[Bob in St. Louis]

Hello,

In preporation of purchasing a SqueezeBox type thingy someday I'd like to start my collection NOW of high quality tracks on my PC, I believe 'lossless' is the correct word.
I've presently got about 800 songs, but all from the good old days of Napster (remember when that was legal  ) that suffer a little in the quality department, you know?
I've currently got WMP, MusicMatch, and Creative Media (I think it's called) as players/burners. Are any of these 'moddable' to get good quality tunes on the PC, or should a fellow look elseware for software for burning?

Thanks in advance.
Bob

[miklorsmith]

EAC is the standard.  There's a REACT plugin that will do mass .flac encoding too.

It's not the most intuitive program and has a somewhat painful learning curve, but once going has consistently excellent results.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Thanks for the speedy reply.
However I should have noted that I'm a relative idiot regarding this type of technology.

I'll do some Googling for EAC and REACT, but I'm thinking "REACT" may come up many 'useless' hits...

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

Wow, first "hit", I found: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Here's a quote from the site, "Usage of the Windows 95 and Windows NT ASPI Interface, so both SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROM drives are supported".
Does it not work with Windows XP?

Bob

p.s. (The PC is a few month old Dell XPS 400 with a few upgrades. No "real" audio upgrades though.)

[mgalusha]

Here's a quote from the site, "Usage of the Windows 95 and Windows NT ASPI Interface, so both SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROM drives are supported".
Does it not work with Windows XP?

XP is mostly NT underneath. EAC works just fine with WinXP, no worries there.

[Tirade]

Hello,

In preporation of purchasing a SqueezeBox type thingy someday I'd like to start my collection NOW of high quality tracks on my PC, I believe 'lossless' is the correct word.
I've presently got about 800 songs, but all from the good old days of Napster (remember when that was legal  ) that suffer a little in the quality department, you know?
I've currently got WMP, MusicMatch, and Creative Media (I think it's called) as players/burners. Are any of these 'moddable' to get good quality tunes on the PC, or should a fellow look elseware for software for burning?

Thanks in advance.
Bob

Bob

I don't think your questions were answered yet so let me take a stab at it.

Regarding your music that you already have on your PC (i.e. your stuff downloaded from Napster), there are ways to convert it to FLAC but it would be pointless as the source is already of poor quality. Your MP3's cant be made to sound any better.

As for ripping your CD's to FLAC, you can do it yourself and you will find a ton of info on this on these forums and other forums or you can pay someone to do it. I offer a ripping service myself and you can find out more about it here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=29176.0

Also if you plan to get your Squeezebox modded by Wayne over at Bolder Cables, Im currently offering a discount to my services. You can find out more info about that here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=33573.0

Tim

[Bob in St. Louis]

Thanks VERY MUCH for the info Tim. 

I'd love to send the cd's, however I'm financially challenged.
So I have to do things "pieces at a time". I can't afford to do the SB, and have it upgraded all at the same time.  I'd have to get the unit, recover financially, THEN send it to be modded.
I've got a lot of DIYing going on. The transfer of files would be just another project.
I found this: http://flac.sourceforge.net/  This one, and the other site I posted look like good starting places to me. Whatcha' think?

Bob

[DeadFish]

You'll get 'straight' on it eventually, Bob.
I've been dinking with this stuff for a year, and just last night decided to re-rip all of my Pink Floyd when I realized how wretched my DSOTM sounded, and a few albums were single, LONG files.  Sheesh!  Back at the beginning, I was scrambling to start ripping my collection.     
(mostly wrong) Now, after a brief pruning period, I'm ready to fill up another harddrive!
At least the price is affordable when  ya own the albums!
I might also suggest some searches on SlimDevices forum to pick up on a whole lot of others' learning curves.
That has helped me a lot.

Best Regards,
DeadFish

[JohnnyLightOn]

Here's a good quick start guide to setting up EAC.  Use FLAC as your external encoder.  So you'd download EAC and FLAC and then set it up using the below guide.  2-3 hours later, you'll be in business and won't have to think about these settings again.

http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac-qs-en.htm

[denjo]

Bob

Like you, I am about to pull the trigger for a SB3 which I hope to run digital out into my Paradisea/Altmann Attraction DAC. I have been spending quite a bit of time ripping my collection of CDs into FLAC. I need some assurance that what I am doing is right - otherwise its quite a journey to start again! After I have ripped my CDs, how do I confirm that it is in FLAC?

You might also want to take another preparatory step - download the latest SB software which I did. I feel excited in being able to see my ripped CDs (with Artist and Title) in the Slim Devices music folder. I also had a great time trying the internet radio with audio through my PC speakers. Gosh, imagine having the world's radio stations and the various genre of music within a click of your remote!

Best Regards
Dennis

[randytsuch]

I have been reripping my entire collection lately.
First time, I did ripped with EAC, then manually ran flac to make my flac files.

Now, I am using react, see information here
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=REACT

If you go to the bottom of that page I linked, you can find the links to the place to download it, and another with information.
One pretty nice thing about react is that it will automatically set up eac with pretty good settings, so if you know nothing about eac, this is better than using the EAC defaults.  You still do need to have eac check your drive, so the drive settings are set up correctly.

I actually changed the scripts to save both the wav and flac files.  The default mode was to delete the wav files after you make the flac files.  It also makes the tag files for you, and you don't have to enter the tag infomation yourself.  You do need to be carefull what shows up the the boxes in EAC, for artist, genre, etc, and make sure that information matches what you want the tags to be.

The tags will show up when you run slimserver, and tell you about the song that is playing.

You also can search on songs based on genre, something to keep in mind when you set the genre when you rip the CD.

I would load in slimserver on your PC, then run softsqueeze.  Softsqueeze will emulate a squeezebox, on your PC, and let you use slimserver to play music through your soundcard.  This will let you play with the slimserver interface right now.  Then, you can rip a couple CD's, scan them into slimserver, and see how the interface works, and how the tags look.

It is better to spend some time on the front end, figuring out how you want things to end up, before you rip your collection.

And then there are CD's with various artists, a lesson I will save for later.

Good luck.
Randy

[inguz]

I've not used REACT; instead I can recommend the EAC ripping guide here
http://calonet.org/eac
which includes detail on how to set up the FLAC encoder together with EAC.  It's not a simple process, but the screenshots take you through every stage slowly.  And once configured, ripping a CD reliably is only a few keystrokes.

[Thump553]

I use EAC mostly, but it has a steep learning curve in order to set it up properly.  Another program (free for 30 day trial only) that is very nice, and EXTREMELY user friendly, is EZ-CD Extractor.  I'd reccommend starting with EZ-CD, or switching over there if you get overly frustrated with EAC.

The link for EZ-CD Extractor:  http://www.poikosoft.com/

[denjo]

Randy

Thanks for your advice above! Before your suggestion. I did not even know there was Softsqeeze. I had some initial problems downloading it but found that the Squeezebox slimserver which I earlier downloaded has a helpful FAQ and even a "Softsqueeze" link. I merely clicked that, loaded Java and then Softsqueeze and was greeted with the Transporter - Slimdevices latest offing and boy (!) what a way to advertise and get SB owners and would-be owners to upgrade.

Looks like my ripping efforts work - I can even see the tags for Artist and sons!

Best Regards
Dennis

[randytsuch]

Randy

Thanks for your advice above! Before your suggestion. I did not even know there was Softsqeeze. I had some initial problems downloading it but found that the Squeezebox slimserver which I earlier downloaded has a helpful FAQ and even a "Softsqueeze" link. I merely clicked that, loaded Java and then Softsqueeze and was greeted with the Transporter - Slimdevices latest offing and boy (!) what a way to advertise and get SB owners and would-be owners to upgrade.

Looks like my ripping efforts work - I can even see the tags for Artist and sons!

Best Regards
Dennis

Hi Dennis
Glad that advice helped.  Softsqueeze it cool.  There are different skins for it, so you can make it look at a normal squeezebox too.  I use it at work, to listen to music with the slimserver interface, through my PC.

Randy

[gooberdude]

hey gang,

just wanted to mention the importance of treating your cd's prior to ripping them.   I only have experience with Mikrosmooth & Optrix (do not use Optrix), but the change is undeniable.   Also, a de-static gun like the ionoclast or zerostat work quite well.      my hunch is that putting de-static'd and clean cd's into your drives might increase the hardware's lifespan.   Mikrosmooth all but eliminates the need for your cd drive to use error correction

i've used quite a few difft burning softwares, Nero, Eac, itunes.  the best in terms of sound quality, by a huge margin, is Alcohol 120%.  I don't own this yet, but the trial period was really enlightening.   somewhere on their site is states the software bypasses the dreaded Kmixer, however i have no lcue if the KMixer is even employed for burning.     a cool free download though to be able to compare difft burning software.   to me, EAC sounded the worst, then Nero, then itunes (i know) then Alchohol 120% by a lot.

because of what Mikrosmooth does to the optical surface, using it before one of the new treatments, like Jena labs or Esoteric 3-D, might prove to be the cat's meow.


GD