Need help choosing a FLAC conversion process Options

[ccmrockman]

Greetings,

Don't want to take a lot of your time. I'm probably essentially a "seasoned" newbie to the world of audiophilia. I'm a music collector, and an audiophile contacted me back in 2004 with the hope of exchanging mp3s made from albums that I had a CD copy of which he had a different format copy of (CS, LP, etc.) - probably the most legal form of music file sharing there is aside from requiring substantial proof of ownership over and above the written or typed word. At that time I knew nothing about music file conversion.

Quick summary - My audiophile friend basically helped me set up EAC, RazorLame, MP3Gain and Godfather to do ripping, encoding, gaining and tagging of mp3s, and also introduced me to Audacity which I have only used to do minor editing of WAVs for my mp3 conversions. That's all I know how to do - basic operation of those programs to do a 4 step conversion from WAV to mp3. I got into the world of PMPs - mainly iPod, and have only really used iTunes to organize my digital music thus far. My friend eventually got to the point where he wanted to start getting FLACs from me, but since iPods don't take those, I wasn't interested in doing that then. But after getting a new computer with my first DVD burner a few weeks ago (2.7GHz, Win 7 Home Premium 64b, 4 GB RAM and 500 GB HD), I'm now interested in doing a better quality archival of my 1500+ CD collection and hopefully have all of the necessary gear to do so. I contacted my audiophile friend, who was initially interested in giving me the same assistance to share his preferred method of conversion. However, before we could get started, he revealed that he has an unspecified mental handicap (alluded to frequently in years past, but I always thought it was physical) that had advanced to a level where he wrote that he was no longer able to help.

What am I asking from any of you who might have a few minutes to assist and share your valuable expertise? - just to help me decide what to use and point me to the online guides that can get things set up for me. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to make the time to become a full-out audiophile like most of you unless I become chronically unemployed/unemployable for a long spell - not likely being a degree-ed engineer. I became familiar with this forum when i was trying to decide what LAME version to use with RazorLame back in '04. But now, as back then, I am lost as a goose when trying to understand 90% of the posts in these forums. I am not afraid to read online guides, but am only interested in learning the minimum that I have to in order to make lossless file archives of my CDs that could be back converted to the original WAVs should something happen to my original CDs. I'm interested in doing both FLAC and ALAC unless it will take more DVD-Rs than I want to have to keep track of (in which case I'll do only FLAC). I would also like to have the gaining feature on my lossless files if possible. I bought a Sansa Clip+ b/c that's what my friend says he uses for his walking around FLAC playback. I also took the plunge and installed Foobar2000 - the only program my audiophile friend has ever used in our association, which will definitely be a challenge for me since the extent of my real experience in PMPs so far has been solely using iTunes. Hopefully, I can learn what I need to in Foobar through trial and error and online research as I don't think I will ever become the script writing type. So I think I'm all ready now, just need to figure out a way to do the conversions with peace of mind that I'm getting the best results a "lazy" newbie (who just wants to hurry up and get the conversions going) can.

Here's what I've got installed on my computer so far:
EAC V1.0 beta 3
Foobar2000 V1.1.11
Audacity 2.0.0 (Unicode)
Godfather 0.80
MP3Gain Ver 1.2.5 (Back end mp3gain.exe Version 1.4.6)
RazorLame V1.1.5.1342

I would prefer to rip first to WAVs and then to do individual conversions to FLAC and ALAC using the best most secure method available that will get me the most error free back-convertible lossless files, and to also convert to mp3 using the methods I already know (will upgrade to latest version of LAME and attempt to match my previous 3.90 settings unless this is not recommended). I don't have any super hi-fi audio equipment so I probably couldn't tell the difference with my equipment between a general good quality FLAC conversion and one that has been tested and "perfected" by an audiophile.

I've already used EAC to do a few basic FLAC conversion using the default settings, but I'd feel a lot better if I had set EAC up using a guide from someone who knows what they are doing and is giving their educated opinion. The only online guides I have been able to find so far have been for EAC 0.99 prebeta 5 (http://blowfish.be/eac/Setup/setup1.html), some version of 0.99 (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Beginners_guide_to_EAC) and a guide to a one or two step conversion process using Foobar2000 (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15577/how-to-rip-an-audio-cd-to-flac-with-foobar2000/). The Foobar method looks to be the simplest, but I was wanting to get WAVs too for my other conversions, not necessarily rip straight to FLAC from the CD, bypassing the WAV ripping. I haven't been able to find any installation guide for EAC like the ones above that were using the version I have installed, which I think is the latest. I tried to follow the setup steps in the wiki guide above but ran into an issue right away - couldn't find a method to configure AccurateRip (i.e. establish Read Offset), which this guide says would be automatically triggered in whatever version he's using. I was also able to find a guide for V1.0 beta 2 (didn't note the URL for that one), but when trying to follow that, I saw many differences in the options menus between that version and beta 3 and wasn't sure whether I could duplicate in 1.0b3 what was being recommended. I found a thread or two about EAC setup in this forum, but started getting befuddled when I saw terms like 'image file' and whatnot - was hoping to steer clear of all of that advanced stuff and just stick with a.) extract WAVs, b.) covert to FLAC, ALAC and MP3, c.) delete WAV, and then d.) tag and gain...if gaining isn't supposed to be done in the second step.

I'm not asking anybody to prepare an installation guide - just looking for additional links to online help, references to previous hydrogenaudio threads recommended for and tailored to simple EAC (or other FLAC conversion program) setup for newbies, or, most importantly, your seasoned advice and guidance for what would be the best and fastest way to get started that would yield decent quality archival FLAC files that could reproduce my CDs in an emergency with the lowest chance of errors. With as many CDs as I have, I would obviously like to start doing things right from the start. I'll gladly take any recommendations of pages/threads with general info that I might want to be sure to check out before starting the full time conversions (though I'm pretty settled in my choice of FLAC and ALAC). I'm also ready to uninstall this version of EAC and reinstall one of the earlier versions or maybe a different conversion program which has a decent guide already prepared online or in hydrogenaudio if that's what most of you recommend, but obviously I need something that is Windows 7 friendly. It looks like I will have to start using a different tagging program as Godfather doesn't appear to be Win 7 friendly (was not able to close the program after opening it for the first time to check the version! )

Thanks for any help you can give. It is most appreciated. I hope most of you aren't rolling your eyes thinking I'm another of those lazy newbies who wants to get all the answers from other people without trying to read anything on my own. I have tried frequently to find things I can use in this forum with my limited knowledge, but it's so overwhelming most of the time. If most of you who've read my post think the default EAC 1.0b3 settings are just fine for the "average" non-audiophile who's mainly focusing on archival and not enhancing or tweaking, then just say so. I haven't looked closely at ALAC conversion methods yet, but do have a MacBook that I got recently, so I'd also be interested in any advice/direction for the best program/method to use for ALAC conversion on either platform (Win or Mac OS). And if there's Mac programs out there that will do FLAC conversion as good as EAC or other Windows programs, will keep the process simple, and are "recommended", then I'll be glad to check any of those out too. But your seasoned recommendations are what I'm really after!

Rock on,
Christian "ccmrockman" Hancock