Newbie Report after 2 days

[Fred Waltman]

So I've had my B2 for two days now.

To be honest, I thought about arranging for a return before it even arrived. The music organization didn't really fit how I listen to classical music. But then I thought, iTunes (a/k/a Music) doesn't fit it either, so why not give the B2 a try.

I am glad I did. While the bulk of my CDs are classical, I have a big stack of non-classical CDs and the B2 seems to be good for this.

I've fed 110 or so CDs into the slot. Most of them came up with the right album right off the bat. About 10% or so I had to scroll down to find the correct one. Ten didn't find a match at all. I tried two of those with dbPowerAmp on my computer and it found them, but it searches more databases so I'm not surprised (and not unhappy)

There were two CDs that didn't rip. One got about 3/4 the way thru and just stayed on the same percentage for 15-20 minutes. That one dbPowerAmp and my LG Drive (the slim one recommended as an external drive) ripped fine. The second one the B2 spit back out after 20 seconds of trying. A couple more attempts brought no joy. I've had this same argument with a dollar bill and a soda machine and lost that one too.

I've mostly been using the B2 controls, not the web interface (so I can get a feel for it) and that too has impressed me. I am not doing much playing right now, only ripping but it feels intuitive. When it comes to playing music I'll probably use the web or the app as it is easier to browse and search.

My biggest problem is I have to remember to press the knob to start ripping. I've said a few choice words only to realize it was patiently waiting for me.

On the classical music side I've got a solution but not one that will help anybody else. Being a software person I decided to "roll my own" as they say.

I'm using to dbPowerAmp and the aforementioned LG drive to rip my classical CDs to Apple Lossless (ALAC).  I make sure the name for each track is "nn (work name); (movement)" eg "01 Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, KV491; I Allegro.m4a" That sometimes takes some fiddling but the MusicBrainz database works most of the time. A few mass renaming tools I have fix the rest.

My software then scans the directory, bundles up all the tracks that have the same work name and concatenates them together using ffmpeg and applies a chapter list. I end up with one track "Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, KV49.m4a" with each movement a chapter. Oh, as a last thing I then make FLAC copy that I will later import in the B2. I figure I will have my library in both places. In the Before Times I traveling a lot it it was nice to my music on my phone or iPad.

So now I can make playlists of these tracks and listen to them randomly and get an entire work. This may break down when I get to works that go across CDs (I don't have a lot of opera!)

Sorry to run on, but am enjoying this little guy :)

[Fred Waltman]

One question I forgot to ask: While doing my research I learned that FLAC has 8 lossless levels. Higher levels give more compression at the cost of higher computational requirements.

Does anybody know which level the B2 uses?

[Daniel Taylor]

I'm not sure if I remember what level the B2 encodes to, but I know it plays Level 5.  Level 5 is the most common level, and is the default value for some ripping porgrams, including dBpoweramp CD Ripper.

When I first got interested in FLAC, I asked the same questions.  When I saw that Level 5 was the most common, I figured that that would be the level least likely to give any player any problem.  Plus it is the default on dBpoweramp, which I already had.

[Fred Waltman]

Thanks.

If it plays at level 5 I'd guess that means it encodes at 5. Since it does the encoding in the background rather than as the cd is ripped the computational aspects are less important.

[PMB]

Hi fwal...,

As Martin explained it to me, the resulting FLAC compression/decompression is the same at all levels, it only affects how much memory space the resulting files take up.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[JFBUK]

Hi,

as Paul says the only differences are in the resulting compressed file sizes. 

The different levels of FLAC just use increasing numbers and sophistication of the algorithms used to model and compress the data in the file. 

Higher levels produce only marginal reductions in file size

Because it is lossless the resulting quality is unaltered between levels. 

Some audiophiles claim to hear differences but I've never found any objective evidence to support this and certainly my aging ears cannot detect any.

John