electronic media for high quality listening

[Dread348]

I am a very new audiophile. I just bought my first decent receiver and speakers. I just moved across the country and chose to sell my desktop computer that was my main hub for music. I kept my storage drive so that I wouldn't lose all of my music but it got damaged in the move. I am out of a lot of money in music luckily I did buy a fair amount of it on CD.

I want to know how to get the best sound out of music stored on a computer library. I want to be able to rip my CDs to a computer and listen to it directly from the computer. What is the best way to do all of this? I would love to hear suggestions on storage format. File size is not an issue. I have extensive experience with iTunes but I would definitely consider going with a different program that is better. I have an ipod that I carry and I would like it to be the same format but if it requires me to have two libraries then so be it.

I am looking into building a computer for the task to be a mini media player for my home entertainment system. Plans would include playing ripped movies from my collection. I love not having to get off of the couch and dig through movies to find what I want.

Thanks for any input that you could give.

 

[hewlett123]

If you don't have *any* restriction on file size, then I would easily go FLAC when ripping all your music. The music is held losslessly and transferring between mediums would result in no loss. Unfortunately there is little outside of a computer that can support it so your mini-media player would be a necessity.

There's a couple means of going about this. Building the computer would be an easy yet fun project but it would be costly if you plan on just using it to handle your music playing. Personally a modifed Mini netbook can support playing your music and via external (USB) storage you could achieve supporting any library of music you may have. Furtheremore electrical costs would be down as well.

But if you are going full boar -- ie a media machine (video and audio) then a full machine would be much better. I'd also suggest that route if you feel the need to expand any of the hardware in the machine itself.

Personally I feel that iTunes is a spawn of satan. I know very few follow me in my beliefs but I'd never use that to do any ripping as it's more of an annoyance than anything. I'm a tweaker though, so I use a modified UI for Foobar 2000. It rips, plays, and exists to do any multimedia work I require. I do suggest for non-tweakers Pikosoft's Easy CD-DA. It will rip to any format necessary and well over the standard rates.

I feel if space is not an issue, why not go lossless? This way you can go from medium to medium with no loss.

 

[oppman99]

If sound quality is important to you, I would definately recommend lossless. FLAC seems to be the most popular choice. I rip all my CD's as WAV files. A TB hard drive easily accomodates all my music. I use Winamp as a player and have been pretty happy with it. Media Monkey seems to be popular because of the ease of use. Supposedly Foobar is the "best" for quality but apparently is not very user friendly. It's all relative to your level of knowledge though.

Some sound cards have analog outputs for sound. Others have optical or digital coax for sound output. I use the Cambridge audio DACmagic hooked in via USB and love it.

If you want to use the computer to play movies, I would read some of the threads in the HTPC sections. It may influence your choice of video cards. Apple TV is another popular choice to get your media from the computer to the TV. There are lots of options, and you will need to do some reasearch to figure out which one will work for you.

 

[JerryLove]

Audio is easy: any lossless compression. FLAC, WMA-lossless, Apple's lossless (forgot name). The trick is picking the one that works with the media player you have been planning on using.

Given enough space, DVDs can be ripped in their original formats and mounted/unmounted. Otherwise that's a compression discussion. Same with HD-DVD / BlueRay.

 

[highfigh]

Audio is easy: any lossless compression. FLAC, WMA-lossless, Apple's lossless (forgot name). The trick is picking the one that works with the media player you have been planning on using.

Given enough space, DVDs can be ripped in their original formats and mounted/unmounted. Otherwise that's a compression discussion. Same with HD-DVD / BlueRay.

Apple's version is called AAC.

 

[highfigh]

The best way to find out what will work for any person is to compare several codecs and find the one with the least negative effects. If space saving results, fine, but with large hard drives being relatively inexpensive now, saving space is kind of a moot point.

I went to URC training last week and sat between two Apple geeks, both of whom are running Windows 7 (one using a Beta version and the other using the Ready to go version- not available until next year in a final version). They said it's faster, more stable, less of a resource hog and is extremely media-friendly. They work for a company that does a lot of networks as well as A/V and home theaters.

 

[Dread348]

Thanks for all the info. There is a lot to dig through. Yesterday I started looking into popcorn hour devices. Do you any of you have experience with these devices? I have seen one in action and it was rather impressive. I am debating whether I want to drop 300 on a device that I really don't know a lot about. Any opinions? I can easily build a small computer for the task but I doubt it will be as cheap as a popcorn hour. Especially since popcorn hour has optical out, HDMI out and networking options. hhhmmmm....

As for the programs, are there any good programs that will work for an ipod touch? Or will I have to have a small library for my ipod and my complete library for my ipod. This isn't a deal breaker but I can only imagine the kind of pain in the *** that managing two libraries could be.

Another thought that I had. Is there a good online system to download high quality music? Or am I just barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks again.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks for all the info. There is a lot to dig through. Yesterday I started looking into popcorn hour devices. Do you any of you have experience with these devices? I have seen one in action and it was rather impressive. I am debating whether I want to drop 300 on a device that I really don't know a lot about. Any opinions? I can easily build a small computer for the task but I doubt it will be as cheap as a popcorn hour. Especially since popcorn hour has optical out, HDMI out and networking options. hhhmmmm....

As for the programs, are there any good programs that will work for an ipod touch? Or will I have to have a small library for my ipod and my complete library for my ipod. This isn't a deal breaker but I can only imagine the kind of pain in the *** that managing two libraries could be.

Another thought that I had. Is there a good online system to download high quality music? Or am I just barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks again.

I'm pretty sure the Touch works with .wav files, so you can just save the one version and if you only use iTunes, the Touch can control that wirelessly. You'll need to download the Remote app, join the network and look for the iTunes you want to control (you can have your own, the rest can have their own, etc). Just name yours and look for it when you connect. Once it's connected, you just need to open the Remote app and start running it- you don't need to keep looking for it.

 

[Dread348]

I have done some thinking on quality audio for my electronic system BUT I am having problems because I realize that every different electronic system that I own has to have a different file format.

I have an ipod touch which is nifty but low space so that leaves me with lossy mp3 or aac preferably in a lower quality (192bps?) for space concerns. I don't have REALLY good headphones but I plan on buying better but they won't be stelar. Does this sound right?

I also had the random hair to play music while I was playing games because my music is better than the games' music. With the 360 I have the option to stream or use an external HDD to play music from. I doubt there is a way to play lossless format on my xbox so it leaves me with mp3? Which would be alright I guess since I will be playing games so I don't REALLY need lossless format for that since my attention will be divided. Then if I want a lossy format then I should make that library the same as my ipod. Can I stream a lossless format through WMP/zuneMP?

Then I want to make a lossless music format for my listening pleasure. I was thinking of whatever was the best I would get, preferably free. I was thinking FLAK format with the program that I play with and like. I would then hook up either a computer which sucks because I would have to use a 3.5mm jack. Is there a better way to do that?

Does this setup make it so that I have to manage a lossless format library? and a high and low quality lossy formats? Are there any libraries that handle more than one format for different application? That would be AWESOME!!

Thanks again guys

 

[JerryLove]

Actually, the XBox 360 will play WMA lossless.

Right now MS and Apple are trying to use their products to push their codecs: so I don't think you will find a lossless codec that runs on both.

The good news is that you won't hear the difference with a high-bitrate lossy format.