[Mike B.]

I started on a discless system some time back but quickly found out my old Windows 98 machine was lacking. Now I have a Dell windows XP machine I just retired that should be much better. I got a eSATA/USB external 1 TB drive for storage. I have EAC. Questions. I am thinking of ripping to WAV files since storage is no problem. Yes or no? Now for the process of converting to hard drive. Do you just fill out the data fields on EAC and then do the conversion? I am wondering how the info is tagged and then retrieved. I guess I am asking about the library function of storage. Also are there any Windows functions I should turn off or eliminate to improve the process? Thanks

[JimJ]

Some people can hear a difference between properly-ripped FLAC and WAV, I can't, personally.

When you're ripping, you can use EAC to fill in the data fields.

[boead]

WAV and AIFF have NO permanent tags!

Flac or Apple Lossless in my opinion.

[bpape]

How will you be doing playback?  USB DAC straight out or will you be using something like a Squeezebox?

Bryan

[Mike B.]

Ok, sounds like Flac is fine. I will go directly into a USB Dac. Does EAC have a library function that allows easy access to titles?

[JimJ]

You can configure EAC to look up the FreeDB database before ripping.

Or do you mean organizing the music after you're done converting? That's up to whatever program you use for playback...I prefer Foobar2k, but there are a lot of others.

[bpape]

EAC organizes by folder structure which you set up to your preference.  There is very little information that's actually tied to the files.  I run Squeezeboxes so I can't really say how much some of the others would be able to access.

Bryan

[Mike B.]

JimJ, what is the process you go through to communicate what files are ripped to Foobar? In other words, when a CD is ripped via EAC, how do you link it to Foobar?

[richidoo]

flac files can hold the album picture inside the metadata (thanks mgalusha). freedb is good, but there are better services for auto tagging fo a small fee.  Check out dbpoweramp for your ripping, it is easy and fast. Auto tagging is essential because typing in all that data is a chore. I still edit most of the data anyway. EAC used to have a check box that had to be checked to make it create metadata (tags.)  Be sure it is checked before you start ripping or you'll have no tags. Use flac level 5 compression.

Correctly uncompressed Flac is the same as WAV, bit for bit.  But the processor that decodes the flac can vary in its abilities. Squeezebox is audible difference between flac and WAV, but if you use a good PC player you probably won't hear it. Make sure you use ASIO driver to avoid using WinXP's K-Mixer audio handler.
http://www.asio4all.com/
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=pcaudio&n=12867&highlight=asio

[NewBuyer]

...Correctly uncompressed Flac is the same as WAV, bit for bit.  But the processor that decodes the flac can vary in its abilities. Squeezebox is audible difference between flac and WAV, but if you use a good PC player you probably won't hear it...

Thank you for explaining this - I have long wondered why flac and wav consistently sound slightly different to me (wav always sounds just slightly better than flac), since I know they are supposed to be exactly bit-identical in the end result.