What CODEC do you use?

[garty]

Apple Lossless using iTunes and clutter to get album art. About half in AL now, and a mix of aac and mp3 and a few FLAC.

Chose Apple Lossless for two reasons, I can use iTunes for ripping and tag management and also play the same files on my iPod. Three reasons - wanted a lossless format and there is nothing much available for ripping FLAC on the mac.

[bravocharlie]

Originally Posted by Graham - Sonos

Let the forums know what CODEC (mp3, AAC, FLAC, etc) you're using to rip your music and why.... if you like include what software you're using to rip your music.

-graham

http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=2291

[BriPink]

Everything's in Apple Lossless, ripped and managed with iTunes. The second time I ripped my collection from CD I went straight to AIFF, and last year I bulk converted that to Apple Lossless. I also convert all the tracks to AAC so I can keep my whole music library on my Powerbook (though this is getting a bit unwieldy) and on various iPods.

[rodhead]

I first ripped everything into wav but support for tags was weak.

I then re-ripped everything into FLAC using EAC+AccurateRip.

Side note: My music is primarily classical. Tag support for classical "works" that consist of a sequence of tracks doesn't exist. I've had to write my own scripts to a) insert Genre, Instrument, Artist tags based on auxiliary information I provide, and b) create an hierarchy of folders to organize the music by Artist/Genre/Instrument and various combinations like that, with playlists at the bottom that represent entire "works".

(The latest Sonos software supports Composer, so I no longer need to use Artist when I really mean Composer).

[ZaskarAZ]

FLAC via Easy CD-DA Extractor and Tag&Rename...

[JMD]

I rip to FLAC cuz it's open and well supported, as well as to mp3 at the same time via EAC with Lame; mareo (http://www.webearce.com.ar/) allows both to be ripped at once. I use the mps for ipod, and on some albums for the kids that I don't care about archiving (ie mp3 only 192vbr).

I use tag&rename for editting and album art, which I like much better than the free art grabbers which I tried first. If it can't find 'em I google image it and rename folder.jpg.

I cross convert as needed with dbpoweramp which is a great program and allows for on the fly conversion for burning a CD with mp3, flac or almost any other format mixed together on the playlist http://www.dbpoweramp.com/.

I learned about all of them here, on other threads. Thanks everyone.

[Chocomonsters]

All in FLAC using EAC with accurateRip, Foobar2000, and TheGodFather/Album cover art downloader.

It is open standard and can be ported to all platforms with plug-ins (ie, windows, Mac OS X, linux) or natively in both Sonos and Squeezebox.

I use EAC with command line options of

-6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMPOSER=%p" -T "DISCNUMBER=%j" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%A" -T "comment=%e" -T "comment=EAC (Secure Mode)" %s

This allows me to tag "composer", "album artist", and "disc number" with FOOBAR 2000 which is mandatory for classical music collection.

As for album art, I use either TGF or Album cover art downloader depends on number of art covers involved.

[yungduga]

I got my SONOS system just before Christmas and spent the past 3 weeks ripping 700 CD's into FLAC files using EasyCD-DA and Tag & Rename for tag editing. I initially didn't bother with album art and I'm glad I didn't with the recent release of version 1.3 that can display album art in more screen area. I just started scanning my CD covers last night @ 200 dpi @ 256 colors resulting in JPG files of less than 500 kb.

I went with a lossless format after listening to various lossy formats played through my dedicated sound system. While some of the lossy formats were definitely better than others, none were as good as the original CD. Using a lossless format like FLAC provides the best sound quality and the ability to convert it to any other lossless format without the any loss of any "bits". Various "converter" programs provide "on the fly" conversion to other lossless formats such as Apple Lossless or to lossy formats for use in iPods and other portable music players.

You can always covert down in quality but you can't covert up in quality. My advice is to initially rip your CD's in a lossless format and then make converted copies in lower quality formats for use on iPods. If you initially rip your CD's into a lossy format and then later decide that you want higher quality - you won't be able to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.

[AV_Spyder]

Originally Posted by SimonO

Eac/flac...

same here.

Although not a sonos user myself (yet), I've persuaded a few people to get it!
Will probably get them to use EAC/flac and some album art prog as well.

AV Spyder

[Renfield]

50% of my collection is mp3/ 192kbps ripped using the LAME codec and several different programs. This is being re-ripped into FLAC as time allows.

The other half I've used EAC with FLAC.

I use Tag & Rename for tag and cover art manipulations.

Ren