Film Score Monthly
FSM HOME MESSAGE BOARD FSM CDs FSM ONLINE RESOURCES FUN STUFF ABOUT US  SEARCH FSM   
Search Terms: 
Search Within:   search tips 
You must log in or register to post.
  Go to page:    
 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 4:13 PM   
 By:   leagolfer   (Member)

Personally i'm old-school I got nothing against FLAC but its not full audio-phile is it listening to music on computer no matter how good it is has tinny-depth, I know this set-up doesn't work on my hi-fi that tells me that cd has better sound quality. Wiki said FLAC has much detail as cd if choosen correctly, personally I think not.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 5:56 PM   
 By:   NSBulk   (Member)

...so I can use the wonderful Roon software

You're going to enjoy Roon. I've been using it for almost 2 years.

 
 Posted:   Dec 29, 2019 - 7:35 PM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

To my knowledge the MP3 format does not allow gapless playback, regardless of playback device / software, whereas AAC does support gapless playback.


All my playlists are MP3's and there's no gaps (silence between tracks) when played in iTunes.
Gapless is supported if you burn a MP3 playlist as a CD music disc. Gapless is not supported when you burn a MP3 music disc.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 12:17 AM   
 By:   1977   (Member)

All my playlists are MP3's and there's no gaps (silence between tracks) when played in iTunes.
Gapless is supported if you burn a MP3 playlist as a CD music disc. Gapless is not supported when you burn a MP3 music disc.


Ah, okay. Doesn't help me though as I only use iTunes to rip CDs to ALAC. I use Neutron player on my smartphone to listen to music. I've been burnt by iTunes in the past with its tendency to delete stuff from my hard drive without my permission.

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 1:42 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

Personally i'm old-school I got nothing against FLAC but its not full audio-phile is it listening to music on computer no matter how good it is has tinny-depth, I know this set-up doesn't work on my hi-fi that tells me that cd has better sound quality. Wiki said FLAC has much detail as cd if choosen correctly, personally I think not.

That's not a question of FLAC vs CDs though, but of the equipment you use to play back. FLAC is just a file format. A FLAC ripped correctly from a CD is 100% exactly the same data as is on the CD, so it is 100% the exact "quality". That is just a fact, it's not open to "opinion". (A FLAC file can also be of much higher quality than a CD, just depends on the data.)

Indeed, CDs are read sequentially and so there may be reading errors while playing one, whereas FLAC does not suffer from this issue, so if anything, at least theoretically FLAC could sound "better" than CD. (Say, if you have a CD that sometimes skips, but that can still be fully read, it could be converted to FLAC which then will not skip anymore.)

But of course, if you play back CDs on a good system (like a home stereo system) and FLACs on a poor system (like a typical PC speaker), yeah, the home stereo playback will sound way better, but that's because of the hardware, not an issue between CD and FLAC. If you play the CD on the computer, it will sound just as bad as the FLAC, if you play back the FLAC on the home stereo, it will sound just as good as the CD.

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 2:05 AM   
 By:   MusicMad   (Member)

...
But of course, if you play back CDs on a good system (like a home stereo system) and FLACs on a poor system (like a typical PC speaker), yeah, the home stereo playback will sound way better, but that's because of the hardware, not an issue between CD and FLAC. If you play the CD on the computer, it will sound just as bad as the FLAC, if you play back the FLAC on the home stereo, it will sound just as good as the CD.


Agreed ... or, in my case, the CD play is not as good because the old CD transport has an inbuilt DAC which, whilst excellent, is not as good as the stand-alone DAC through which the NAS FLAC files are streamed. So, for me, ripping Lossless and converting to FLAC results in improved SQ compared to the original CD source. smile

I used to post comments about improved SQ but accept that not everyone is interested in, or is able to go this route, preferring to spend limited resources on acquiring new releases, et al.. My hi-fi upgrade path (including transitioning to streaming from a NAS) has improved my music listening experience beyond my wildest dreams ... albeit reduced our pension funds somewhat!

I accept that ripping CDs does take time, especially if you want to standardise the tagging. Happily, for me, this is something I enjoy doing, often using the procedure to research the music. I don't allow any on-line population of the album or track titles ... it takes longer to check and correct than to type the tags myself.
Mitch

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 2:35 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)


I used to post comments about improved SQ but accept that not everyone is interested in, or is able to go this route, preferring to spend limited resources on acquiring new releases, et al.. My hi-fi upgrade path (including transitioning to streaming from a NAS) has improved my music listening experience beyond my wildest dreams ... albeit reduced our pension funds somewhat!


Yes, I mean, of course anyone can and should enjoy music any way they see fit. I enjoyed music when all I had was my little mono radio-cassette recorder way back in the 1970s.


I accept that ripping CDs does take time, especially if you want to standardise the tagging. Happily, for me, this is something I enjoy doing, often using the procedure to research the music. I don't allow any on-line population of the album or track titles ... it takes longer to check and correct than to type the tags myself.
Mitch


Yeah, same here. I started doing it in 2013 at my own pace and one day I was finished. I bought the hardware to play it back later. :-) I found it most efficient to download the title tags for any album while ripping and then adjust accordingly; I usually just correct Album, Artist, Album Artist, Composer, etc, but rarely bother with the individual track titles.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 3:07 AM   
 By:   Nono   (Member)

Personally i'm old-school I got nothing against FLAC but its not full audio-phile is it listening to music on computer no matter how good it is has tinny-depth, I know this set-up doesn't work on my hi-fi that tells me that cd has better sound quality. Wiki said FLAC has much detail as cd if choosen correctly, personally I think not.

Today, there are audiophile streamer players (and not computers) that you can use in your Hi-Fi system. Of course, there's a "computer" inside, but such streamers are actually made for audiophile reproduction only.

You can choose your streamer player and your DAC the same way you can choose your CD player and your amplifier.

And the result can be much better.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 3:23 AM   
 By:   Spymaster   (Member)

...so I can use the wonderful Roon software

You're going to enjoy Roon. I've been using it for almost 2 years.


I love the idea of Roon - it's just flipping expensive :-(

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 5:08 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

...so I can use the wonderful Roon software

You're going to enjoy Roon. I've been using it for almost 2 years.


I love the idea of Roon - it's just flipping expensive :-(


Yes, I've seen and tried Roon, and it is excellent. But it is quite expensive and since it is at this point overkill for my purposes, I am not (yet?) using it. Roon is particularly efficient if you listen to both streaming services (such as Tidal or Qobuz, I don't think Spotify will do for those who pay for Roon) and music from your own NAS server.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 5:26 AM   
 By:   TerraEpon   (Member)

I also tried Roon....it absolutely does not gel with the way I tag things and it creates a huge mess for DIRs that aren't full albums (and even ones that are when it can't find the in its database).
That's to say nothing about its expense...

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 6:17 AM   
 By:   Rameau   (Member)

I don't know what a tag is, & I've never made a playlist. I'm used to listening to albums, so I rip the (CD) albums & listen to the album (well, maybe not all the tracks).

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 6:23 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

I also tried Roon....it absolutely does not gel with the way I tag things and it creates a huge mess for DIRs that aren't full albums (and even ones that are when it can't find the in its database).
That's to say nothing about its expense...


I will update my NAS next year (towards the end of next year) and will have to select appropriate server software. I consider Roon, though it is indeed expensive and I'd have to see how it'll work with my collection. I have tried Twonky, but that is seriously lacking and nigh unusable for me, so that's one off the list.
I am using MusicBee in addition to iTunes to manage my music files, and one of the things (not the only thing) thing MusicBee has that iTunes lacks is multiple genres, which is something that would be great if the music server software can actually do that.

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 7:14 AM   
 By:   MusicMad   (Member)

I also tried Roon....it absolutely does not gel with the way I tag things and it creates a huge mess for DIRs that aren't full albums (and even ones that are when it can't find the in its database).
That's to say nothing about its expense...


I will update my NAS next year (towards the end of next year) and will have to select appropriate server software. I consider Roon, though it is indeed expensive and I'd have to see how it'll work with my collection. I have tried Twonky, but that is seriously lacking and nigh unusable for me, so that's one off the list.
I am using MusicBee in addition to iTunes to manage my music files, and one of the things (not the only thing) thing MusicBee has that iTunes lacks is multiple genres, which is something that would be great if the music server software can actually do that.


For server software I can recommend Asset UPnP (part of Illustrate -see: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/asset-upnp-dlna.htm) which works well with QNAP. It's not perfect but it handles large collections and has flexible (i.e. adaptable) menu options - incl. genres. One aspect I like is that it can read up to 4 tags within the same field so that, for example, the following song:

Overture/Fugue for Tinhorns - tr.1 from Guys and Dolls [Reprise Musical Repertory Theatre] (1964)
Composer: Loesser,Frank
performed by (track artists) Sinatra,Frank; Martin,Dean; Crosby,Bing; Stoloff,Morris
Genre: Stage/Musical

can be located by any of these tags: album artist (here, it is the composer); album (name); year, composer; genre; or: any of the four performing (track) artists (Stoloff could also be located by searching conductor).

I wish it could handle more than four but I suppose there has to be a limit.

Note that it is my choice to set the album artist as the composer, reverse names and provide the genre name
Mitch

 
 Posted:   Dec 30, 2019 - 9:34 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)



For server software I can recommend Asset UPnP (part of Illustrate -see: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/asset-upnp-dlna.htm) which works well with QNAP. It's not perfect but it handles large collections and has flexible (i.e. adaptable) menu options - incl. genres.



Thank you, I put this on my list to check out!

 
 
 Posted:   Jan 1, 2020 - 6:40 AM   
 By:   Martin Williams   (Member)

Indeed. Multiple hard drives in multiple physical locations is the way to go.

Yes, if you're going this route then have a good backup system in place. My collection is on a Buffalo Linkstation 2TB network drive which backs up to a 2TB USB drive weekly. As someone else mentioned, in the event of a fire or some other emergency, I can quickly grab the USB drive and save my collection. And I also highly recommend a UPS for the whole setup.

 
 
 Posted:   Jan 1, 2020 - 11:20 AM   
 By:   1977   (Member)

Yes, if you're going this route then have a good backup system in place. My collection is on a Buffalo Linkstation 2TB network drive which backs up to a 2TB USB drive weekly. As someone else mentioned, in the event of a fire or some other emergency, I can quickly grab the USB drive and save my collection. And I also highly recommend a UPS for the whole setup.

What happens if the fire breaks out when you are not at home?

 
 Posted:   Jan 1, 2020 - 1:46 PM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)



What happens if the fire breaks out when you are not at home?


Your belongings, including all your CDs and hard drives and books, blu-rays, video games, Teddy Bears, comic books, toys, photographs, oil paintings, Legos, and everything else will burn until it rains or the fire is put out. That's what's gonna happen.



(Stuff backed up in the cloud should be safe though.)

 
 Posted:   Jan 1, 2020 - 1:52 PM   
 By:   Traveling Matt   (Member)

Your belongings, including all your CDs and hard drives and books, blu-rays, video games, Teddy Bears, comic books, toys, photographs, oil paintings, Legos, and everything else will burn until it rains or the fire is put out. That's what's gonna happen.

That's only gonna happen to the hard drives at home. The ones at your office, storage space, etc will be just fine. wink

 
 Posted:   Jan 1, 2020 - 1:59 PM   
 By:   Traveling Matt   (Member)

(Stuff backed up in the cloud should be safe though.)

LOL!


LC, did you change your avatar just for this post? LOL!

 
You must log in or register to post.
  Go to page:    
© 2025 Film Score Monthly. All Rights Reserved.
Website maintained and powered by Veraprise and Matrimont.