How do I use Exact Audio Copy to rip CD's to FLAC format?

[STV]

With anticipation of my upcoming Denon AVP-A1HD, I figured I might as well start ripping my CD's to FLAC on my PC. So I downloaded Exact Audio Copy and tried to rip one CD to FLAC, but after all was done and I checked the music files, they showed that they were WAV. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks guys.


Seth

 

[sleepysurf]

Unfortunately, it's NOT particularly intuitive to set up. You actually have to click the MP3 button to start the rip, even when you're ripping to FLAC! Here's a simple EAC setup guide from Slimdevices/Logitech (for Squeezebox or Transporter). You can find lots of others via Google.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?EACBeginners

 

[Audiophiliac]

I have been using EAC to rip to FLAC for years and years....I use a super-anal method for reasons not mentioned here, but its pretty tedious to set up properly. But as sleepy said, you need to set up EAC to look for the flac encoder, and then rip "compressed" using the MP3 button, or using the drop down menus. Let me know if you have any other EAC setup questions.

 

[STV]

Unfortunately, it's NOT particularly intuitive to set up. You actually have to click the MP3 button to start the rip, even when you're ripping to FLAC! Here's a simple EAC setup guide from Slimdevices/Logitech (for Squeezebox or Transporter). You can find lots of others via Google.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?EACBeginners

I have been using EAC to rip to FLAC for years and years....I use a super-anal method for reasons not mentioned here, but its pretty tedious to set up properly. But as sleepy said, you need to set up EAC to look for the flac encoder, and then rip "compressed" using the MP3 button, or using the drop down menus. Let me know if you have any other EAC setup questions.

Thank you guys for the very helpful info. I will try these things and see how it works. I will post back with my results.

 

[TomDac]

I use WinAmp to rip my stuff to FLAC. It's a little more intuitive.

 

[STV]

I use WinAmp to rip my stuff to FLAC. It's a little more intuitive.

Hmm, think I might try that also. Thanks Tom.

 

[JohnA]

Silly question (maybe) but what are the benefits of FLAC conversion?

I know that it is uncompressed format, downloading something in FLAC and converting for a redbook CD should be the same as the original CD.

But why would someone go the other way round? FLAC files are not that much smaller than the originals are they?

 

[Audiophiliac]

FLAC is a lossless compression. Filesize is reduced roughly 60%.

 

[JohnA]

FLAC is a lossless compression. Filesize is reduced roughly 60%.

Sorry, yeah, I meant 'lossless' and typed 'uncompressed' *doh*

OK, it's almost half the size, how do you play back it then? If it has to be reconverted to a wav, it is only temporary storage gains. Is that it?

 

[sleepysurf]

Aside from file size, the main advantage of FLAC over native WAV is that FLAC allows tagging (artist, track and album name, etc.) whereas WAV files do NOT. FLAC is also an evolving and open source codec, with new features/improvements being added regularly. In fact, I believe the latest version also supports embedded album art.

 

[Craig]

One of the advantage is that EAC allows for error correction. The other benefit is that playback doesn't involve a laser reading a disc and other mechanical devices related to a CD drive other than the disc moving in a computer hard drive. But then that isn't really a factor since the file is just an extracted digital file rather than coming direct off a CD. It's even less of a factor when using these new generation solid state hard drives.

I suspect there are less factors involved that induce jitter depending on the music server system. Some music servers make very good transports and the Slimdevices squeezebox sounds very nice when used as a transport playing into a good DAC. It's also sounds pretty good on its own.

I don't know all the science involved in digital music files but I'm convinced that digital files and music servers are getting pretty darn good these days and is destined to become a dominant domain in the audiophile world.

I've been playing around with the SB3 for a little while now and when played through my Wadia as a DAC it is on par with redbook CDs played through the same player.

 

[Audiophiliac]

IF you are serious about high end "computer audio", Empirical Audio is a company you should look at. At least read some of Steve's white papers and articles on the matter. He seems to be one of the most knowledgable on the subject and can give some insight to anyone curious.

 

[JohnA]

Thanks guys, it looks I'm not up to speed with music servers.
Worth a look I guess, anything to avoid CD-player error correction/error concealment.
I've even got a special CheckCD that measures this (paranoid that I am)

 

[JonFo]

Aside from file size, the main advantage of FLAC over native WAV is that FLAC allows tagging (artist, track and album name, etc.) whereas WAV files do NOT. FLAC is also an evolving and open source codec, with new features/improvements being added regularly. In fact, I believe the latest version also supports embedded album art.

+1 on this. It's probably the biggest reason for using FLAC.

I started ripping with EAC eight years ago, and since lossless compression was in it's infancy, I chose to rip to WAV files (+ a CUE file) and depended on the file structure hierarchy and naming convention to help provide meta-data about the files.

The lack of tagging support in WAV is driving me nuts with FooBar2000 0.9.x, which only supports tagged formats for its media library.

Now, FLAC seems to be a well established and supported standard (for instance the old AudioTrons I have did not support it). So I’m about to embark on a re-encoding of my 20K+ wav files into FLAC.

Anyone who has done a mass re-encode of WAV’s (and using the CUE files for meta-data source), I’d love to hear your experience.

 

[STV]

Well I "finally" got the hang of using EAC. I ripped 4 CD's and converted them to FLAC. I am very impressed with the sound quality. I do have to agree that EAC is quite complicated to maneuver around, but once dialed in to the correct settings actual usage is pretty straight forward. And the end result is of course excellent.

I kept running into a wall, and try after try I just for the life of me could not get it to convert to FLAC. So I took a break and did some searching online for some kind of walk through. And after a while I found one, and it tells exactly what to do for each and every step.

http://www.teqnilogik.com/tutorials/eac.shtml#Installation

So now that I have it up and running correctly, I just have one question for you all who have been using EAC for a while now. Which speed do you all recommend ripping, fast, med, or slow? Which offers the best results?

So far FLAC rocks!


Seth

 

[JonFo]

Well I "finally" got the hang of using EAC. …

So now that I have it up and running correctly, I just have one question for you all who have been using EAC for a while now. Which speed do you all recommend ripping, fast, med, or slow? Which offers the best results?

So far FLAC rocks!


Seth

Seth, good deal on getting EAC going.

I rip at ‘slow’ speed (roughly 3x read speed for entire disc) using a 2003 vintage Plextor CD/CD-RW drive. It has C2 error correction, and pretty much guarantees I’ll get the right bits.

On some of my oldest CD’s (early 80’s, I got in on the ground floor ) this drive and EAC will get the rip, even if it takes an hour or two.

Newer discs could be ripped at 8x, but I just set the settings and leave it alone.

The reason for using ‘slow’ is that it actually finishes quicker than if it’s constantly trying faster speeds, then waiting for the drive to slow, then speed back up, etc.


But YMMV with different drives. Just try the various speeds and see what works on your setup.

Oh, and note that many drives have firmware updates available for them, usually it’s to address recordable media compatibility, but occasionally, they missed something in the CD read arena and correct that in a post-shipping firmware. Check the Hydrogen audio forums for good info on drives.

 

[STV]

Seth, good deal on getting EAC going.

I rip at ‘slow’ speed (roughly 3x read speed for entire disc) using a 2003 vintage Plextor CD/CD-RW drive. It has C2 error correction, and pretty much guarantees I’ll get the right bits.

On some of my oldest CD’s (early 80’s, I got in on the ground floor ) this drive and EAC will get the rip, even if it takes an hour or two.

Newer discs could be ripped at 8x, but I just set the settings and leave it alone.

The reason for using ‘slow’ is that it actually finishes quicker than if it’s constantly trying faster speeds, then waiting for the drive to slow, then speed back up, etc.


But YMMV with different drives. Just try the various speeds and see what works on your setup.

Oh, and note that many drives have firmware updates available for them, usually it’s to address recordable media compatibility, but occasionally, they missed something in the CD read arena and correct that in a post-shipping firmware. Check the Hydrogen audio forums for good info on drives.

Thanks Jon, I'll try out the different speeds and see what works best. But like you, I also think using a slower speed will yield the best results. And thanks for telling me about the Hydrogen audio forums.



Seth

 

[sleepysurf]

Close call- check your BACKUP!

Whew, had a REAL close call with my BuffaloTech Linkstation NAS, which holds all my EAC ripped music! Yesterday, without warning, it "disappeared" from my network, and neither my Squeezebox, nor computer, could "find" it. I tried a few tricks, but still no go. I wasn't particularly worried, as I thought I was performing automated weekly backups to another hard-drive. I accessed that backup, but found it only had ~50 FLAC albums (vs. the ~400 I've ripped thus far). My heart sank. I then remembered that I had wiped my backup directory clean a few months ago before reconfiguring the backup script, but stupidly never checked to make sure that everything was actually being copied. Apparently, I misconfigured the new script.

Fortunately, after 2 hrs of troubleshooting this AM, I was able to resuscitate the NAS with all my files intact. Needless to say, I am performing a COMPLETE backup right now.

So, for those of you ripping to a music server, I suggest you regularly double-check to make sure your backups are truly intact!

BTW, the hard drive on my wife's 6 mo old HP laptop (running Vista) also died yesterday. Fortunately, I had set up Mozy Online Backup for her a few months ago, so she didn't lose anything. For non-music/non-photo backups, I highly recommend Mozy, which offers 2 GB free. They also offer UNLIMITED backup (including music and photos) for $5.95/mo, but I suspect they have some file size limits... www.mozy.com

 

[sleepysurf]

Following my recent backup failure, I've been searching for a SIMPLE and RELIABLE backup utility. I had previously been using EMC (formerly Dantz) Retrospect, which kept hanging halfway through the backup.

For those of you running Win XP or Vista, Micro$oft has a FREE utility called SyncToy, latest version 2.0 (beta). It works fantastic! You merely specify two directories ANYWHERE on your computer or network, and it will automatically keep them in sync. I configured it to copy all my FLAC files from my LinkStation NAS to my USB Hard Drive.

Here's the link...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&DisplayLang=en

 

[STV]

Following my recent backup failure, I've been searching for a SIMPLE and RELIABLE backup utility. I had previously been using EMC (formerly Dantz) Retrospect, which kept hanging halfway through the backup.

For those of you running Win XP or Vista, Micro$oft has a FREE utility called SyncToy, latest version 2.0 (beta). It works fantastic! You merely specify two directories ANYWHERE on your computer or network, and it will automatically keep them in sync. I configured it to copy all my FLAC files from my LinkStation NAS to my USB Hard Drive.

Here's the link...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&DisplayLang=en

Very cool, thanks for sharing that!