I am looking for advice on doing flac image archiving with REACT2. I've almost got it all set up the way I want and everything updated. Everything is tested and working, but before I launch my full collection archiving there are a couple of items which I need advice on still though. First, when archiving CD images is it advisable to include any replay gain or is it better to just archive the exact image and do any replay gain on any compressed transcoding afterwards? Second, since REACT2 saves the full EAC cuesheet as a Vorbis comment is there any point in also saving the cuesheet as a flac cuesheet block as well?

And finally, on the subject of file naming (which I know everyone has their own style) I notice that when the year is included in a path name it is frequently enclosed in "[]". Is this just personal preference, filename restrictions, or a convention of some sort within DAPs? I think I would prefer something like @year@-$album$ without the "[]".

Replaygain is written as a tag and does not affect the losslessness of the flac file. So, if you want to add it, then go for it. Cuesheets as a Vorbis Comment is enough on its own without having to add it as a block. Plus if you use foobar2000, the cuesheet block may interfere with tagging of the file. As for [year], this is how I name my images, but it is strictly cosmetic and my preference. You should name your files to your liking.

Thanks very much. I know that the replay gain is stored as a tag and figured that it didn't affect the losslessness, but does the gain get propagated when transcoding to a lossy format?

Regarding the cuesheet as a Vorbis comment, I am using foobar2k, and it works great with the Vorbis comment. What I am wondering though is do all (most?) flac apps use the comment or the flac cuesheet block? Winamp for example doesn't seem to use the comment field.

Does the gain get propagated? I think that it depends on the audio program doing the transcoding. With fb2k? Yes, they do.
As for the cuesheet, only a few programs can read embedded cuesheets, with fb2k being one of them. I haven't used Winamp in years, so I cannot speak to it, but you may want to look for a plugin that allows for that. foobar2000 meets all my audio needs, so I base everything I do with my audio files on whether fb2k can handle it, and it always does.

Hmmmmm. I guess this is what I remain confused over then. Is propagating replay gain from an archived image the desirable thing to do, or is it better to archive with no "enhancements" at all?

Regarding fb2k, I have just started using it and I love it. I just want to make sure that my image archive is widely compatible so that I (hopefully) don't even have to do this again.

When you say propagate I took that as meaning transferring the replaygain tags. Yes it does do that. It does not alter the file. Replaygain will only work if you have your player set to read the tags.

Your image is FLAC, so it will play in any software or hardware player that supports FLAC. The embedded cuesheet is the issue here, as not all players support them. If you use the image as an archive, then just always use fb2k to transcode to lossy (mp3, m4a, etc).

Also, the FLAC website keeps an updated list of hardware and software players that support FLAC. You could always keep an external cuesheet as a backup for players that support cuesheets, but not embedded cuesheets.

Ah! So I can turn replay gain on and off at the player!? That was the missing piece of info for me, thanks for that final piece of the puzzle, so replay gain it is then.

Yep, REACT both embeds the cuesheet as a comment and retains the external cuesheet as a backup already. I was just curious about the usage of the flac embedded cuesheet block and whether or not it might be necessary for some flac players.

In foobar2000 it is: File, Preferences, Playback. Replaygain is the 2nd box on the right side.