Best CD ripping

[magillagorilla]

I have a big 2200 - 2500 CD music collection which I have decided to downsize. There are many reasons for this decession. I have always preferred CDA over MP3, my ears are picky, but FLAC sounds identical to CDA as near as I can tell. Over the years I have come to realize that the way I consume my music is via portable devices, PMP, Car stereo and the like. When I'm at my workstation, at home, I always queue up music from my PC which is hooked up to my Hi-Fi stereo.

It no longer makes any sense to maintain my full CD collection. Some CDs are rare or have sentimental value which I will keep (300-400). My man cave looks like a madia horters den, and I'm sick of it.

I have two categories of CDs; Meh and Archive

"Meh" CDs are ones that I kinda like or are just weird but worth keeping a copy so they are getting the 256kbps MP3 treatment.

"Archive" CDs are of high value to me and are getting FLAC.

Since I can't afford a robot to auto rip my collection, I'm doing it manually.

What is the best free ripping application?

I have been using CDex for years. I find it to lightening fast but less accurate. I am still using it for MP3 rips. EAC is the other one I use for very accurate rips to FLAC. EAC is slow, which is the price for accuracy. Am I overlooking any great rippers before I get any further down the trail?

Does anyone want to buy some CDs?

[Moontrash]

EAC

EAC is the best for newer stuff..Cdex hasnt been updated in a while but it's also a good one...you could also run anydvd in the background as it strips the audio encryption to

after u rip em go to cd warehouse or any typa store like that and sell em..u wont get much but 2500 cds at a buck a piece aint bad

[magillagorilla]

There's a place called Half Priced Books in my region that gives like 25cents-$1 per dics. Kills me, I know any music lover would be glad to pay $3-4 for most of it. I just don't have the time to sell one at a time online. I keep thinking that maybe I should keep them until they are retro-cool like vinyl in the 2000's, then I could fetch more for them.

I haven't run in to any encryption problems on the discs yet, fortunately.

[Moontrash]

if you use EAC you won't have any encryption issues. It's pretty spot on when it comes to that stuff...just a little slow

yeah theres a half price books not far from here. I sold all my cd's back in the day(2001) to cd warehouse. Usually got $3 to $5 a piece for em. I would just rip all your cd's to what format you want....burn em all to dvd as data and just get rid of what you have...Cd's i dont think will be as valuable as vinyl is....there's just too much out there for it to get to a point where they'll be collector's items

[TreeTops]

You know it takes that special person to buy your CD's. I see music CD's at garage sales all the time for 10 cents all the way up to 25 cents and they just sit there week after week.

[magillagorilla]

I have a pretty big vinyl collection too, maybe 400. All good stuff. The CDs are a bit different for me. Since I can make an exact copy, there is no reason to have them taking up room on my shelf. There are some very rare CDs that I will be keeping however.

I used to snatch up those garage sale CDs. I will likely keep buying CDs. I figure I can buy for a buck, i can copy, and get rid of them. This is a lot cheaper than iTunes or whatever. Plus no DRM.

Some bands I like do FLAC online, which I may go for in the future.

"burn em all to dvd as data and just get rid of what you have" no sir. I aim to rid myself of all optical media. In 10 years I suspect I'll have a HDD problem! I'll be consolidating HDDs.

My next problem is my 700 DVDr archive of lossless live concert recordings. No exaduration, 700+.

I just organized and consolidated 200 CDR's of backup files this winter to HDD. I killed my CD shreader, back to breaking them by hand. If you do this, wear work gloved and safety glasses.

[Moontrash]

blank media has a better track record than HDD do in terms of longevity. I wouldnt waste the money on a HDD and wait for it to die. Blank media outlasts HDD's by a mile. You have one great option these days in that respect....blank Blu-Ray media..they hold 25-50gb's a pop...you could easily consolidate those 700 DVD-r flac's onto about 100 25 gb BR's blanks...save a ton of space and they'll last longer than you as long as you take care of em

i've got 6 HDD's sitting about 15 feet from that have all died and the one that lasted the longest was about 4 years. I've got cd-r media from back in 2000 that are still goin fine.

vinyl sounds best

[magillagorilla]

Wow you have bad luck with HDDs. I have some HDDs that are 10 years old and still working. I don't archive anything to the old drives. I would agree that optical media is more stable. But backing up to DVD is how I got in to the mess I am in. I can't manage it anymore. As long as you push your data forward to fresh HDDs every 4 years there is very little risk.

Also I keep 2 HDD copies, sometimes 3. One is always offline or off site. The chances of 2 Hdds failing at teh same time, one on the shelf, one spinning are very low.

BD burner, $100 plus 100 BD blanks $100 = $200

For that I can buy two 2TB HDDs plus change. Saw some 2TB HDDs at newegg for $79

[MOVIEGEEK]

I don't understand why people insist on archiving to FLAC, it has poor hardware and software support. I archive to WAV because it's not much larger than FLAC and has excellent hardware* and software support**. As far as CD ripping I use to use CDex but now I use WMP 11, it's less buggy and has error correction.

*car stereos, streaming devices, etc.

**try burning an audio CD with FLAC files.

[Moontrash]

my hard drives get a lot of use. all of em were in external cases run thru USB but they just never last that long(90% Western Digital). After the last one kicked it i just stopped storing anything on em and started burnin stuff i wanted to keep to dvdR. I don't have BR yet cause i have no need for it ATM, but if I did, I wouldn't hesitate to start there rather go the HDD route...just think...25 pack of decent reliable BR's go for around $25 or a hair more. That pack will hold over 500gb's of data...compare that to a $45 or $50 dollar WD 500 gb's HDD and there's no comparison. My only hindrance would be that BR media, imo, is still in it's infancy so I'm not sure on its long term reliability as of yet.

i've got a dvd+r 2.4x ricoh from 2002 i burned back in 2002 and it's still plays and scans fine. That one is my long term reliability test.

I don't really archive audio anymore. Normally when i look at all of it I start to go through the discs and just toss em cause chances are, I ain't gonna listen to em anytime anyhow so I just cut the cord and move on. I haven't ripped a cd in 10 years i'd bet.

[magillagorilla]

FLAC allows for 2:1 lossless compression
FLAC has built in checksums
FLAC is DRM free and license free

There are plugins that allow FLAC to CDA in Nero, easy. I don't see the need to burn an audio CD from FLAC files I made in order to get rid of an audio CD.

FLAC to MP3 for car stereos, MP3 players is an easy conversion.

Windows Media Player uses DRM. I don't know if it flags stuff you rip, but I don't trust it. Windows Media Lossless is an option, but again, I have Microsoft trust issues.

I have thousands of CDs. That small 2:1 reduction makes a huge difference.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Windows Media Player uses DRM. I don't know if it flags stuff you rip, but I don't trust it. Windows Media Lossless is an option, but again, I have Microsoft trust issues.

I have thousands of CDs. That small 2:1 reduction makes a huge difference.

WAV is lossless, you get a perfect bit for bit copy. Not to mention it will be supported for decades to come.

WMP only uses DRM if you rip to WMA, you can turn it off.

With the price of HDD's nowadays file size is a moot point.

To each his own...

[hardy]

dBpoweramp is the best
plenty of options with the greatest results

[magillagorilla]

Yes HDDs are cheap but 1000 CD at lets say 600MB in WAV is gunna be 600GB. That would be OK if all I had to store was 1000 CDs. 300GB is better. In reality I have about 2TB of audio in FLAC. In WAV that more like 4TB. I also need a backup drive(s). So to store and back up WAV I need four 2TB HDDs, doesn't sound as cheap anymore.

Besides who uses raw WAV on portable devices anyway? I would likely transcode it to MP3. In which case WAV offers me no advantage.

The fact that there is no mainstream lossless format is sad. It really speaks volumes about the market and how consumers perceive audio quality. FLAC is perfect for portable devices. I have moded my iRiver player with Rockbox which plays FLAC.

Furthermore, it seems that selling music over the internet is the perfect opportunity to upgrade to 24bit 96k versions of albums for audiophiles. I love SACD. Unfortunately not enough people care.

[t0nee1]

Very good points mg..Even with the low priced- high capacity of today's HDD's, I don't understand how peeps insists on ripping/archiving to wav..I archive to flac b/c of it's great tag support and all my SW players and some HW support them..I can easily decode/uncompress a flac to an over-weight-bloated wav if needed..There's your/my bit for bit perfect copy..Math works..
I would agree on " to each his/her own"..
Oh and of course burning audio Cd's from flac is soo freakin easy..Especially using the so-simple Burrrn app or others..
Just my bit-perfect 2cents..

[lordsmurf]

EAC to rip/convert.

WAV is too big to archive for something as silly as a personal music library.

FLAC is fine, but still somewhat silly for most people. Your speakers/stereos are probably cheaply made, so it's pointless to worry about "loss". Your stereo, headphones/earbuds and speakers add more loss than anything else.

MP3 at a high bitrate easily suffices for 99% of the masses. Easy to use, widely accepted, small size, sounds great.

Blu-ray as archival media? I wouldn't be too sure about that. Better look into the engineering of that format before jumping to that conclusion. Take the worst aspects of CD, and the worst of DVD, make it big, and that's Blu-ray.

FLAC's lack of licensing is important! Same for AAC!

[SLK001]

Fair use doctrine states that you can change the format of your CDs to some other format and use as you desire. However, for the doctrine to apply, you must keep the originals.

Making a copy, then selling the originals and you are simply pirating music.

[Cornucopia]

If you use EAC, you can change the default compression codec to a variety of choices - including FLAC. Direct Rip to FLAC would save you a lot of time.

BTW, SACD may sound great, but you'll NEVER see prosumer tools for it, and you'll never be able to do a direct, exact HD rip from it because of the whole $^&%## Sony Anti-Piracy closed-system. Talk about shooting their own format in the foot!

AAC should have the same licensing as MP3 (as it's an outgrowth from it). Another reason I would use FLAC if I needed to (but currently don't). I see only expansion on the CE horizon for codecs and containers that don't have to deal with licensing.

Don't get rid of those originals - could come back to bite you in both technological and legal ways...

Scott

[wulf109]

Easy CDDA Extractor for ripping and converting(not free). 320 mp3 for saving to HDD.

[lordsmurf]

AAC should have the same licensing as MP3 (as it's an outgrowth from it).

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Licensing_and_patents
http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/aac-faq.aspx#5

[ron spencer]

I don't understand why people insist on archiving to FLAC, it has poor hardware and software support. I archive to WAV because it's not much larger than FLAC and has excellent hardware* and software support**. As far as CD ripping I use to use CDex but now I use WMP 11, it's less buggy and has error correction.

*car stereos, streaming devices, etc.

**try burning an audio CD with FLAC files.

What utter nonsense!!!!

[MOVIEGEEK]

I don't understand why people insist on archiving to FLAC, it has poor hardware and software support. I archive to WAV because it's not much larger than FLAC and has excellent hardware* and software support**. As far as CD ripping I use to use CDex but now I use WMP 11, it's less buggy and has error correction.

*car stereos, streaming devices, etc.

**try burning an audio CD with FLAC files.

What utter nonsense!!!!

Are you disputing the fact that WAV/PCM has better hardware and software support than FLAC?

How many audio and video programs support FLAC compared to WAV/PCM?

Does the iPod/iPhone support FLAC?

How many car stereos and Blu-ray players support FLAC?

I like WAV/PCM because every program I use supports it, I can also stream it to any device in my home. If you want to use FLAC because some know-it-all on Audioholics.com says so then more power to you.

[Cornucopia]

AAC should have the same licensing as MP3 (as it's an outgrowth from it).

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Licensing_and_patents
http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/aac-faq.aspx#5

So MP3 is licensed by Thompson/Technicolor and they charge those hardware manufacturers and developers/distributers of the codec a small, per-unit charge, but not end users (although commercial Hw Manus or Dev/Distr. can pass along that charge...).

and

AAC is licensed by ?Via Licensing? and they charge those hardware manufacturers and developers/distributers of the codec a small, per-unit charge (although commercial Hw Manus or Dev/Distr. can pass along that charge...).

How is that so different?

@MovieGeek,
I totally agree WAV/LPCM is much more universally supported, but it IS still ~2x FLAC size and bitrate, so for those who are on a tighter size/capacity budget (obviously not you), or those whose streaming pipeline bandwidths are lower (obviously not yours), who yet still want Lossless, quality material, FLAC could make sense.
And, there are a number of CD burning apps that either take FLAC directly as input, or take a codec that is Directshow-compatible (and with a FLAC DS plugin, allows them to be included). This includes even WMP.

Of course, surely you're not bashing burning AudioCDs with FLAC as output, because burning AudioCDs with WAV as output is also not allowed - AudioCDs only have Headerless, Containerless LPCM streams/tracks as output.

@magillagorilla,
If you want ACCURACY, EAC hands down.

Scott

[MOVIEGEEK]

Of course, surely you're not bashing burning AudioCDs with FLAC as output, because burning AudioCDs with WAV as output is also not allowed - AudioCDs only have Headerless, Containerless LPCM streams/tracks as output.

Of course not, I meant the files that the software accepts as input natively.

I will leave this thread with this to ponder: I remember everyone touting OGG Vorbis as the "must use" format 8-10 years ago, how many people still use it?

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, OGG!!

But I do think in comparison, there is usefullness in the FLAC format.

Scott

[chowmein]

freac

[hech54]

If you want to use FLAC because some know-it-all on Audioholics.com says so then more power to you.

Same goes with EAC.

CDex should have this under their logo:
"...because your ears cannot hear any difference between
a CD ripped with CDex or one ripped with EAC."

[chowmein]

If you want to use FLAC because some know-it-all on Audioholics.com says so then more power to you.

Same goes with EAC.

CDex should have this under their logo:
"...because your ears cannot hear any difference between
a CD ripped with CDex or one ripped with EAC."

Gotta agree lol

[t0nee1]

If you want to use FLAC because some know-it-all on Audioholics.com says so then more power to you.

Same goes with EAC.

CDex should have this under their logo:
"...because your ears cannot hear any difference between
a CD ripped with CDex or one ripped with EAC."

Yep! gotta agree..And plenty of know-it-alls around these parts as well..No names need be mentioned b/c you know who you are..
As far as which ripping app, I prefer(not insist) on using dBpoweramp, EAC, F2k, and even iTunes..Now lets here from the know-it-all reply with, ITUNES?..
I prefer flac for well, mostly the file size when archived..And of course there's no difference in quality when playing the original wav or it's flac track..Now lets hear from the know-it-all that'll dispute that fact..FWIW, for most everyday listening I play my mp3 or AAC tracks, from PC and or portable(s)..I don't rip to flac to play them regularly..That's more for ARCHIVING purposes..It just makes sense to me..
Now go play with your fat WAV(s), they must need some trimming down by now..

[magillagorilla]

I like CDex for speed. I don't put anything I really like through it. It seems to be very effecient at dropping samples, maybe that's part of it's data reduction strategy.

I've been using EAC for years. The thing I don't like is when you switch compression codecs you can't retain your CLI parameters in the external compression settings. So if I want to switch back and forth from MP3 to FLAC, I have to keep putting my FLAC command parameters back in.

"I remember everyone touting OGG Vorbis as the "must use" format 8-10 years ago, how many people still use it? "

This is irrelevant. By using lossless the files are mostly future proof. I can just transcode them to the fassionable codec in 8 years.