I have been reading this forum for quite some time. I am planning to rip all my cd's (approx. 250) to Flac.

My main purposes are to have a lossless archive file which I can backup to an external drive, and to be able to easily convert my Flac files to another lossy format.

I have succesfully experimented with EAC and FLAC and have tested converting files to MP3. There are still some thing I have to find out (mainly tagging issues when converting etc.) but I feel confident enough to start ripping. Before I start however I would like to have some things confirmed (you can never be too sure )

1. Is a single file with external cue sheet a good option? I know there is a lot of debate on this but I would like to know if I am doing something wrong. With EAC I will choose "copy image and create cue sheet compressed".

2. I own a NEC 3500AG DVD burner with C2 error correction. Has anyone had good experiences with this burner for DAE? I have currently enabled C2 correction but can of course also disable it and enable accurate stream.

3. Is it possible to have my flac file and cue sheet in one folder automatically. E.g. the folder "Bloc Party - Silent Alarm" would contain the flac file and cue sheet. Currently they are saved in my root folder and no extra folders are created.

4. I have read that there may be errors if one tries to burn a cd using the cue sheet and that I have to manually change "flac" to "wav" is this correct? What would be the easiest way to re-create a cd from my flac file and cue sheet?

Any help is highly appreciated

You won't be doing something wrong. Many of us use this technique. I also embed the cuesheet, so I only have to worry about one file. Using FLAC, if you intend to embed the cuesheet, you may want to use a VORBIS COMMENT rather than a FLAC metablock if you want to maintain meta data.


Have a look at FLACAttack and WACK or REACT.

Silent Alarm is one of the best "new" albums I've heard in a long time BTW.


I don't really know what you mean by "there may be errors" (where? how?) - but the answer to your question is most likely Burrrn.

Thanks for you help.

I will have a further look at Flacattack. I have tried this before but had some trouble setting it up properly. I may even try Wack since I also would like to have a lossy copy of my music.

The error I mentioned had something to do with the naming of the cue sheet . If I create a cue sheet using EAC can I both use it in Foobar (to play the Flacs) and in Nero? I would like to be able to use my Flac archive/cue sheet for playback and burning/re-creating the cd.

Do you have any thoughts on C2 error correction?

You can convert to lossy with FLACAttack also - but either should be fine.


foobar should have no problems with your FLAC and cuesheet. To burn in Nero you may need a plugin. Alternatively just use burrrn, or foobar, to restore to CD. The error you speak of was probably trying to burn from EAC. EAC support CUE+WAV, CUE+APE, and I think CUE+MP3 - but I don't think it supports CUE+FLAC - use burrrn, foobar or Nero with the plugin.

The cue will reference the wav file not the flac. That's why you have to edit the cue and change the extension of the referenced file to flac.

Sorry, totally missed that bit.

If you use "Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet > Uncompressed" then you would end up with a WAVE + CUE and the cuesheet would point to the WAVE.

However, if you use "Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet > Compressed" and specify FLAC as the extension in the External Compressor window I believe that the cuesheet will correctly reference the FLAC file.

NB: The correct reference in the cuesheet will be:

FILE "<name>.flac" WAVE

Don't change it to:

FILE "<name>.flac" FLAC

.. as that is invalid syntax.

Also, if you don't use FLACAttack, WACK or REACT but simply use FLAC.EXE, you may end up with "<name>.flac.flac" so you will have to rename the file to "<name>.flac" for the cuesheet to be valid.

Actually, it will not. Though I have to admit I still didn't update to latest EAC version (because I'm too lazy and recent changes were uninteresting for me ), so it might have been fixed now.

I've just done a quick test and it (0.95 beta 3) does use FILE "<name>.flac" WAVE.

I've been creating APE images for around a year and EAC has always used FILE "<name>.ape" WAVE.

I'm not sure whether earlier versions had a problem - I wouldn't be surprised, and I certainly have no reason to call Gambit's experience into question.

Argh, no no, sorry you are right. I messed it up. When you select "Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet > Compressed" it will create the correct cue sheet. I confused it with the "Create CUE Sheet" option, that will create a cue sheet for wav files.

Gambit's experience my ass.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!