Is there any way to make EAC add ID3 tags to the WAV files it creates? I'd like to use EAC to assure (close to) perfect copies but then encode the WAV using a WMA encoder. The encoder can grab tags from the source file but I can't figure out how to get tags on the WAVs.

Wave files do not have any tags, you are best going straight to end audio type (in this time WMA).

just use a filename created out of the info you need in the tags like:
tracknumber - artist - album - title
Then you should be able to automatically tag them with a program that guesses tags from filenames. I'd suggest foobar2k's mass tagger, but foobar doesn't support wma. Offhand I'm not sure of a tagging program for wma.

If you are aiming for WMA, then i pressume you are not that interested in audio quality. I don't mean to be rude but unlesss you are going for the lossless mode or very low bitrate, then you are just making sacrifices compared to other solutions. Therefore i sugest you just use the latest WMA Player to encode your CD's into a compressed format. It offers tagging, Album art et cetera, and if your CD's aren't very scratched, the unsecure mode will generally suffice.

If you really want to encode from an EAC extracted CD, i know you can set up a Windows Media 8 external compressor (.exe) form microsoft to do the job (including tagging as far as i remember), i am not sure on the newer WM9 though, i don't know if thye offer a command line encoder that you can configure EAC with.

What is our particular preference for WMA if you don't mind me asking thought, i can think of numerous reasons not to use it but very few pro's, i won't go on about it though if you have your mind set!!!


Cheers,
Kristian

I own a Nomad Jukebox and WMA gave me the ability to cram more tunes on it at what I was told was a comparable quality. I was using 96kbs to encode my CDs (which I believed was comparable to a 192kbs MP3.)

I've been doing a lot of reading recently and am toying with the idea of moving to OGGs which EAC handles pretty well. I've also been thinking about moving to MP3's with the r3mix/LAME presets. I know MP3s will work in my Nomad Jukebox and my DVD player but the file size is so much bigger than what I'm used to with WMA. Storage might get a little expensive. Since I don't really trade files I'm not worried about cross compatibility.

Set me straigt! I do love music and have an above average ear for detail. The choices are killing me!

I would be careful believing what Microsoft claims for the performance WMA - try it yourself. If I remember a previous thread on this site correctly Microsoft compared their encoder to a very old LAME version. I'm skeptical that 96kb/s WMA is similar/equivalent to 192kbs MP3, but every listener hears things differently. It is easy enought to encode some tracks with both MP3 and WMA and ABX (blind listening test - another search on this site will explain it better than I can in this thread) them - if you can't tell the difference then by all means you should go with the lower data rate format.

If you do try MP3 do not use the r3mix preset. There are many (too many?) threads about r3mix but the bottom line is this: use --alt-preset standard (also referred to as "aps") when using LAME. APS has been finely tuned and tested far beyond any other preset and will yield excellent MP3s at about 192kbs on average. Check out the MP3 Forum on this site for an excellent rundown on how to get the best MP3 encodes.

For lower file sizes do some searching on this site to get some good recommendations and alternatives.

It was a few versions out of date, but hardly very old. Still worlds better then fhg or Xing, which I would have expected them to use (since they made no claim of using a particular MP3 encoder).

WMA is good for low bitrates. If your portable is low on space, go for it. Otherwise don't bother.