[Bob in St. Louis]

No problem Byran. I took apart the PC and gave it a nice suck job with the hose vacuum attachment, toothbrush and Q-tips. Nasty fuzzies in there. Enough to make my own little bunny rabbit. But alas....no difference. I need a new fan for the power supply.  There's a helluva lot of play in the fans shaft so I don't want to run it much, or for long periods of time (like ripping CD's).

OBE?   

The version of EAC I have is "V0.99 prebeta3 from 28 July 07".

Stay inside Bryan, keep warm, it'll be cold tomorrow.

Bob

[bpape]

Sorry.  OBE = Overcome By Events

Link to newest version of EAC

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/

FLAC and Accurate Rip are included in the download and can be easily configured via the setup wizard during install.

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Wow, 2 weeks old.    That is new! Cool.

Should I uninstall my old version, or just download the new V4 on top of the old V3 and consider it an upgrade/update?

Bob

[bpape]

Quite honestly, the new install walks you through pretty much everything.  I'd kill the old one and start from scratch.  Create your music folder home directory before you start.  Use something complicated like C:\Music Folder

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

OK, good deal Bryan. I'll kill the old version and download the new one.....After I've fixed the PC.    Actually, I've been thinking about using a different PC altogether and adding an external USB HD. Just cause, ya' know? Maybe the beginning of a RAID array. My goal is to be as cool as you are.  aa 

Thanks Bryan!
Bob

[duff138]

Sorry.  OBE = Overcome By Events

Link to newest version of EAC

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/

FLAC and Accurate Rip are included in the download and can be easily configured via the setup wizard during install.

Bryan

  I just downloaded the new version just because it's been so long since I installed EAC on my computer.  I extracted my first CD and it put each individual song into my F:  directory.  It didn't create a folder with the album name and put the songs into there like it had been doing before.  What do I have to do to have it create an album folder for each disc and extract the songs into the album folder instead of just the F: ?  thanks

[bpape]

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?EACInstall

Keep in mind that the install part is for an older version - but the area where they show how to set up the parameters to auto-create the directory structure is still valid.  You have your choice of how to do it.

Personally, I use C:\Music Folder\ARTIST\ALBUM TITLE\ and all the .flac files go under that. 

%A\%C\%N. %T

%A = Artist
\
%C = CD Title
\
%N= Track Number SPACE %T Track Title

So, Crosby Stills Nash and Young - So Far would create a directory structure of:

ROOT MUSIC FOLDER DIRECTORY\Crosby Stills Nash and Young\So Far\ with the .flac files under it named:

1 Deja Vu.flac
2 Helplessly Hoping.flac
3 Wooden Ships.flac

etc.

Define the default music folder directory up front once and everything else will be created automatically as you rip each CD.  You have to turn off the 'ask every time' option.

One other gotcha - be careful of 'the'.  The Band, The Beatles, The Who, The Vultures, etc.  Kill the THE or you'll find yourself with half your collection under T!

Bob - cool?  Nah - lazy.  I've had to rerip my collection once already - never again.

Bryan

[ajzepp]

I'm very much considering buying a SB, but after reading this thread I'm of the opinion that I have no clue what in the hell any of you are talking about, and perhaps I should just stick with a regular CD player if it's this much trouble to rip my CDs to my hard drive correctly.

Can someone please explain in laymans terms what EAC is? I know what it stands for, but is it software that you install as a tool for importing CDs? Is there something wrong with just ripping CDs in Apple Lossless or AIFF format to iTunes and playign them over the SB that way?

I have too much invested in my system to have less than perfect quality for my source, so I definitely want to do things the right way...but it seems like the more I read about the SB, the more it looks like a major pain in my arse!

[bpape]

EAC is a tool to get bit perfect copies of your music ripped to your hard disk.  Setup used to be a bit confusing but now, the new wizard actually makes it very easy.  AccurateRip compares your copy to other known good copies others have submitted.  This verifies the appropriate offset for your particular drive to get things exactly correct.

FLAC is set up to auto-launch during the rip process.  It will convert the .wav file to .flac (lossless) and then remove the .wav.  The advantage is the reduced size AND the fact that the SB can convert from .flac on the fly allowing reduced network traffic by streaming the compressed file.

EAC also can auto-connect to FreeDB to automatically pull in all the CD info for artist, title, year, genre, and song titles.  They're editable if you choose but usually, you just point and go.

Once it's set up to rip, it's really a no-brainer.  My wife did a lot of mine while she was doing other things.  Put the disk in, verify the FreeDB info, select all tracks, tell it to copy compressed (uses the FLAC converter), and leave it alone.  Depending on the speed of your machine and the size of the CD, it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes.  Come back, pull the disk out, repeat.

There are some excellent tutorials on setup and operation on the Slim Devices forums.

Bryan

[ajzepp]

Thanks, Bryan...I'll spend some time at the Slim Devices forums, too.

Based on what you described, when you fire up the SB, does it just know where all the music is on your PC, and it imports it to the slimserver software? I downloaded the software just to play around with it, and I saw that it brought most of my iTunes music in....does it just do the same thing regardless of which ripping software you use?

[bpape]

Yes.  As long as your music is under the same root directory structure, it will find all of it.  The Slim Server software just always looks there.  There is no import per se. 

Now, you can just browse the music folder from the SB interface directly based on how you stored it.  If you want to browse by the other parameters, you need to tell the slim server software to 'scan' your library and it will pick up all the other information.  You only need to do that after you add music.  You can either have it rescan everything (if you made changes, deleted things, fixed spelling errors, etc.) or you can tell it to just scan for new things which is usually  pretty quick. 

Bryan

[ajzepp]

Okay, cool...thanks for the help!

[Bob in St. Louis]

I've got it all working, everything seems to be happy now. Bryan, thanks man!

azjepp - For the money I've spent on the SB3 ($270 eBay), I can't speak highly enough for little unit. Originally I wasn't too thrilled with the sound quality, but after switching from the analog outputs to the optical outputs it made a HUGE difference in quality. The DAC in my Harman Kardon AVR645 is much better than the interal DAC (in my opinion). Also, an investment of $21 (eBay) for a 5volt non-switching Lexmark power supply also made a very nice improvement in sound quality.
Of course, these finding are very system dependant and your results may vary. 

Bob

[ajzepp]

Bob: That's awesome! I'm really excited to get one in here and fire it up, I'm just not sure I'll be as adept at some of the more technical aspects of this thing as you guys are. As of now, I'm thinking I'll just continue to rip to iTunes in Apple Lossless since I have yet to come across anyone (in what I've read) who can tell an audible difference between it and FLAC. I have an iPod that I'd like to continue using, so I think this may be the best format for me. And if I understand it correctly, as long as I rip to a lossless format, I can always convert it to one of the other ones w/out having to reload all my discs.

I'm in need of a computer upgrade anyway (mine is very old), so I'll just grab a laptop and a SB at the same time. I'm actually really interested in the Rhapsody and Pandora programming too, since it seems like a great way to become familiar with artists that I may not have heard of. That's one reason I'm leaning away from the Olive and toward the SB 

[bpape]

AJ

Stock analog outs are what one would expect for < $300 with all that capability.  The digital outs to something moderate like a Paradesea and a decent power supply is a huge step up.  From there, one can do digital mods to an external DAC or do the analog outs via Wayne at Bolder.  I have his Statement mods on mine.  I'm keeping the Paradesea for a 2nd system but the modded analog outs are far superior IMO.  It's just a matter of how you want to do it and the money you want to spend.  

We've done comparisons of the previous incarnation (pre statement) analog mods and Wayne's PS to a 2 box Wadia setup.  The differences were very very small and IMO, the modded SB was still the winner.  When looking at the cost in that light, it looks like a relative bargain with a ton more convenience.

Add in the new remote from Slim and it's one slick package that gives great performance.  I haven't used my CD player in months.

Bryan

[ajzepp]

Bryan: That's the next decision I'd have to make....I think I'd feel more comfortable with an outboard DAC and having Wayne upgrade the PS, but it seems like a lot of you guys are pretty impressed with his analog mods. I just hope he's still caught up with his workload by the time I pull the trigger later this month! 

[ajzepp]

BTW, how convinced are you guys that the mods to the SB (Bolder or otherwise) are worth the money? At least one Logitek rep considers them "snake oil". Thoughts?

[bpape]

If they really think that, they're not listening.  The differences are not subtle.

If you don't want to take the leap right away, get a decent linear power supply (or investigate the Felix/SB thread here - haven't heard that myself so can't say).    All I can say from personal experience is that after listening to the Statement mod unit, I oredered one and put my Paradesea on the shelf.

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

AJZEPP, Start small: Buy the SB3 and a $20 power supply (like Bryan mentioned) and see what it sounds like. If it's not to your liking then you can ship it off to have it modded. The only modded unit I've heard was done by Wayne in Boulder. Sounded pretty amazing to me. I read a comment on the Slim forum about modding the SB. The reply that was given by a moderator was, "If you don't like the sound quality of your Squeezebox, the ONLY upgrade there is, is to get a Transporter."
Yea, nice price jump there. 
Is there somebody near you that will let you borrow one for a while?

Bob

[Scott F.]

I'll second what Bryan said.

Most of the guys over at the Slim Devices forum (including the employees) seem to have glommed onto the word "audiophile" without having a true understanding of what the meaning really is. Being an "audiophile" is far more than being a music lover. It is about the faithful and accurate reproduction of recorded sound. You can't accurately reproduce music on a low-fi system, plain and simple. They are too colored and veiled. Not to mention, if you simply go out and by a stereo and toss it in a room (speakers against a wall, buried in a corner, mounted at uneven heights or asymmetrically within the room, whatever) without thought to room acoustics or even attempting to create a proper 2 channel listening environment, you couldn't hear the difference between an 8 track player and a Wadia (except for the clicks between the tracks). Sorry to rail on the SD guys but most of them are deaf and have no clue what they are talking about.

AJ, if you have a reasonably resolute system (and you probably do since you hang around here), you will have no problem hearing the differences between the stock SB and Wayne's mods. Toss in (even) a cheap linear power supply and the SB will take several steps up the ladder.

As Bryan mentioned, the analog mods are extremely good but it will be completely dependent upon your checkbook whether you sound do the analog or digital mods (coupled to a DAC). You will likely be very happy with either.



Bob, glad to hear it all worked out