A while back I undertook the project of committing all my music into my computer hard drive. To that end I used freedb to rip into my XP sp2 and used a program called tag and rename to manage the files, generate and push playlists to my player. I play my music over my stereo system at home using a bridge device by SlimDevices called a Squeezebox. All is well, I am a happy camper.

Although I never thought it would come to that, I now need to be able to download some of the music into a handheld MP3 music player. Have I preempted myself by choosing the .flac encoder? will my .flac files play on the MP3 player? Do I have to tweak settings? If so, which? How about burning a CD for use in the car or whatever (I know this is passe´)?

I was also wondering, since I am getting ready to add to my music library, if there I should look for some updates for the freedb ripping software. I couldn't even find the about button to figure out what version I have, nor what the right website mightbe where such an update would be available for download. Does anyone have a clue?

1) I'd like to know how you rip with FreeDB. FreeDB is only a database of title information. I'd look at Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for ripping.

2) Flac is a lossless compressor. It is not similar to mp3. You must encode the flac's to mp3. Foobar2000 is a great tool for this amongst other things.

3) I hightly recommend you take a look at HA's FAQ.

dBpowerAMP instead of FreeDB, perhaps?

How stupid of me! Of course! I don't know what got into me! I meant dBpowerAMP Music Converter, with Accurate Rip. I don't know how it compares with EAC. I gather EAC is very good but takes a bit more time to do the job and since I have a lot of music to rip, the time issue is not to be dismissed lightly. Since my setup took a lot of effort to develop (It's a wooly world out there for non techies,) and mostly works for me, I hesitate to mess with it unless the benefits offset the hassle of facing a new learning curve. I have mostly classical music so quality of the final product matters, but honestly I am now 60 and I am sure that my hearing is probably the weakest link here.

Having said that, Is there an update for the dBpowerAMP?, How do I do that bit? As for the Foobar2000, i'll do my homework. Thank you.

By the way, what is the difference between lossless and uncompressed? and although I understand that lossless means "as good as the cd original", by what measure do I gauge how representative the cd is of the original performance or is that too big a question for a forum?

Uncompressed would be .wav (essentially cd audio). Lossless would be an encoder that can compress the .wav and when decompressed results in the exact same .wav bit for bit. You can only ever be as good as the cd. As for being as good as the original performance, that's only as good as the producers, engineers and masterers.

Edit: If you care that much about the quality, I'd *highly* suggest EAC versus dBPowerAmp. With EAC you may spend a bit more time ripping the cd's, but you'll be ensured that the rip is error free.

All right , I took your bait and downloaded eac095pb5 and installed (by the way, the developer just posted a new version right after I finished my installation). that was the easy part. Now I have some problems configuring the darn thing and I am not sure where to turn. Where can i find an interactive place where I can ask a question in english (or french or spanish or even arabic but not german) so I can get some issues resolved.

Just in the offchance that you may know the answer, here is my problem: I am following instructions available on related web sites to configure the gap detection. the suggested procedure, with a cd in the tray, involves a trial and error of various combinations of the gap/detection retrieval method (a,b, or c) and the detection accuracy (secure, accurate, inaccurate.) pressing f4 should trigger an analysis of the succesive combinations but this is not happening for me. I get no indication of an ongoing analysis for any combination.

Also, I had painstakingly setup my dbpoweramp to work with AccurateRip. Do I have to redo this procedure for eac or can I actually transfer the add-on to eac, and how to do that?

How often do you get errors with dbpoweramp?

Actually some of my dbpoweramp rips are noisy. I didn't know I could do anything about it. But my audio file conversion project is largely done although not completely, and there will always be something new to add in there. On the other hand my EAC installation is now also largely done except for the tricky configuration of the eac. At this point, I wouldn't mind crossing the fisnish line if I could talk with someone about the glitches in the process. trouble is I can't find a forum in english.