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Topic: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help! (Read 2555 times) previous topic - next topic
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Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Hey people,

Looking to rebuild a digital music library from distant past when all was albums & CD players...

I could really use some direction, so here's me deal at this point...

I've decided to repurchase used audio CD's that have always appeared to play (and sound) perfectly upon receipt, due to much reduced cost.

W/ these I've been ripping them into iTunes, and from there I enjoy them on my home stereo (which PC is plugged into w/ optical audio cable) and also download iTunes library into my iPod classic and my android note 4 phone.

Have now determined that sound quality is noticeably poorer than I remember; further research shows that when ripping into iTunes I have been using the lowest quality import settings. Library at this point is still pretty limited so, re-ripping everything back in, in a far higher quality method, is my goal.

iTunes offers a few higher quality import options (I've done everything AAC Encoder so far) and it would appear that using these tools (iTunes) choosing 'Import using MP3 Encoder' would likely be the way to go.

I run W10 on a PC and also have a couple years old version of  Nero Burning ROM.

What I like so far about iTunes is that I've got a little system down that works, and seems to offer options for a much higher quality of sound import as well. I also like that it imports all the album art & song titles too. Importing at a higher quality will increase file sizes and increase download times which is totally doable for me.

What I'm wondering, and would love your suggestions on is this: without getting much more involved than the increased time for higher quality importing using iTunes, would any of you suggest taking a completely different route regarding any of these things I've mentioned? Perhaps FLAC is a much better way to go - if it was, would I then be going through all sorts of extra steps to get album art and song lists downloaded from other places?

If there is a better forum for this question, or someone here is aware of a very similar post which may answer a lot of my questions please feel free to direct this newb to it.

Thanks for any help people

Ian 

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #1 –
I recommend you rip to FLAC (lossless). You can play these on your computer just as you currently do with itunes (but rather than use itunes, you'll need something like foobar2000.  I'd rip to FLAC with dbpoweramp or EAC.  I use dbpoweramp. It will download album metadata, artwork, etc., just as you have been getting with itunes.

See:
https://www.dbpoweramp.com/purchase.htm
http://www.foobar2000.org/getfile/b7ece8eca05787f1ce4a421abc5d808d/foobar2000_v1.3.12.exe

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #2 –
FLAC is what I use but if you want to stick with iTunes try encoding to Apple Lossless. Both are the same quality as the original CD.

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #3 –
 I'd rip to FLAC with dbpoweramp or EAC.  I use dbpoweramp. It will download album metadata, artwork, etc., just as you have been getting with itunes.

Thanks you guys - working with dbpoweramp now. kinda went towards itunes because I've been hearing about it so long and I was able to figure it out and, I have an ipod, which I don't plan on using much - my android phone is much more the preferred ticket for me. Sounding/looking like dbpoweramp might easily be able to replace itunes (hoping). Any thoughts or knowledge on downloading these dbpoweram FLAC files to my android phone? I imagine just a pretty simple matter of dragging the music libraey file of dbpoweramp ripped music over into my phones window when the phone is connected to pc by USB cable, right...?! And maybe waiting a little or a lot longer for the file transfer due to limited or no compression from the cd quality download...

Ian

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #4 –
dBpoweramp is an excellent ripper but not really a media player.
Have a look at e.g. MusicBee.

What I do is I have all the music in lossless but when I sync to my Android phone, I use transcoding (converting on the fly) to high bit rate MP3.
This allows me to store a substantial collection on the limited space on the phone without scarifying much sound quality wise.
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/MusicBee/MusicBee_Sync.htm
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #5 –
If you are familiar with, and like, iTunes, then just changing the save settings to Apple Lossless looks like a one-stop fix for your requirements. I doubt it would add much, if anything, to ripping times either, but I have never used iTunes, so I can't say for sure.

Obviously, copying files to a portable player/phone would take longer, due to the file size, but would it really be a dealbreaker?

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Roseval on
dBpoweramp is an excellent ripper but not really a media player.

dbpoweramp is not a media player at all. It is a ripper, converter, tag editor, etc.

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #7 –
Quote from: winrland2112 on
Perhaps FLAC is a much better way to go - if it was, would I then be going through all sorts of extra steps to get album art and song lists downloaded from other places?
My advice is to first just play around with EAC and iTunes, both free, in order to understand the nuances of building an audio library. In general, I think it's better to get the technique down before building anything substantive. I can't count the number of times I've improved my ripping process. As well, once you're familiar with the technology, you will be in a much better position to understanding what you really need, and where to spend your money. Actually, it's amazing just how much "best in class" free and open audio software there is.

As well, this forum community has a very no-nonsense approach that can be quite instructive in a fairly short time. Hang around here and you'll soon get "it", at least that's been my experience.

Have fun.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #8 –
If you like iTunes, I'd opt for Apple Lossless w/Error Correction option selected: Similar space savings as FLAC, and you can always do a batch-conversion later if you change your mind.

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #9 –
Many people rip to lossless to use on their PC as their main library, and from this create a 2nd library in mp3 or aac for the phone, because space on phones is limited.

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #10 –
Has there been any objective evidence demonstrating the efficacy of the error correction setting in iTunes?  I am unaware of anything presented at this forum showing that iTunes is on-par with any of the programs that are commonly accepted as being secure.

...and I have read just about every thread on this forum on the subject.

Regarding the previous post that got in just before mine:  iTunes (and others) allows on-the-fly compression while uploading to a portable allowing a single lossless library.
 

Re: Rebuilding music in my life - need some help!

Reply #11 –
Quote from: 4season on
Apple Lossless w/Error Correction option selected
Quote from: greynol on
Has there been any objective evidence demonstrating the efficacy of the error correction setting in iTunes?
Still waiting...