I use EAC with Lame. Rip to WAV and MP3 (V2 vbr new). Then I .ace the WAV-files and they end up 2/3 the size of the original WAV.

Considering going from .ace to FLAC since Foobar2000 can recode straight from FLAC to MP3.
FLAC has support for track data (like ID3). +FLAC also has a CRC error system.


This is what I would like to do:
Rip with EAC to FLAC.
Use Foobar2000 (with LAME) to make MP3's from the FLAC-files.

Will the MP3's then contain artist / songtitle / album / year / tracknumber ID3-data? (I will of cource have this info in EAC when i rip)
I intend to add a comment to the MP3's which I will write into the MP3 command line.

Even if there are ways of making FLAC and MP3 simultaneously in EAC I still intend to use described method
(if it works). I will sometimes make additional MP3's at other settings than the one I usually use (V2)


How long does it take to encode into FLAC @ recomended settings? (my computer encodes MP3's in 20-25 seconds)
How long does it take to encode into FLAC @ maximum compression? Any cons with FLAC @ maximum?


Will this work?

I can say "yes" to this, but I'm not sure about the rest. Definitely use a lossless audio compressor as opposed to any general archiving utilities!

Yes, Foobar will pass the tagging info from the FLACs to the MP3s

There are (4, actually) ways of making FLACs and MP3s simultaneously in EAC. But you said you're not interested, so I won't go on.

FLAC only takes a few seconds to encode

FLAC does take substantially longer to encode at maximum compression. The only con I can think of is some older hardware players don't like FLACs beyond a certain level of compression.

And yes, this will work. Very well, in fact. Happy Encoding! FLAC is specially tuned for Audio compression (like all lossless encoders recommended on this forum), and will work much better than ACE.

Yes. If you tag the FLAC files when encoding from EAC foobar will copy those tags to the MP3s.

NB: Take a look at the EAC + FLAC guide in the wiki.

My Athlon XP 2400+ will encode at -5 at 38x realtime and at -8 at 9x realtime. The only con with -8 is the increased encoding time.

Of course. What could go wrong.

Excellent!

Thanks

EAC + Mareo will automate most of your entire desired process. If you are ripping from CD, then it is likely a track rip will take longer than the corresponding FLAC --best encode, and so I see no reason not to do maximum compression, since it will be encoding while the next track is ripping.

I suspected as much, but I didn't know for sure.

That's what I do. Right now, reripping my old library as FLAC and all new stuff gets the 'Mareo' treatment.

Mareo lets EAC rip to as many codecs as you have encoders for. When I'm done, I'll Foobar the FLACs for MP3 for playback machines that do not support FLAC.