ripping and playback

[Islet]

Hi all,
I've decided to finally rip my CD collection. I have an iMac. From my reading it seems that the main difference between using iTunes in lossless and XLD for ripping is the Accuraterip check done by XLD.
There is a way to check the iTunes rip, but this is a separate step. Anyone know what % of the time an iTunes rip will not be accurate? The condition of my CDs is variable, but mostly good. The rip time is much longer with XLD, so iTunes will be more time efficient for me, but I want to be sure I don't have audible quality loss (which of course is dependent on the signal output, receiving equipment, and my ear).
If the rip quality is comparable, assuming an accurate rip, and if I can assume an accurate rip 95% of the time, I'd rather use iTunes.
Next question: output of iTunes for playback. I play to use Airport Express to connect to my old receiver (though will surely upgrade at some point). Do I need a different program for playback?

Thanks!

 

[jliedeka]

I'm currently ripping to FLAC but I have used iTunes and ALAC. I've never noticed a problem with iTunes/ALAC but don't have any data to back that up.

The reason I use FLAC is because my front end is the Media Player (DLNA) client on a Roku. It understands FLAC but not ALAC. Same for the DLNA client in my Oppo which I used to use. I have an old Linux box that streams using a DLNA server. I use MediaTomb for my server but there are lots of choices. MT is the first one I got working so I stuck with it.

I've never used Airplay so I don't know how that works. I assume you would use iTunes to play back your media in that scenario.

As long as you are ripping to a lossless format, you should be future proof. You can get programs that convert between formats. I use FFMPEG which you can install using Homebrew. It handles conversion of all different audio and video files.

Jim

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Airplay is also lossless and you would use iTunes for playback. I personally think that if you rip with iTunes you should be good. Just in case you might notice some issue with ripped audio, don't throw out CDs just yet. You could re-rip it using xld.

My client ripped bunch of classical music using iTunes and stored in on small nas. I never heard him complain on rip quality

 

[Islet]

Thanks for the input. I think I'll use XLD with ALAC. Not quite as fast as iTunes, but faster than XLD with FLAC. If the laser on my MAC tires, I should know by the errors with Accuraterip.
For 300 CDs, what are the chances of that happening?