[Robert57]

Like Phil, I am also a dedicated Mac user--wanting nothing to do with Microsft and its security problems. I am about to take delivery of Bolder SB 2's and plan to rip in iTunes to Apple Lossless on my Mac Mini. One advantage of ripping in iTunes is that it automatically tags files from CDDB (Gracenote), which I understand is far superior and more complete than FreeDB. Now I see Max consults MusicBrainz for tagging--is that the successor to the defunct FreeDB? I have over 1200 CD's and want good tag info, with a minimum of manual corrections. I appreciate Porter's insights into the superiorty of Max's error correction over iTunes.

I wonder if Phil or anyone else has actually heard pops or other problems in the playback of Apple Lossless files ripped in iTunes on a Mac, with error correction turned on. Perhaps the theoretical small losses in iTunes are so small as to be inaudible? Would ripping on an external Plextor CD/DVD drive in iTunes give me better rips than ripping on the internal Mac Mini drive?

I'd like to find a way to get the best of both worlds conveniently--ripping in Max but tagging by iTunes. Is there a way to rip in Max to, say FLAC, and then import into iTunes as AppleLossless, and have iTiunes do the tagging with CDDB? I am afraid that iTunes will only tag from CDDB if it does the initial CD rip. I am looking for full cover art features and the ability to easily organize in iTunes for iPod downlouds and possible Apple TV down the road, so organizing my library in iTunes is an advantage for me.

Thanks.

Rob

[PhilNYC]

I wonder if Phil or anyone else has actually heard pops or other problems in the playback of Apple Lossless files ripped in iTunes on a Mac, with error correction turned on. Perhaps the theoretical small losses in iTunes are so small as to be inaudible? Would ripping on an external Plextor CD/DVD drive in iTunes give me better rips than ripping on the internal Mac Mini drive?

I rip via iTunes with error correction on, and I don't have any problems in terms of clicks or pops.  On Slimserver, I set the file-types to convert Apple Lossless to FLAC before sending to the SB/TP...when I had file types set to Apple Lossless -> WAV, I would get a small click at the start of every track (a result of a poor Apple Lossless -> WAV translater, not Apple Lossless itself).

Once again, I have no idea if the rips are bit-perfect...but I'm happy with the sound quality I'm getting (I use both my SB and TP to feed external DACs)

[Porter]

The issue isn't clicks or pops, but general signal degradation due to jitter and word length offset problems.

On perfectly clean CDs it's not as much of a problem, but on a slightly worn disc it's a significant difference, enough to result in a mathematically different WAV.  A secure rip actually can sound better than the original due to jitter correction.  For the audiophiles among us (most of us!), that is significant.


By the way, here's a really great EAC tutorial that I found:  http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/eac/

[Big Red Machine]

Big red - my server and router live on the 2nd floor of my home, in a spare bedroom.  In the basement, on the opposite side of the house, lives my SB3.  On the main floor there is 80%+ coverage by ceramic tile, and I assume, a light concrete base.

I typically see 38-40% wireless signal this way.  It has to be at least 60 feet, and through 2 floors.

I would expect your situation to work out just fine.

Thanks!

[whams]

Just wondering if you guys use the 'normalize' function in EAC when ripping your tracks.

I haven't normalized any of my tracks to date (I have ripped about 700 cds so far) because I wasn't sure if it harms the track in any way (sound wise). It sure would be cool to have all my tracks at the same level though. 

Any thoughts???

[Porter]

Do not normalize the tracks.  Don't use any form of processing on the audio, rip just it as it exists on the CD. 

The objective is to rip cleanly enough that it could be rewritten to cd and the original and copy would be bit-identical on every single pit.

[totoro]

I have a SB due in any day so I have been playing with the Slimserver to see what it thinks my files contain.  As stated previously when you use wav files they are not individually recognized as albums so w/o FLAC files and the tags it shows me just 2 albums.  I ripped a CD with EAC to FLAC and whalla, the album showed up as a third album.  This gave me confidence that the EAC program will properly tag and place the albums to be recognized by the SB.  Can't wait to try it out.

Do you think I will be able to receive signals between my office and the basement 2 channel room 40 feet away?  I have a wireless router hooked up but I might need a repeater of some sort.  We'll see.

Anybody get equal fidelity results with a Sonos unit as compared to the SB?

You guys are very helpful and I might enter the 21st century sooner than I thought.

Pete

You're probably going to want to edit tags at some point in the future after ripping has taken place. There are lots of apps to do this. One that seems to be popular is called "Tag & Rename", which I believe costs $20 or so. I've been using "The Godfather", which is free, and does everything I need.

[pardales]

A few years ago (Spring of 2005) I ripped my entire CD collection to iTunes in Apple Lossless using error correction (on a G4 Powerbook). In that time I have used several DAC's and a couple of CD players (though I have not had a CD player for over a year now). I have occasionally compared the CD to a digital file on iTunes running through the same DAC. The differences I noted were slight and usually in favor of the files on iTunes.

Only now that digital music severs are becoming something a lot of people are doing, and there is much discussion like on this thread, am I beginning to wonder whether I need to consider a re-rip of my collection. I have hard time believing I do, but am keeping an open mind.

[dspringham]

I also am running i-tunes on a Macbook and fedding a Wavelength Audio Cosecant DAC via USB. This set-up compares favourably with cd players and transport/DACs at several times the price. I have ripped my cd's with Apple Lossless and feel confident that anyone would be hard pressed to actually "hear" the difference between this format and say a MAX ripped cd. I think with the "error correction" activated when ripping in Apple Lossless, that any potential bit loss would be inaudible.

I think Apple Lossless is fine and i-tunes implementation on a Mac computer is swell - easy to use, no messing around with third party plug-ins, free software.
The rips are fast and easy and utilizing Apple Front Row software on the Macbook with i-tunes gives you the use of a remote control and full screen song/artist titles
with album art - very cool. The key for the best audio reproduction is to use the USB interface with a high quality DAC (operating in native USB mode ie. USB direct, not USB internally converted to SPDIF).

Also, it sounds like Apple will eventually offer i-tunes store downloads in Apple Lossless format - when available there will be no need to buy cd's again. For anyone running Macs as servers I see no need to run anything other than i-tunes.

Regards, DAVID

[Porter]

I also am running i-tunes on a Macbook and fedding a Wavelength Audio Cosecant DAC via USB. This set-up compares favourably with cd players and transport/DACs at several times the price. I have ripped my cd's with Apple Lossless and feel confident that anyone would be hard pressed to actually "hear" the difference between this format and say a MAX ripped cd. I think with the "error correction" activated when ripping in Apple Lossless, that any potential bit loss would be inaudible.

I think Apple Lossless is fine and i-tunes implementation on a Mac computer is swell - easy to use, no messing around with third party plug-ins, free software.
The rips are fast and easy and utilizing Apple Front Row software on the Macbook with i-tunes gives you the use of a remote control and full screen song/artist titles
with album art - very cool. The key for the best audio reproduction is to use the USB interface with a high quality DAC (operating in native USB mode ie. USB direct, not USB internally converted to SPDIF).

Also, it sounds like Apple will eventually offer i-tunes store downloads in Apple Lossless format - when available there will be no need to buy cd's again. For anyone running Macs as servers I see no need to run anything other than i-tunes.

Regards, DAVID

I think I've been misconstrued.

There is nothing wrong with Apple Lossless.  It is a very good format, though it is not cross-platform like the more standard and cutting-edge formats like FLAC, WavPack, and APE.

The issue with iTunes is the way that it rips data off of the CD, not with the compression to Apple Lossless.  And ripping audio data should not be "fast"... fast is sloppy, and highly error prone.

With EAC and read offset correction, different people ripping the same CD on very different hardware will end up with EXACTLY the same result.  That is not the case with iTunes, nor is it quite the case with Max, though Max is significantly ahead of iTunes in this area through the use of the cdparanoia library.


Note... they have just released a plugin for iTunes that will utilize cdparanoia, a linux-based CD error correction routine that is somewhat similar to what EAC does, though not as exact. 

If you're tied to iTunes for some reason, the cdparanoia plugin will get you closer to what I would consider acceptable... though again, Apple Lossless is not a cross-platform format.  FLAC is the most widespread lossless format, and has far more support in hardware devices.

[Robert57]

Porter, could you please let us know where one might download and learn more about this cdparanoia plug-in for iTunes, using Mac OS? I did a quick search and couldn't find this. I don't suppose sBooth/ Max is offering a direct iTunes plug-in, are they? This sounds very interesting, assuming it is stable. I read a lot of iTunes plug-ins get messed up or slow down the rips as Apple comes out with new unfriendly versions of iTunes.

Rob

[Porter]

Cdparanoia web site:
http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/

A description:

Cdparanoia is a Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA) extraction tool, commonly known on the net as a 'ripper'. The application is built on top of the Paranoia library, which is doing the real work (the Paranoia source is included in the cdparanoia source distribution).

Like the original cdda2wav, cdparanoia package reads audio from the CDROM directly as data, with no analog step between, and writes the data to a file or pipe in WAV, AIFC or raw 16 bit linear PCM. Cdparanoia is a bit different than most other CDDA extraction tools. It contains few-to-no 'extra' features, concentrating only on the ripping process and knowing as much as possible about the hardware performing it.

Cdparanoia will read correct, rock-solid audio data from inexpensive drives prone to misalignment, frame jitter and loss of streaming during atomic reads. Cdparanoia will also read and repair data from CDs that have been damaged in some way.

At the same time, however, cdparanoia turns out to be easy to use and administrate. It has no compile time configuration, happily autodetecting the CDROM, its type, its interface and other aspects of the ripping process at runtime.

To rip with CDparanoia in iTunes, you'll need two things... the installed CDparanoia package and a script to run the process.

First, the cdparanoia ported to OSX, which you can get from either http://www.buserror.net/cdparanoia/ or http://www.bronsonbeta.com/  (fourth item down).  These are two different versions, use at your own discretion.

Second, the script from http://scriptbuilders.net/files/itunestocdparanoia0.10.html that will let the magic happen.


Comments from the internet on the iTunes ripper vs. Max (cdparanoia):

I found something interesting. Try ripping one of your CDs with Apple Lossless in iTunes and the other one in Max. Next, add album art to all the tracks in each album via iTunes. The ones encoded with iTunes will have a long delay before the artwork is applied. The ones encoded with Max have the artwork applied almost instantly with little delay. The iTunes ripper somehow screws up the files so it takes a while to modify them. I have no idea why it does that.

Also, when I was on my Windows machine, The tracks ripped with iTunes (Apple Lossless) were not exact copies from the CD. I used a music binary compare tool. However, If you ripped with a different app to WAV and then converted to Apple Lossless in iTunes, they were exactly the same as the original. I believe its the same way on the Mac, Stay away from the iTunes ripper as much as possible. I'm going to try to compare my Mac encoded files tomorrow and will post the results. I'm pretty sure the files ripped with iTunes won't be the same as the files ripped with Max.

[Robert57]

Porter, thanks for the info! I think a lot of us Mac/iTunes die-hards are grappling with the question of how audible or meaningful these minor iTunes rip imperfections are, compared with Max. But if there is any easy way to rip in iTunes with cdparanoia error correction, that might be the best of all worlds. At least it will ease the nervosa twitches.

Rob

[Porter]

The answer to how meaningful the rip imperfections are depends on the CD.  A scratch on a CD ripped with iTunes will cause differences in the output, even if iTunes' rudimentary error correction is able to detect the scratch.  A scratch on a CD ripped with cdparanoia will result in a much better result, most of the time perfect to the original.  It's a huge leg up over the iTunes ripper, and similar to EAC (though not quite as crazy).

A scratch on a CD ripped with EAC results in EAC using its multi-pass correction algorithms, and if it can't be corrected, it will  notify you and give you a list of time positions where an error occurred.  .  EAC is a truly "secure" ripper, meaning that if it can't pull a bit-for-bit perfect rip off the CD then nothing can.  It will even rip cleanly on fully copy-protected discs with error sectors inserted to confuse CDROM drives.

[DSK]

...EAC is a truly "secure" ripper, meaning that if it can't pull a bit-for-bit perfect rip off the CD then nothing can.  It will even rip cleanly on fully copy-protected discs with error sectors inserted to confuse CDROM drives.

This is interesting... I have 2 or 3 CD's that EAC will not even recognise. I pop the CD in, EAC starts looking at it but then never comes back ... it just hangs trying to recognise the CD. Neither the liner notes or CD label mention any copy protection but I assume this must be the reason as the failure is consistent across different PC's and different programs (eg. Windows Media Player). There are no scratches on the CD's in question.

One example of such a CD is Josh Groban's original self titled album (9362481542  143/Reprise) by Warner Music. It p|sses me off no end that a recording company can prevent me from playing a store purchased CD on my computer, especially with NO warning of this.

Anyone else have the same experience or any solutions?

[Porter]

Well, it's one of two things... either you already have some form of DRM software on the computer that's interfering directly with the ASPI layer, or the CD drive itself is having difficulty with the type of copy-protection used.

EAC and the Hydrogenaudio crew recommend the Nero ASPI layer over the standard Windows ASPI, worth a try if nothing else.

I've had a disc I couldn't rip before, tried a different CD drive and it worked.  I dunno. 

[DSK]

Well, it's one of two things... either you already have some form of DRM software on the computer that's interfering directly with the ASPI layer, or the CD drive itself is having difficulty with the type of copy-protection used.

EAC and the Hydrogenaudio crew recommend the Nero ASPI layer over the standard Windows ASPI, worth a try if nothing else.

I've had a disc I couldn't rip before, tried a different CD drive and it worked.  I dunno. 

Thanks Porter. I've tried both the native Windows ASPI and the NERO ASPI ...no difference. Several hundred discs have been recognised and ripped fine, it's just 2 or 3 that won't. Upon insertion of the CD, the drive light flickers for up to 25 seconds then stops. Obviously no track names etc come up in the EAC window but the application doesn't hang. I get the same result on 3 different machines.

[Tirade]

I replied to your PM DSK, let me know if that works.

[Porter]

Well, it's one of two things... either you already have some form of DRM software on the computer that's interfering directly with the ASPI layer, or the CD drive itself is having difficulty with the type of copy-protection used.

EAC and the Hydrogenaudio crew recommend the Nero ASPI layer over the standard Windows ASPI, worth a try if nothing else.

I've had a disc I couldn't rip before, tried a different CD drive and it worked.  I dunno. 

Thanks Porter. I've tried both the native Windows ASPI and the NERO ASPI ...no difference. Several hundred discs have been recognised and ripped fine, it's just 2 or 3 that won't. Upon insertion of the CD, the drive light flickers for up to 25 seconds then stops. Obviously no track names etc come up in the EAC window but the application doesn't hang. I get the same result on 3 different machines.

PM me the names of the albums.

[Thump553]

Well, it's one of two things... either you already have some form of DRM software on the computer that's interfering directly with the ASPI layer, or the CD drive itself is having difficulty with the type of copy-protection used.

EAC and the Hydrogenaudio crew recommend the Nero ASPI layer over the standard Windows ASPI, worth a try if nothing else.

I've had a disc I couldn't rip before, tried a different CD drive and it worked.  I dunno. 

Thanks Porter. I've tried both the native Windows ASPI and the NERO ASPI ...no difference. Several hundred discs have been recognised and ripped fine, it's just 2 or 3 that won't. Upon insertion of the CD, the drive light flickers for up to 25 seconds then stops. Obviously no track names etc come up in the EAC window but the application doesn't hang. I get the same result on 3 different machines.

I had that problem on one or two discs also.  They weren't new (ie, probably no copy protection) and looked to be in perfect shape.  Switching drives eventually got them all read-there must have been a compatibility problem between some CDs and some readers.  As I recall, the ones I had trouble with were budget CDs or from small labels.