Newbie computer audio

[Audioq]

Hi hoping some of the more experienced computer audio nuts would have an opinion here. I am a late adopter and have yet to dip my toe into the computer audio/streaming arena.

I plan on getting dbpoweramp or exactaudiocopy to copy my cds to a pc or hard drive. I have a Classe Audio cp800 which should take a flash drive in the front usb port or I can play from my my pc with software (jriver?).

For an online/download service I saw Qoboz in Cloney last week and it looked very slick and apparently sounds better than Spotify/itunes.

Does this sound ok or am I talking old hat (again!)

Also is there a cd burner that will get through my collection of cds reasonably quickly?

Thanks
Dave

[Diapason]

Dave, prepare yourself.

[tony]

Dave, prepare yourself.

That all sounds fine Dave that will get you up and running no prob. EAC is free and very good. No experience with any of the streaming services but many people really like the idea of a bottomless pit of musical choice to experiment with.

Jriver has a nice interface and I think from your questions will provide a good experience into computer audio.

Simon it really isn't that hard??

[Diapason]

Simon it really isn't that hard??

I really meant "prepare yourself for the onslaught of responses", but maybe I'm being unkind. I still find the computer audio forum a scary, scary place, as you well know!

That said, my own efforts are bearing fruit. I've ripped most of my non-classical albums with EAC (still think classical tagging is a disaster, so I haven't started down that road yet) and the results are residing on various drives throughout the house in an effort to bring in some redundancy.

Dave, where things will start to diverge is exactly what approach you should take to getting the best results. I'm not ticking many (any?) of the computer audiophile boxes myself: I ripped to compressed FLAC rather than WAV, I have made no effort to improve the digital playback system, I bought the cheapest USB cable I could find that was the right length to connect to my DAC, etc. etc. I'd be a black sheep round here, no question. HOWEVER, it's all been reasonably painless, I can control my music from an app on my phone or iPad and I get nice artwork and info on the screen, etc. Ultimately, it depends on what you want to do, but you'll be reasonably future-proofed if you take the time to rip properly, store the rips properly and back them up properly. I find the process of ripping tremendously tedious, but then again I'm very nerdy about the whole process.

Anyway, it sounds like you're well on the right track.

[Audioq]

Yeah ripping 1000+ cds seems like a major pain. I wonder if I could outsource it? I'll probably just take a few favourites and rip in different formats and see if I can hear any difference first. Mind you there is something to be said for being able to put your entire music collection in your pocket if you ever get though the ripping process.

Dave

[tony]

Only jesting Simon, I knew what you were getting at:) just couldn't resist a nice concise answer.

Saw something on Jplay I think it was Aleg that posted it! Give your classical tracks numbers don't rely in tagging is the advice.

Dave outsourcing that job is a bit like a male and ironing. You can get into a rhythm just do it went browsing or some other chore.
Make sure you get 2 hard drives and make a copy.

Now the bit about how is it going to sound. Well as Simon alluded to then you are on the slippery slope. You can use the crappiest old system(pc/laptop) and it will work. But efforts on the pc transport pay dividends. I still have a cdp but have never gone back after making the leap.

[nige2000]

dbpoweramp for ripping cds

assuming your not out for the best possible digital audio sq
there are many options from a raspberry pi with runeaudio, to suped up audio audio pcs
bear in mind audio pcs can be used for video too
all can be controlled via phone or tablet with a nice interface
is there any size constraints or what standard of audio quality is preferred

the hole is deep as they say

but theres many cheap and easy ways to get decent sound

[Audioq]

Obviously I would want full cd quality for cds with potential for hires. Storage is comparatively cheap so I don't mind using up a few gigs (teras?) for storage. The only thing I don't want to do is rip my cds in one format and then have to do it again if I discover a better format.

[randytsuch]

Yeah ripping 1000+ cds seems like a major pain. I wonder if I could outsource it? I'll probably just take a few favourites and rip in different formats and see if I can hear any difference first. Mind you there is something to be said for being able to put your entire music collection in your pocket if you ever get though the ripping process.

Dave

Ripping is a pain, but for me, once I got used to playing music from a PC, I couldn't go back to messing with CD's. It's so nice to be able to just pick what you want to listen to, and hit a button to play.

I like the user interface for dbpoweramp much better than EAC. I think they both do a fine job, but if you have a lot of CD's, it would be worth it to spring for db. Db has a free trial, so I would just try it. And I have a bunch of compressed flac files I listen to, sound fine to me. I do use the lowest compression number (largest file size) when I rip.

And if you get into pc audio, a dedicated PC is the way to go. If you hang out here, you can get advice on what to do. With the PC, you can go nuts (some people here are VERY tweaked PC's), or you can do basic and still get good sound.

There are a lot of choices for playback software. Foobar is free, and pretty easy to use. jriver is very popular because it has a nice ui. There are many other choices that MAY have better sound quality, but you can play with different software later.

There are also programs/addons that can improve sound. jplay and audiophile optimizer are a couple.

Good luck, and hope I'm not throwing too much at you.

For ripping, the safest thing to do is rip to wave. You can then convert if you want, but wave files are uncompressed and will give you cd quality playback. I think a CD rips to around 700k of wave files.

Randy

[Diapason]

No matter what you use for ripping, I would *strongly* recommend using the AccurateRip database to check your rips. It gives a nice warm glow knowing that you've got the same results as others who have ripped the same CD. It comes built in to EAC, and I'm sure it's in dbPoweramp too.