Converting MCH discs 101: Overview

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Exact Audio Copy versus foobar2000 for CDs

Just wondering what experience any of you have with ripping CDs. Exact Audio Copy seems to jump through a lot of hoops to supposedly confirm the accuracy of the rip, but it takes a lot more time. Is it worth the extra time, or is it really doing something that foobar2000 does not?
 
Exact Audio Copy versus foobar2000 for CDs

Just wondering what experience any of you have with ripping CDs. Exact Audio Copy seems to jump through a lot of hoops to supposedly confirm the accuracy of the rip, but it takes a lot more time. Is it worth the extra time, or is it really doing something that foobar2000 does not?

I ripped my collection of approximately 700 CD's to my NAS. All were done with EAC. You might be surprised how many errors are actually generated in the ripping process. I am not sure what Foobar does, so I cant comment on it or how much extra time it takes, but EAC definitely makes you aware when there is a problem with a disk that may well otherwise go unnoticed. Often, just cleaning the disc or ripping it from a different drive would fix the issue. Also EAC analyzes your drives at first use and determines a suitable playback speed for ripping. A poorly performing drive may lead to a long rip time with EAC. The lookup to the database to confirm the accuracy of the rip takes only a couple of seconds.
 
I ripped my collection of approximately 700 CD's to my NAS. All were done with EAC. You might be surprised how many errors are actually generated in the ripping process. I am not sure what Foobar does, so I cant comment on it or how much extra time it takes, but EAC definitely makes you aware when there is a problem with a disk that may well otherwise go unnoticed. Often, just cleaning the disc or ripping it from a different drive would fix the issue. Also EAC analyzes your drives at first use and determines a suitable playback speed for ripping. A poorly performing drive may lead to a long rip time with EAC. The lookup to the database to confirm the accuracy of the rip takes only a couple of seconds.

Thanks for the reply. I've had several tracks with 99.9% accuracy. Obviously this is close enough, but what does it mean, exactly? Does it mean I'm not getting an "exact audio copy"? It seems as if it conducts a survey of every disc every EAC user has ripped, and if your rip is exactly like most or all of the others, it's 100% accurate, and if no one else has ripped the disc with EAC it has no way of determining the accuracy.

Is this your understanding, or am I totally lost?
 
Sometimes I can't get DVD-Audio Extractor to work correctly with certain discs. What usually happens is it recognizes the title, but when I then click next, it gets hung up on scanning files.....then eventually tells me the program is not responding. Gotta love it.

In those cases, I abandon Extractor and open up DVD-Audio Explorer (not extractor) which looks wildly different than extractor and not so simple to use in terms of what you look for, what you see and some of the terminology. (that is, if you're used to Extractor)

Once you open it, you search your disc drive for the Audio TS.ifo folder. Once you select it, the individual tracks will populate and usually the multi-channel stream will be listed first. (see picture a below)

8B3824CB-B363-4D84-9E17-8F70B511FE57.jpg


Now, since it doesn't actually tell you it's a multi-channel stream, all you need to do is hi-lite one of the tracks and then in the right window, it will populate all the info about that specific track. You will note that it tells you the sample & bit rate (which of course is nice to see...96/24 in this case), but more importantly, you will see that it splits out the speaker/channel assignments into "groups". In this case, there are 2 groups - one being LF, RF, LS, RS) and group 2 being C.

This tells me it is a 5.0 mix...not 5.1 as there is no LFE assignment. (See picture B below)

DC60F454-3E0D-4ECC-8CFE-CD99429B546F.jpg


Since the audio groups are split apart (1 and 2 in this case), you have to then (once you select all the tracks and click "extract" make sure to check the box in the next popup window that says "merge groups". This will give you a single wav file for each track...as opposed to 2 wav files for each track. (see picture C below)

846DA37E-4097-494C-8652-450B91DD004C.jpg


Click extract again, and then you should see the extraction process rolling. From there, I use Audiomuxer to convert to Flac, my final usable file that I play via Foobar2000.


I hope this is somewhat helpful to anyone who rips in a similar way that I do, and maybe ran into troubles, similar to my experience. :)
 
Exact Audio Copy versus foobar2000 for CDs

Just wondering what experience any of you have with ripping CDs. Exact Audio Copy seems to jump through a lot of hoops to supposedly confirm the accuracy of the rip, but it takes a lot more time. Is it worth the extra time, or is it really doing something that foobar2000 does not?

dBPoweramp is probably the ripper that best combines speed with accuracy. EAC very carefully reads the disc, then compares the results to AccurateRip. dBPoweramp reads a track quickly in burst mode, then compares the results to AccurateRip. If the read is OK, it moves on. If not, then and only then does it switch to a slower, more secure/accurate mode.

Whether extreme accuracy matters or not is your call. I will say that I stopped trading rare/live material many years ago because the "close enough" crowd kept mailing me utter garbage.

As for 99.9% accurate, it all depends on whether that 0.1% is audible. I have discs that can't be read in any drive accurately, but I can't hear whatever is allegedly wrong. OTOH, I have official pressed CDs with audible issues that, since I know I'm accurate on my end, I can say have mastering flaws.
 
Hi All,

Ok so I have started my converting MCH discs journey and have so far ripped x3 discs.

Problem is everything based in FLAC I feed my Denon 4520 amp does not reflect a multichannel source but a feed of 2.0??

This has got me absolutely stumped as to why?

To test this I have purchased the Misery in Soliloquy quad and have copied the files direct to USB and have inserted this into my receiver and it is still reflecting only a 2.0 feed. (This is despite the digital files being labelled clearly as Quad).

Apart from my ears I have no way of determining whether I am actually feeding my amp multichannel rips or not. Therefore I am not sure If I am actually succeeding in converting lossless MCH files when my amp only reflects 2.0 feeds.

I use a Mac so I am not exposed to Foobar (prior to anyone suggesting this) as I understand it's not Mac compatible.

I am going a bit nuts trying to work this out, and need some help if anyone can offer?

Thanks

Woody
 
Hi All,

Ok so I have started my converting MCH discs journey and have so far ripped x3 discs.

Problem is everything based in FLAC I feed my Denon 4520 amp does not reflect a multichannel source but a feed of 2.0??

This has got me absolutely stumped as to why?

To test this I have purchased the Misery in Soliloquy quad and have copied the files direct to USB and have inserted this into my receiver and it is still reflecting only a 2.0 feed. (This is despite the digital files being labelled clearly as Quad).

Apart from my ears I have no way of determining whether I am actually feeding my amp multichannel rips or not. Therefore I am not sure If I am actually succeeding in converting lossless MCH files when my amp only reflects 2.0 feeds.

I use a Mac so I am not exposed to Foobar (prior to anyone suggesting this) as I understand it's not Mac compatible.

I am going a bit nuts trying to work this out, and need some help if anyone can offer?

Thanks

Woody

My receiver does not decode multichannel flac, so I set my media player (on my PC) to decode and send the multichannel PCM to my receiver. But what are your ears telling you? Are you hearing quad despite the receiver saying 2.0?
 
Hi All,

Ok so I have started my converting MCH discs journey and have so far ripped x3 discs.

Problem is everything based in FLAC I feed my Denon 4520 amp does not reflect a multichannel source but a feed of 2.0??

This has got me absolutely stumped as to why?

To test this I have purchased the Misery in Soliloquy quad and have copied the files direct to USB and have inserted this into my receiver and it is still reflecting only a 2.0 feed. (This is despite the digital files being labelled clearly as Quad).

Apart from my ears I have no way of determining whether I am actually feeding my amp multichannel rips or not. Therefore I am not sure If I am actually succeeding in converting lossless MCH files when my amp only reflects 2.0 feeds.

I use a Mac so I am not exposed to Foobar (prior to anyone suggesting this) as I understand it's not Mac compatible.

I am going a bit nuts trying to work this out, and need some help if anyone can offer?

Thanks

Woody

My Denon AVR always plays quad FLAC as stereo only. I needed to add an additional silent centre channel to make the FLAC 5.0. (They play as quad). My Music Media Helper app has a tool to convert all quad FLAC files to 5.0 but it runs on Windows only...

You can download Sox for Mac here: http://sox.sourceforge.net/

I will post the command line to add the silent centre later today (when I get on my delopment PC - now outside in the sun on my iPad)

EDIT: In the folder you have you quad FLAC files and you sox program, (change the input and output names) - this remixes quad to 5.0. Run:

sox input.flac output.flac remix 1 2 0 3 4
 
sox input.flac output.flac remix 1 2 0 3 4

That's good to know, thanks!

@woody
Only rather few (and recent) amps support multichannel flac playback and yours doesn't seem to be one of them. Which Mac do you have? Does it have an HDMI-Output? Both my Mac Mini and Mac Book Pro have HDMI outputs which support 8-channel PCM streams up to 192kHz/24bit (use the app Audio-Midi-Setup in Applications/Utilities to configure). VLC should then play your flac files. I use iTunes to play all my music but my current process of getting lossless multichannel music in there is so convoluted and time consuming, that I won't go into details here. If anybody is interested, I will try to outline the steps in a separate post.
 
My receiver does not decode multichannel flac, so I set my media player (on my PC) to decode and send the multichannel PCM to my receiver. But what are your ears telling you? Are you hearing quad despite the receiver saying 2.0?

Thanks for the prompt replies folks.

My ears are getting confused by the dolby pro- logic II processing which can sound somewhat discrete on hi-rez sources. When I play 'pure direct' it sounds sadly stereo.

I am reading from above posts that these FLAC files need to be sent via HDMI to be MCH.

I have bought a Raspberry Pi and i can't get video out via the HDMI cable to install Open Elec- so I'm not having a good run of late.

I don't want a physical lead connection from my Mac book Pro. Tends to defeat the benefits methinks ATM.

Regards
Woody
 
I have bought a Raspberry Pi and i can't get video out via the HDMI cable to install Open Elec- so I'm not having a good run of late.

I'm very interested in how that works out for you. I haven't had much like using a Pi for multichannel (dropouts and limited sample rates), but I'm not sure if the problem is the Pi or my Onkyo receiver(s).
 
...
I have bought a Raspberry Pi and i can't get video out via the HDMI cable to install Open Elec- so I'm not having a good run of late.

I bought some WETEK Hubs and they didn't display on my 1080p computer monitor as the HUB wouldn't auto sync correctly to the monitor (didn't recognise it) The Hubs worked ok on any TV I tried. Once I got it running I could set the HDMI output to a fixed ouput and all ok on my computer monitor.

I would install LibreELEC not OpenELEC (LibreELEC is where most the developers have gone and more work now being done on LibreELEC).

You don't need to see the screen to install. Just create a LibreELEC image on an SD card and boot on it. That will auto install LibreELEC (Both Linux and Kodi) on the RPi. Then you should be able to view via HDMI hopefully with Kodi installed.
 
Hi All,

I note from reading this thread that to convert DTS-CD's to FLAC you need to use Foobar 2000 as an option.

Problem for MAC users is that Foobar doesn't apply to this operating system. (Unless you have WINE installed- and a noob likes me doesn't feel that this is easy ground to travel.).


I found this- but upon downloading isn't a recognised license from a software developer.

http://www.faasoft.com/articles/foobar-mac.html

My query is- Are there any MAC users utilising this program? Or should I avoid this and not execute the download relevant to this link?

If there are current users I would be pleased to know how user friendly this is to convert my DTS CD's to FLAC to run via the Kodi interface.

Thanks
 
Hi All,

I note from reading this thread that to convert DTS-CD's to FLAC you need to use Foobar 2000 as an option.

I found this- but upon downloading isn't a recognised license from a software developer.

http://www.faasoft.com/articles/foobar-mac.html

This MAC app may not even convert DTS-CDs to FLAC as its not Foobar (its an 'alternative') and the Foobar DTS conversion uses a plug-in.

I would look at getting one of the MAC Windows emulators as I'm sure you'll find other useful apps audio conversion that will only run on Windows.

I think I've seen others here using Parallels (around AUD100)
 
I run foobar2000 on my Mac using Wineskin, which puts the whole thing in a sandboxed Wine (Windows emulation) environment contained within an application package. Installation is fairly painless; updates may be less so, but FB2K seems to go for long periods without critical updates.
 
My Recommended Process/Methods for Conversion to FLAC follows:

DTS-CD
Just use Foobar2000 - This will read the DTS-CD disc and allow decoding and conversion to FLAC

DVD-Audio
Just use DVD Audio Extractor - This will read the DVDA disc and allow decoding and conversion to FLAC

DVD-Video

Just use DVD Audio Extractor (needs to be unprotected first) - This will read the DVDV disc and allow decoding and conversion to FLAC
or
if you want the Video and Audio (Music Concert) the use MakeMKV to create an MKV file (Kode plays MKV)

Blu-ray Audio (BDA)
Use MakeMKV to create a MKV file
Then use AudioMuxer to convert split MKV into FLAC files
or
Use MakeMKV to create a MKV file
Then use Music Media Helper to split into FLAC and tag the files (automated) LINK
or
Use MakeMKV to backup decrypt and backup the disc to a folder/file format on your hard disc
Use DVD Audio Extractor to Convert to audio FLAC (If its DTS-HDMA then this will give 'core' 24/48kHz only)
If you want the lossless or high res DTS then use Audiomuxer to convert the decrypted bluray folder/sfiles to FLAC


Blu-Ray Video (BDV)
Use MakeMKV to create a MKV file if you want audio and video (Kodi plays MKV)
if you want just the Audio as FLAC then do same as BDA above
Use Music Media Helper to split MKV files to chapters (songs) for Concerts and to rename chapter files to song titles (and to create Playlists for music videos and audio too)

SACD
Create an ISO image file using an appropriate hacked PS3 (hardware) - Update: Or with a specific Oppo or Pioneer BD player
Then use Foobar2000 to convert the SACD ISO to FLAC



I am starting to venture down this ripping, storing, road, trying to learn so much, not easy, for me at least but HomerJau really has it down.
My Question, since Homer wrote this have there been any significant, easier, better machines come along for ripping of HiRes discs as above ?
 
My Question, since Homer wrote this have there been any significant, easier, better machines come along for ripping of HiRes discs as above ?

I should edit my original post and add: Audio DVD (ADVD DTS 96/24) - Same as BDA (i.e. Use MakeMKV to decrypt and convert audio to MKV. Then AudioMuxer or Music Media Helper to convert MKV to FLAC (96/24).
 
As of 30 April 2017 DVD Audio Extractor (Version 7.4) now supports decoding of DTS 96/24 and DTS-HDMA (Lossless) streams.

I updated my opening post adding this info (Previously DVDAE could only decode those codecs to 'DTS Core' (lossy 48/24).

I tested it on a BDA with DTS-HDMA converting to FLAC at 96/24 (y)
 
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