I ripped many CDs into wav format via itunes with the goal of creating a “future proof” library (my goals are (i) reading music through either itunes or windows media player (or whatever) in the future, (ii) and benefitting from the meta data (artist, album, song, type, etc.) on a long term regardless the system I use to play my music). Yesterday I started to import music to said library through windows media player, also in the wav format. When trying to listen to the whole library (containing itunes and windows media player ripped files) with windows media player, I noticed that all itunes ripped wav files ended up in a sinlge “other” file, destroying the classification of my library. How can windows media player read the meta data of the itunes ripped wav files? What would be the best “future proof” mainstream lossless format allowing me to achieve above goals? Thank you
If you are going to get serious you need to use serious tools. You are not. itunes and WMP and not serious tools. Media Monkey and WinAmp are the easiest to use of the serious audio managers. Both have free versions of with blow away the 2 you are using. MM may be a bit better for handling complex metadata. The structure of its database allows for CDs with multiple artist and other challanging senerios. I would not use these to rip CDs. Use the best rippers/encoders since they make your music. As you listen to music you get more picky. Picking your tools wisely will save you the effort of redoing all your work a second time correctly. The last time I checked, wave files did not contain metadata. Then the last time I checked itunes did not rip to wave. I can't think of a more useless format unless you are editing the file. They take up a good deal of space because they are not compressed. If you must go lossless Ape probably uses the best compression with Flac next. I never checked out Apple lossless since their AAC is defective but is widely acclaimed. For that I do not trust Apple at all. They are all hype and no substance that I can see. If I have the CDs I do not archive to lossless. I rip using the V0 quality setting and the slow careful analysis setting for LAME VBRs. That creates a perfect audio copy but not a perfect copy. What I mean by this is no human being can hear the difference. Most of the data on a CD can not be heard by humans. If you do not have the original CDs, ripping to lossless is a means for making a perfect copy as long as you use the right ripper. I archive lossless copies of vinyl audio captures. So, I am not saying lossless is useless. I will add a few theads for additional reading. One will contain a link for a compliant thread where you can post a problem with a LAME VRB mp3. You will need to fully document the defect and they will fix the problem. There hasn't been a posting to that thread in over 2 years. Anyone claiming to be able to hear the difference might be under a dilusion. Further reading on a more serious audio forum... --LAME artifact posting if you can hear a difference you post it hear to get the problem resolved. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=39313 -- foobar vs MM (MM is my audio manager of choice. I use Winamp and Foobar as well. I would NEVER let MM touch my mp3s other than the metadata/tag info, let alone rip with it. I will use Foobar when I get around to adjusting the sound of my mp3s. Bear in mind as you read this Hydrogenaudio is a Foobar user forum. Foobar's focus and strong suit is the fidelity of the music while MM is focused and unmatched in music management. Winamp does some things better than either of the other 2 apps. I feel these are the giants, each does something the best, the rest of the audio managers are also rans having no strengths except for being so simple and featureless as to be easy to use.) http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t51300.html
