensive enough to copy at the original bit rate of the CDs you are archiving to your Computer. You can always make compressed copies at a later time, but you can't expand the bit rate of a CD that was ripped to a compressed format at a later time.
Rip to a compressed format to save space ? You might as well use anything available,but watching the grass grow might be a more worthwhile activity .
+Steve Assante I wished it was! If your computer is set up perfectly, your optical drive is working perfectly and your cd's are in good condition, then using all the rippers I mentioned or use dBPoweramp is effortless. But the questions I got after publishing this video made more than clear this is not common place. Often the optical drive has a dirty lens or a worn laser, drivers work not good enough and so on.
I see no reason not to use lossless compression like FLAC. It is a better choice than WAV since WAV is rather limited in metadata storage. If you don't want to use any lossless compression, use AIF that does offer full metadata support.
+The Hans Beekhuyzen Channel .
for me your reasons for using FLAC or AIF are not of any use to me ,since , 1_ I do not care about space, 2_ I do not need metadata junk, all I need is name of the artist and track number. WAV files eliminate clutter this way, while preserving all the original CD music information.
2_ I can hear subtle differences between FLAC and WAV files, ( only with Cds that are made direct from the masters, I am working on the ones that are not ) so why should I use FLAC conversion ?.
Let the music play, ONLY THE MUSIC.
I don't understand what clutter is caused by metadata. FLAQ and AIF both also preserve exactly the same data. The only reason there might be an audible difference is if your player doesn't handle reading AIF and uncompressing and reading FLAC very well. But the important thing is that you're happy with WAV en can enjoy the music.
You can't regain data lost in the conversion to a 'lossy' format, but you can certainly convert compressed FLAC files (back) to WAV using dBpoweramp with no loss of quality.
Hi - so if you rip the music with dBPoweramp on a Windows Box, do you then create a network share using SMB on the windows box and then point the RuneAudio player at the network share?
I love this guy thank you for sharing your wisdom with us all God Bless You Always 🙏🏽 Hello from NYC
You are so welcome
your videos are all gems. Your explanations are on point. Thank You!
Glad you like them!
Hans, that was exactly what I was alluding to ! (For the most part we're in agreement , so I'll simply defer to your comment. ; It is your channel after all ) Have a great day !
+Steve Assante Some think technology is complex, I say inter human communication is far more complex - to me anyway;-) Have a great day too and enjoy the music.
Hans, I only have one question : what's a CD ? ;)
OK - I'm from the era where all we had was vinyl/cassette/8-track and I was ecstatic when CDs first appeared. For all the talk of spinning discs disappearing, there appears to be no shortage of brand new CDs on sites like Amazon - dirt cheap compared to what you'll pay in the few brick and mortar stores that still sell them. Thanks for the vid.
Arthur gets it. :)
There were websites dedicated to perfectly ripping media. Some of them compared various drives with identical settings with intentionally damaged discs to see which performed the best in the worst cases. There were clear winners and losers. I don't know if that's still the case or if those sites are still up. Often the difference was in firmware, otherwise it was due to the quality of key components.
Hi Hans, this video is very informative whilst also being very approachable - good work!
I have come to this thread quite late, but you did mention that you would make a video about file management, but I have not found it. For me, correctly cataloguing the music is almost as important as finding a compatible format, and for my part I use dBPoweramp to rip and MediaMonkey to catalogue.
What I (and many of my customers) find annoying is trying to find the music they have ripped among their catalogue, so I tend to advise them to select in advance the categories they want to be able to search by and then place their music into one of these either at the ripping stage or, afterwards, using MediaMonkey. Classical music is often the worst culprit for this - they want to search by "Classical" to create playlists, but the discs often default during ripping to "baroque", "chamber music", "ensemble", etc.
My guidance to them is to create easy categories such as "rock", "pop" "classical", etc, and then use MediaMonkey to batch convert the genre of the relevant files.
That's a good one. I really forgot about it. It's on the list now. I would not use file management to catalogue your music. Although it does work and if it works for you that's fine. But since we're using computers, let them do the job. Any modern piece of music cataloguing and playing software can at least select on 'Genres' and modern tagging programs can easily do the first tagging for you. Very advanced software like Roon even provides sub-cataloguing, for instance: Classical, Baroque or World Music, Fado.
Any thoughts on a USB CD drive vs one on an internal bus? As this is required for most modern Apple equipment. I would assume USB 3.0.
Any hard disk is fast enough for audio use. Audible differences can occur due to differences in design, not due to differences in interfacing architecture. For audio interfacing - connecting a DAC to a computer or network bridge - USB2 is preferred over USB3. More bandwidth generates more noise in the analog signal that represents the zeros and ones wich can lead to jitter.
Excellent video. Thank you for presenting it.
Glad you liked it!
I used to use Exact Audio Copy. There's another one I like, but I forgot the name of it. Overall the pickiest audiophiles would use a ripper that does everything it can to make a bit perfect copy. Even a brand new disc has errors. Those are usually corrected by the cd drive using ECC that's part of the CD format. But sometimes that disc was stamped later in the life of the master disc that was degraded to the point it can no longer produce discs that can have every bit perfectly decoded every time and the slightest non-correctable error augmented by the slightest surface flaw can make the sound annoying. This is why I use a ripper that reads multiple times, compares reads to make sure they're identical, and then compares to an online database using Accurate Rip. If in the end I get an error, I'll do a listening test, discard files that have annoying audible flaws and put that album on a list to buy another copy; if the miscopied tracks would be missed.
@E. O. It didn't work so well with Linux when I stopped using it and I stopped buying 💿 s.
For myself I don't particularly think that using a PC (unless it is a Music Dedicated PC) is a very good way to listen to CD files that I've ripped ! Even a
burned CD-R of the same files ripped can be an improvement over the original CD, if you're not placing the ripped files on a HD for play on another playback device.. That is the reasoning for choosing WAV format, as it's a more traditionally recognizable Component Audio format.
My apologies as I was'nt taking into to consideration those interested in a simple PC usage as being sufficient for their needs. I feel that most CDs are "let down" by ,the many times, losses that occur during the CD pressing steps of their production.
+Steve Assante Again, I agree with you on the first statement. Listening to a PC isn't a good way of listening to music, unless it is specially built or selected and adapted to that task. You could also use a streamer and use the PC for storage only. A burned cd/r can give a better sound but also worse, depending on the equipment and disks used. Most (though not all) CD-R's age rapidly resulting is a lower contrast and thus read errors and jitter. If you use CD/R's metadata is no concern. But you're an exception, most viewers here will use a audio-optimized set-up containing a computer and/or streamer.
Thanks for the tips!
can you rip a cd to 24/96
No. You can upsample it after ripping but it would still contain the same information.
I have a Toshiba laptop, with windows 7 and have ripped CDs to multi media player, the library shows the albums to be untitled,they are all grouped together .111 222 333 etc, it will play the first track of all the albums then the second track etc.not from track 1-10 your thoughts?
I am no Windows user but I suppose it has to do with the metadata. Check of the album artist field is correctly filled out and if the Compilation flag is not set.
I have Samsung laptop that use to rip cds. I do this with iTunes program using a lossless format. The music on the laptop sounds identical to the cd. I can also change the song to an aac file so it can be played on my Samsung phone. I don't really notice any difference between the two versions.
The difference between lossless and AAC is apparently not audible on your phone.
Hey Hans - great channel, always enjoy your content. You really should add dbpoweramp ripper to your list. Not many people would dispute it is one of best audio ripping products on the market.
Don't forget to include Tag&Rename in your upcoming meta-data / tagging video!
Peace.
David Wiblin I'm very surprised Tag&Rename isn't listed. Many user's are aware of this application. I myself haven't tried dbpoweramp, which I will today. But I've been using Power amp for YEAR'S.
Come on, dbPoweramp sells at 55 Euros while equally good Exact Audio Copy sells at exactly 0 Euros. Who's the winner?
I'll never not use tag &rename along with one of the best ripping apps EAC.
@@sulaco33 Yea and you have to pay for any updates.
I chose db power amp over eac because of the ease of use interface. Otherwise free EAC is great and I believe is what db power amp is based on anyway
Hi,
What is the best level of compression in a flac?
0 or 5?
Regards!!!
The compression factor was designed in to choose between higher (lossless) compression if your playback device has sufficient computational power to expand properly. For devices with limited power, a lower compression should be chosen. Today this is hardly relevant but ten years ago a lack of computational power could result in a lower audio quality.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thanks.
So what level of compression would you recommend, between 0 to 5 or 6 to 8?
Regards!!!
It depends on your equipment. . But today somewhere half way will do in all situations.
i've been using windows media player to rip to .wav files. for me it seems fine because the files do have 1411kbps but should i change my software or is this fine?
I have no experience with Windows Media Player so I can't say. Sorry.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel ah ok, thanks for responding tho
Hi there. I want to rip my cd collection using MacBook Pro and SuperDrive. I plan on using Roon for playback. Is there a specific software program for ripping that I need to be using for roon to catalog the music. Also what format should I use when ripping to get the highest resolution? Thanks
Watch th-cam.com/video/n0GbPNN7v8c/w-d-xo.html
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel lol!!!(great answer!!!)... .
damn this is pretty in depth, im just trying to RIP some JAV
Sorry 😁
The Book is from 2016. Is it still up to date or outdated? Or does it get an update soon?
It is only partly outdated. Physics doesn't change so many things in audio remain unchanged as well.
Excellent info
Another great video!
I tried to use Exact Audio Copy software today. took a lot to set it all up. then it wouldnt work for some and it seems it has a very hard time finding a lot of CDs in the database. I had erros I couldnr figure out and now I think I will have to quit using it :( Seems like more work just to have the assurance you get a faultless rip. In the past I have used the Windows Media player to rip my CDs and then use MP3Tag software to add album art as needed and confirm the ID tag info. That goes a lot faster and seamlessly. Just tryng to find the best and quickest solution to RIP CDs into FLAC as I have a LARGE CD collection of over 3000 to go thru and right now if I try and use Exact Audio Copy it will take me 2 lifetimes :)
EAC is indeed not the most user friendly. Glad you found another way of ripping.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I uninstalled EAC and reinstalled it and now its working again and I have it set up per online setup recommendations. I purchased another UltraHD Bluray optical drive so I can have 2 laptops ripping 2 CDs at a time to speed up all my CDs to FLAC project which is going to take quite a while :) not just to rip but ensure metadata tags etc is all correct. But my Plex media library is growing and Im enjoying my music again that I havent listened to in a while.
Just use Easy Audio Copy, it is build by the same guy who created Exact Audio Copy (Andre Wiethoff).
It is MUCH MORE user friendly and produces the same results as Exact Audio Copy.
How can I rip (the DSD layer of) SACDs?
You see all about DSD in th-cam.com/video/hXFIq11JAas/w-d-xo.html
Thank you!!!
Is dBpoweramp Music Converter good software?? Pls advise
I have no experience with dBpoweramp. Sorry.
I use it with no problems but then I'm no expert. You could give it a try, they do give you the full thing to try for 29 or 30 days (can't remember which) before it has some of its features turned off.
I rip .wav thru iTunes. What do u think if this process?
I used it myself. Switch on the error correction and you're fine.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thanks!👍🏽👍🏽
What about ripping to DSD?
See my videos on DSD: th-cam.com/video/hXFIq11JAas/w-d-xo.html
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel
I just watched both videos. But I didn’t see the let about rioping cds to dsd. At the moment I’m ripping to wav. But I wondered if dsd would be even better.
The best tool I've used for ripping to FLAC is DBpoweramp.
@E. O. I have to pay for a lot of things. That's why money exists. The quality and convenience of DBpoweramp is well worth the $50 (or whatever) I had to pay for it.
@E. O. It's awesome that there are good open source options! People shouldbe getting quality FLAC rips of their optical content without having to pay for the software. I used EAC for years. dbPoweramp is just more polished and has maybe access to better metadata? Anyway, I'm happy to pay the trivial fee for what amounts to a valuable tool for me.
For Linux users cdparanoia is the best choice i.m.h.o. It has very good fault correction.
Thanks
It seems about on par with EAC that is available for Windows but not Linux. The problem is it cannot use Accurate Rip or an equivalent. The final check of whether it's bit perfect is to compare a rip from another disc by another drive. People might think this is going overboard but not going this far might contribute to their abiltiy to determine a lossy encode has audibly lost definition.
Hmm... What about WMA Lossless? No mention of that codec.
There are many more codecs (see here:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs) but only FLAC and ALAC are widely used and of course the container formats WAV and AIFF.
Nice
you meant waste not waist :)
I am sure I did.
Hahaha, MusicMatch Jukebox and WinAmp!! I used those exclusively until I discovered J River Media Center. I still retain MMJB and WinAmp, largely for nostalgia.
MMJB was what I used for ripping and playback (then WinAmp was used for playback), but JRMC won out as primary CD-ripper and audio file player, cos unlike MMJB and WinAmp, JRMC would play back my WAV files seamlessly - no glitches or hiccups between the tracks like in MP3 or WMA files. "Linked" or connected WAV files play back perfectly, uninterrupted.
JRMC also provides a very good audio file editor, which is great for snipping off those long bits of mute space or silence, or cutting and pasting those parts of tracks that were improperly separated during the rip (and ended up on the start or end of the neighboring track) due to poorly placed track marks on the CD, or even combining tracks into a single track or diving a larger/longer track into smaller tracks.
You can even modify the volume output to get a more even-keeled audio level across all tracks, no matter how the original CD sounds! No more whisper-quiet tracks (even when playback volume is cranked to the max) followed by tracks BLASTING audio that sounds like full blast at 1 or 2.
Not pleased with JRMC's CD burner software though. CD text always gets botched up, and some playback yields skippy/chirpy errors. But it rips quite well (depending on the optical drive being used) and the playlists allow all the metadata you could need, even for WAV. The ripper also allows selecting output directory before ripping, as well as filling in all metadata, either manually or by connecting to the database (either via manual prompt or automatically when CD is inserted and read).
As for ripping, I found a brilliant software that does it all, even in "trial version". I have never had better burned CDs.
I made that video years ago...
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel
Ahhh, that would explain the mention of MMJB and WinAmp, then, lol.
TH-cam for some reason keeps giving me these old videos as recommendations.
Not that I mind, but I guess I should be mindful before commenting to be sure if what I wanna say is even relevant or not, lol.
They're still good little softwares. Well, they were at the time I stopped "upgrading". I think I held firm at v5.5 for WinAmp (while still retaining the v5.1 in a separate directory), and v10 for MMJB. I also stopped upgrading JRMC, stopping at v10... I figure as long as the program launches and runs, and performs well, why upgrade? If it aint broke DON'T fix it... nor upgrade it. Most upgrade versions just get dumbed down and all the best features are removed with useless and/or redundant ones taking their place (if any at all), and the reliability of functionality also wanes, too.
Technology peaked in its practicality and usefulness during the XP era. Once Vista was released, it was all downhill from there. Just dumbed-down end-user-unfriendly garbage via incessant re-inventing of the wheel for no other purpose than to better enable the elitists and globalists better ways to spy on you, steal your information, and control you.
@@BlackieNuff with the software I have in my laptop, is enough to record CDs with name artist, track and album. to be displayed wherever available, of course in my fav device.