This question is probably more suited to the Audiophiles. . . . ?

[Chris A]

Hi

This query is not a Brennan-specific problem but I am hoping there might be sufficient knowledge within this Forum to help.

After I had ripped a CD and converted to FLAC on my PC, I listened to one of the tracks. To my dismay, there was a momentary "crackle" during which the music was lost before normal service was resumed. I then listed to the the same track on the original CD (using the same CD drive on my PC) and the content was perfect. This suggests that the unwelcome artefact was introduced during the ripping/conversion process.

I was using the standard Windows 10 Media Player to do the ripping and conversion. I do seem to recall that iTunes had an option for slower ripping using "error correction" buried somewhere in its settings but cannot find anything similar in Media Player. I will just add that the majority of my CDs (other than those bought second hand) are in mint condition - they are always handled with the same care given to my LPs! 

Whilst this may be an isolated incident, I don't want to discover that, after I have ripped 800+ CDs,  that x% are subject to this problem, especially as I won't discover the issue until I listen to them. 

Has anyone any thoughts on this please? 

Is there some better (free) software that I should be using for ripping.

[Tony Hetherington]

Hi Chris.. slightly confused as to why you are using Win 10 media player to rip your cd's when it can be dome perfectly directly on the B2.. Just insert the CD into the B2, select rip and allow the CDDB to locate the album, select the correct title and away you go. Rips directly to the B2 in WAV format and then converts to FLAc during downtime. I have dome about 500 CD's this way and have never experienced any gaps or artefacts on playback.

[Chris A]

Hi Tony

Thanks for your thoughts.

I have ripped quite a number of CDs on the B2 itself and the only reason I have switched to ripping on my PC's CD drive is because it is probably about ten times faster. That said, if I have occasional ripping problems, it won't actually save me time in the long run! Ideally, I would like a foolproof way of ripping (at speed) on my PC - provided I get good results every time.

[Tony Johnston]

My B2 has close to 3000 CDs (& digital vinyl rips). Most done using an external LG CD player connected via usb. Has worked fine. Far more efficient than using PC.

[question mark]

It's taking me a while to figure things out but I've been using a USB stick to take my music from PC to B2 and it loads 40+ songs in less tah 10 seconds.

[Daniel Taylor]

Chris, I understand.  I rip all of my CDs on my computer for various reasons, speed being one of them.  When I used to rip to WAV, I used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) which is freeware.  There is a plug-in you can get for that to do FLAC too.  These days, I rip directly to FLAC - a one-step process, rather thant the B2's two steps - using dBpoweramp CD Ripper.  I don't recall the cost, but I'm pretty sure I paid for it.  Not expensive, or I would've looked elsewhere.  So far, no problems.  It compares each rip to an established database.  Sometimes the rip I get does not match those of others before me, but when I've checked, the music played fine.  I suspect that some errors are inaudible, and other errors were on the previous rips and not mine.

[John Lang Wilson]

Here's another take. 

I've just reorganised my music by bulk uploading to B2, much was already in MP3, but much was not. 

In doing so I fixed various folder/file labelling errors etc. 

Now I've made a backup using "export to C".  When I look at the backup it is in perfectly playable form from a PC. I've copied the backup to the  PC and pointed my media playing program to it.  Works fine. 

There is a difference though, the PC program uses tags, whereas B2 uses file & folder names. I had previously sorted out the tags on the PC, and sorted out the file/folder names when uploading to B2, so now I have both.  This is very good. 

[Chris A]

Hi Daniel

Many thanks for for your two suggestions. I shall explore these once the relatives have departed. Both sound very interesting.

[Chris A]

Hi Daniel

Just an update . . . .

I've not yet had time to try out your suggestions but I did have a few minutes to spare. 

I tried ripping the CD in question again, still using Windows Media Player. It was worse than before. A couple of subsequent attempts were varied - some a bit better, some a bit worse. I then tried ripping the specific track causing the issue. It rips perfectly every time! Very curious. A quick copy and paste using NAS has sorted this one out for now.