Hello all

This is a question for computer rather than hi-fi enthusiasts.

I want to copy individual tracks for safekeeping from audio CDs onto my
hard disk,
and then copy selected tracks from there onto my own CDs.

What are the methods, formats, etc available
The names MP3, WAV, AAC don't mean much to me.
Can someone explain the advantages / drawbacks ?

What is the best
a) to ensure quality rather than space-saving ?
b) more with space-saving in mind ?

Best regards, from Ray

In article ,
Raymond RUSSELL wrote:
What is the best
a) to ensure quality rather than space-saving ?

WAV will give you a clone of the CD, but uses a lot of disc space.
However, if the final destination is another CD, this is the one to use.

b) more with space-saving in mind ?

MP3, I'd guess.

--
*Therapy is expensive, poppin' bubble wrap is cheap! You choose.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Hi,

In message , Raymond RUSSELL
writes

I want to copy individual tracks for safekeeping from audio CDs onto my
hard disk,
and then copy selected tracks from there onto my own CDs.

What are the methods, formats, etc available
The names MP3, WAV, AAC don't mean much to me.
Can someone explain the advantages / drawbacks ?

16 bit 44.1kHz Wav is (essentially) the native format of redbook CD
audio. mp3 and AAC are lossy coding formats (put simply, they throw away
some data to save storage space or transmission bandwidth, and use
clever algorithms to decide what to keep and what to chuck away).


What is the best
a) to ensure quality rather than space-saving ?

A good start is to rip to wav format using EAC (Exact Audio Copy). This
will usually give you a copy of the track on hard disc that is
indistinguishable from the original CD, and it will occupy the same
storage space. If you want to save some space without quality loss, use
a lossless compression system such as Monkey's audio. I don't have the
URLs to hand, but a quick Google search will find them. Lossless schemes
have the advantage that you can get back exactly what went in if you
ever have to make another copy of the CD if your original gets damaged.

b) more with space-saving in mind ?

That depends on how much space you want to save, versus how much quality
you want to lose. If you want to know what's at the bleeding edge of
lossy compression systems, check out the forums at
www.hydrogenaudio.com. As a rough guide, AAC at its optimum bitrates
will generally outperform mp3 at the same bitrates. mp3 is getting a bit
long in the tooth; there are better lossy codecs available now.

--
Regards,
Glenn Booth

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:17:16 +0100, "Raymond RUSSELL"
wrote:

I want to copy individual tracks for safekeeping from audio CDs onto my
hard disk,
and then copy selected tracks from there onto my own CDs.

As others have stated, to retain best quality, stick with WAV files.

Another point to make, which I haven't seen elsewhere in the thread,
is this: if you're doing this purely as an archive, to keep these
tracks safe in case the original CD is ever damaged, then you would be
better off writing the extracted tracks to a data format CDR rather
than an audio format one. Data format CDs have an additional layer of
error correction and are a more robust long-term archival medium. (Of
course, this additional error correction does consume some of the
space on the CD, so you'll find that you will only get about 70mins of
audio onto an 80min CDR when burned in data format).
--
Clive Backham

Note: As a spam avoidance measure, the email address in the header
is just a free one and doesn't get checked very often. If you want to email
me, my real address can be found at: www [dot] delback [dot] co [dot] uk

Raymond RUSSELL wrote:
Hello all

This is a question for computer rather than hi-fi enthusiasts.

I want to copy individual tracks for safekeeping from audio CDs onto
my hard disk,
and then copy selected tracks from there onto my own CDs.

What are the methods, formats, etc available
The names MP3, WAV, AAC don't mean much to me.
Can someone explain the advantages / drawbacks ?

What is the best
a) to ensure quality rather than space-saving ?
b) more with space-saving in mind ?

Formats come and go from year to year so my advice would be to make sure
your backups are taken as uncompressed WAV format files; ideally using
something like Exact Audio Copy (EAC). This will give you an exact 'clone'
of the CD with no compression or data loss. The downside is that these
files will be large (600mb+ per CD) but they will be 'byte-perfect' perfect
backups of your CDs. These can then be written back to CD, resulting in
what amounts to a perfect copy of the original CD. This is the 'Quality At
All Costs' option...

There are then several compression formats that you can use to save disk
space. Some are 'lossy' (they throw away some of the data to save space)
and some are lossless. All these will save you some disk space but, in some
cases, at the risk of data loss. Whilst this data loss may not be audible
to you, it makes it impossible to re-record a perfect clone of the original
CD. The best of the current lossless compression formats seems to be FLAC
but, as I mentioned earlier, there'll be another better format along in a
few months - APE looks to be the next one on the horizon. Using a lossless
compression will save space without compromising on quality

Finally, there's lossy compression, this includes MP3. Essentially the MP3
'compressor' software samples the music, the frequency of sampling makes the
difference to the quality of the finished MP3 file. The upside of MP3 is
that it can be played on pretty much anything but the downside is that it's
very much a one-way process. Once converted to MP3, you can never recover
the lost data!

Personally, I archive to raw, uncompressed WAVs which, if required, I copy
and compress to 320kbps MP3 for transfer to iPod for listening in the car.
In those circumstances, a 320kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from an original
CD

CDEX is another possibility
http://www.cdex.n3.net/


"Raymond RUSSELL" wrote in message
...
Hello all

This is a question for computer rather than hi-fi enthusiasts.

I want to copy individual tracks for safekeeping from audio CDs onto my
hard disk,
and then copy selected tracks from there onto my own CDs.