Ripping and Playing

[rollo]

Anyone use Exact Audio Copy to rip ?  What about J River Media Center for playback ? Tried them for ripping and playing the USB DAC. Very good results.



charles

[bpape]

I use EAC pretty much exclusively to RIP.  Once you get it set up the way you want it, it's pretty much a no-brainer to rip.

Bryan

[mdconnelly]

I also use EAC for ripping and MusicMonkey for album art and tagging.   I have used dbPowerAmp as well and, overall, it's probably what I'd recommend to folks that want the easiest possible solution if they're willing to pop for a few bucks.

[rollo]

Thanks guys. EAC worked out well. Using J. River to play. Sounds much better. My buddy bypassed the windows program and now its just handled by the two programs. Night and day actually. Very impressed.
   To date all of my listening experiences [ except show demos ] have been through Windows. I can say now WOW ! Why would anyone still use a CDP or separate transport and DAC after listening to properly designed streaming device.  Welcome to the future.
   Really interested in what Moore and Nugent are up to lately.


charles

[Black Sand Cable]

I also use EAC for ripping and MusicMonkey for album art and tagging. 

That is exactly what I do. I rip with EAC (FLAC) and then sort it all out with Media Monkey. Then it gets dumped onto a NAS drive for my Sonos system.

[richidoo]

I am happy with dBPoweramp for ripping. I never tried media monkey, but I need a good UI for editing tags. Thanks
Rich

[mgalusha]

I never tried media monkey, but I need a good UI for editing tags.

Mp3tag works pretty well and is free. http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

[richidoo]

Thanks Mike, that's what I've been using. I finally tried it with flac, works fine, so I'll stick with that. I forgot that I had discovered it works with flac. I imagined it didn't since it is "mp3tag"

[mgalusha]

It supports a lot of file formats. I like the fact that it can easily embed the artwork. I used to dislike this idea but I've become fond of it lately. If I'm playing random tracks or a playlist, I like having the artwork for each track show up.

[richidoo]

So it embeds the art in the metadata? Do all graphic display players support that? I put art as separate file in the same directory as the music files and it displays on Sonos. Storing multiple copies of that same picture on every song file would make the directory larger, but not by much, and would guarantee the picture always works. Thanks for the idea.

[mgalusha]

yes, it embeds them in the meta data. I agree, it makes the files bigger but only by 50K or so, depends on the thumbnail size. I know that foobar and duet controller both support them. I was just keeping the image in the directory with the files but as you say, it ensures they artwork is always available.

[richidoo]

My music folder is pretty screwed up, started with WAVs, then copied in mp3s from a protable, then switched to flac. My first flacs used EAC without the tickbox for metadata checked. Nobody can browse except me. So the whole thing needs to be redone. I'll put the pics in the songs for portability.

[Dotsystem]

There is a program Tag & Rename that is pretty flexible. It allows you to make changes to multiple files at a time. Some labels are very inconsistent about the tags used from release to release by the same artist so I use it to make things uniform. Also when creating the tags from scratch it is handy to select a group of tracks and apply the artist, title, genre and create a track number sequence instead of editing each file separately. You can derive tags from a tracks filename or name the file from the tags.

[rollo]

Has anyone noticed a difference in sound using the different media players ? Say rip one with EAC and one with J. River as opposed to others. Convenience with the artwork is cool but isn't the quality of sound most important ?
   The biggest difference came about when AIOS was installed bypassing windows. I must say never has streaming sounded this goods to me.



charles

[rollo]

Noticed a major difference when I set the advanced Tab settings to " Adj. for best performance. Under processor settings " Adj. for best performance of background services". Its getting better and better. Any other tricks up your sleeves ?


charles