[Tirade]

I’ve just spent the last 2 weeks ripping over 300 CD’s to FLAC format in order to obtain bit perfect CD quality files for use in the PC that was built for my brothers birthday project (more information here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=20697 ). During this process I learned a lot and spent more than I wanted to in order to obtain the right components for the job but in the end I have the perfect setup for ripping CD’s to FLAC.

As a thank you to everyone who helped make this project happen, I would like to offer you my services and my time in the following way. For those of you who are making the move to the Squeezebox2 or other PC front ends but do not have the time or knowledge to rip your CD’s to a lossless format, I am willing to do it for you for free. I will be ripping CD’s using EAC to FLAC format and then burning them on to DVD’s and mailing them back to you along with the FLAC files. I do ask that you cover the shipping to and from and the cost of the blank DVD’s. Any extra money over the cost of shipping and media or any donations will be used to help cover my brother’s medical and legal expenses.

I will be using 2 Plextor Premium Drives on separate controllers to rip the CD’s using EAC properly configured in secure mode and then converting to FLAC using a compression value of 5. Files will be tagged from the freedb database and each CD will be stored in its own folder. The files will then be burned to DVD and will be checked for errors before being placed in a jewel case and boxed up to be mailed back to you.

More information will be forthcoming as the week progresses and as I finalize things. I am also working with Wayne over at The BOLDER Cable Company to offer this as a service for his customers who are having him modify their squeezeboxes. He notified me that he will have a link up for me on his site shortly.

If you are interested in having your CD’s ripped to FLAC by a company dedicated to doing things like this for a living I urge you to check out http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_ripping.html . They offer a professional service for a reasonable price (roughly $150 to rip 100CD’s to FLAC) and they are fairly quick about it.

Thanks,

Tim

Quick update.

Ive had a few requests to rip the flac files to a USB harddrive or other storage devices instead of just DVD's. I will rip to whatever you want, you just have to provide the device. The advantage of DVD's is that you always have a copy of your ripped music in case your HD should fail.

Also, for those who havent made the move to a PC based frontend or are curious as to what kind of sound you can get from a $500 transport, you should read this here.

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/...p=185413#185413

Also if you dont already have my email address you can contact me at shaddai1975@gmail.com or PM me if you would like to talk voice about ripping your CD's to FLAC.

[Jon L]

Wow, I'm speechless.  I would send you my CD's, but I've already ripped them w/ EAC the HARD way.  

People, this is your chance to bypass the only significant downside of wonderful PC audio!

[Al Garay]

If you have Plextor drives, why not use PlexTools to rip FLAC?

I found the process to be very simple though time consuming. Thus, your offer is extremely generous.

I'm glad audiophiles are finally discovering SlimDevices. I've been loving mine since Christmas. Same with the Oppo. So, now I have two devices consider mods.

[Tirade]

I do have plextools though I did not install it. Ive heard good and bad things about plextools but EAC seems to be the accepted/approved method for high quality ripping. Ill look into plextools more this week and Ill see what I think.

Thanks,

Tim

[Levi]

Interesting.  I use Flac flac.sf.net.  It is simple to use and free.  That is if I wanted to rip CDs using flac.  I use .wav in my iPod.  Yeah I know...

[Tirade]

Interesting.  I use Flac flac.sf.net.  It is simple to use and free.  That is if I wanted to rip CDs using flac.  I use .wav in my iPod.  Yeah I know...

Well everyone who rips to FLAC has to have the FLAC encoder located at flac.sf.net. However the process of ripping the the CD accurately with EAC and having the right drive to do it (one that reads both into the lead-in and lead-out of the CD and thats been set with the right offset correction), along with the time it takes to do a lot of CD's is more or less what Im referring to above.

Tim

[Levi]

Tim,

Point well taken.  Much luck to your Brother.

Levi

[Carlman]

I recently got my 300 or so cd's burnt to DVD's by Tim... and I just wanted to publicly thank Tim for being such a professional and communicative person to deal with during this process.

There was never any uncertainty or doubt during the entire process as to whether my cd's were safe or when I'd get them back.  Tim let me know when he got them, progress reports now and again... and shipped them back when he said he would!

I just finished copying my entire collection... which took me a fraction of the time it would've taken me to rip the whole collection.  The FLAC files sound excellent, I have cover art for the folders, and couldn't be happier with the process.

Thanks again, Tim.  I cannot express how much I appreciated this.  I went from having about 1/6th of my collection on my hard drive to 100% in an afternoon's worth of time.  

BTW, for 300 cd's, that equated to 30 DVD's of FLAC files.  I'm just organizing them by (my own) categorization scheme now... which is the fun part to me.  

-Carl

[Tirade]

I recently got my 300 or so cd's burnt to DVD's by Tim... and I just wanted to publicly thank Tim for being such a professional and communicative person to deal with during this process.

There was never any uncertainty or doubt during the entire process as to whether my cd's were safe or when I'd get them back.  Tim let me know when he got them, progress reports now and again... and shipped them back when he said he would!

I just finished copying my entire collection... which took me a fraction of  ...

Thanks for the praise Carl and I appreciate the the thanks.

Im currently ripping almost as many CD's for another AC member and have another batch coming in later this week. Things are picking up for sure!

Have a great weekend.

Tim

[jermmd]

I sent this PM to Tim but I thought I'd post it publically. The CD's he burned for me took an hour to download off of an external hard drive. You can imagine how long it must of taken to actually convert the CD's to .flac, burn onto the hard drive, and then download the cover art.

Thanks Tim.

Quote,
"Tim,

Everything arrived today. It is so awesome. Squeezebox and a big hard drive of music is definitely the way to go. I have 575 CD's on my drive right now.  Thank you so much.

Let me tell you what happened. I was copying all the files off the external drive onto my computer when something happened and the transfer failed. When I reopened the external drive, all the album folders were completely empty. I thought I had somehow lost everything. I almost crapped myself! I turned everything off and then on again and it was all there. The subsequent transfer went without a hitch.

You know, I'll think I'll post this publicly. I'm somewhat ambivalent about telling people how happy I am because I don't want to encourage them to use your service until all the CD's I need burned are copied.

Thanks again,

Joe

[Tirade]

Thanks Joe and I hope you enjoy them.

I have about 900 more coming in over the next 3 weeks so Ill get with you about the rest shortly.

[angelo]

hi tirade,

just have a question about your ripping process because i have 150 CDs to rip.

the softwares that you use are DAE and flak only, is this correct? and you just rip the CDs to WAV using DAE and convert them to .flac using FLAK?

i also have a plextor drive (PX-708A).

thanks,

angelo