what do you guys rip to ?

[[L]es]

i just did a comparison.. flac vs alac (apple lossless). apple lossless seems to have more body and is less bright sounding..

[muypogi]

320kbps AAC. In my system, sounds nearly the same as CD. Perfect if I just want to relax and just listen to music.

[[L]es]

320kbps AAC. In my system, sounds nearly the same as CD. Perfect if I just want to relax and just listen to music.

why aac over mp3 ? is it because it sounds closer to cd than mp3 ?

[egay]

I ran Ubuntu 10.10 with Rhythmbox ripping at level 10(?) FLAC & compared them with lossless WMA and they sound the same to me, in my system. And running XP Pro with Zune ripping at lossles WMA, my experience is the same.

My opinion is that the DAC makes it so.
Here's my thread that seems parallel with yours: viewtopic.php?f=65&t=24000

.e.

[carbondated]

ALAC because it's what iTunes plays! AAC is superior to MP3 only in that it provides more information for, say, a 256 kbps file than the latter. I also find Apple Lossless easier to tag and organise -- but then I'm playing within the Apple ecosystem.

[muypogi]

320kbps AAC. In my system, sounds nearly the same as CD. Perfect if I just want to relax and just listen to music.

why aac over mp3 ? is it because it sounds closer to cd than mp3 ?

A test done by Stereophile's John Atkinson in March 2008 showed the AAC will have better resolution than MP3 at the same bitrate. Of course being the audiophiles they are, they prefer lossless codecs ove lossy ones such as AAC.

[rtsyrtsy]

I've been through this ALAC vs. FLAC.

Spent many hours comparing both lossless CODECs from EAC-ripped WAVs. "Transport" was a Red Wine Audio-modified Squeezebox 3 and DAC was my old Audio Note DAC One.1x (sprinkled with Rene Rivo pixie dust). Couldn't hear a difference--should've used the hours just to listen (or to exercise!).

At that time, I was in a mostly Windows environment with a couple of Apple devices. So I ripped to FLAC. Today, I am in a mostly Apple environment with one non-Apple device (Sansa Clip+). So I rip to ALAC. The choice was made easier by my not being able to distinguish 320kbps MP3 vs. FLAC in the Sansa Clip+ and Shure SE530 combo.

Of course, everyone's entitled to their own varying mileage.

[Quiel]

Flac for me -- after trying AAC and MP3. Downloaded MediaMonkey (notebook) and Meridian (Android).

[Squirrelnutzipper]

I rip to WAV using dBpoweramp and store in a desktop with raid drives. I convert to flac for an NAS running with Squeezecenter and to other formats as needed for portable devices, using batch convert in dBpoweramp. Easy and secure that way.

[rtsyrtsy]

I rip to WAV using dBpoweramp and store in a desktop with raid drives. I convert to flac for an NAS running with Squeezecenter and to other formats as needed for portable devices, using batch convert in dBpoweramp. Easy and secure that way.

I'm building a NAS this Saturday. It's a Synology DS411+. Mind sharing some tips on hard drive selection? This NAS will also serve videos via uPnP.

[[L]es]

won't transferring to that thing be slower than usb 2 ?

[carbondated]

Theoretically faster if using gigabit ethernet and good cables.

[[L]es]

Theoretically faster if using gigabit ethernet and good cables.

yeah but according to reviews not fast at all.. :/

[rtsyrtsy]

Theoretically faster if using gigabit ethernet and good cables.

yeah but according to reviews not fast at all.. :/

Whether or not NAS is fast enough depends on a number of factors.

First is the type of content you are streaming. For lossless CODECs, I've been streaming since the Maxtor Shared Storage and Wireless G days with no problems. Now, if I'm editing 1080i video from my camcorder, I'd use a Firewire / eSATA / USB 3.0 / Thunderbolt drive and not a NAS.

Second is the amount of topic that you have on your network. The more devices requesting streams from a NAS, the more powerful your NAS needs to be, e.g. multi-core processors, faster hard drives, etc.

Third, how big is your home? I have a small house but even with Wireless N, there are some nooks and cranies that are hard to reach. So I've needed an Airport Express to extend my Airport Extreme.

[[L]es]

so how many mb/s ?

[Squirrelnutzipper]

As to choice of drives, you ought to limit your choices to those models recommended by the NAS manufacturer. Some may require patches in firmware. Most all drives are good, but Hitachi and Samsung come to mind as good ones. If you are running raid, you should be all set and protected with any decent drive.

I should think that access speed should be fine using the NAS as just a file server, and fine for Squeezecenter as well. However, if you plan to stream music directly from the NAS using USB to the dac, the more processing power and memory the better, especially if decoding compressed formats or upsampling on the fly.

[rtsyrtsy]

As to choice of drives, you ought to limit your choices to those models recommended by the NAS manufacturer. Some may require patches in firmware. Most all drives are good, but Hitachi and Samsung come to mind as good ones. If you are running raid, you should be all set and protected with any decent drive.

I used a drive whose exact model number is listed in the NAS manufacturer's list of supported drives. I should get my hands on a quad of WD Caviar Green tomorrow.

Thanks for the tips!

[carbondated]

The highest resolution music file I have doesn't exceed 4900 kbps on ALAC, which works fine over USB 2.0; even WAV files should be well below the theoretical throughput of an ethernet NAS. But there's usually a lot of other traffic on the network that will slow it down and hog the I/O, and if the network is wireless then the occasional dropout is guaranteed...

[Squirrelnutzipper]

The highest resolution music file I have doesn't exceed 4900 kbps on ALAC, which works fine over USB 2.0; even WAV files should be well below the theoretical throughput of an ethernet NAS. But there's usually a lot of other traffic on the network that will slow it down and hog the I/O, and if the network is wireless then the occasional dropout is guaranteed...

True enough. Should one use a Squeezebox or Sonos type player to interface with the server, they have build in buffers that virtually eliminate dropouts. If you add a Pacecar or some other types of reclockers, they also buffer and reclock. I have no experienced any dropouts via ethernet or wireless, irrespective of network traffic.

[rtsyrtsy]

True enough. Should one use a Squeezebox or Sonos type player to interface with the server, they have build in buffers that virtually eliminate dropouts. If you add a Pacecar or some other types of reclockers, they also buffer and reclock. I have no experienced any dropouts via ethernet or wireless, irrespective of network traffic.

Just took delivery of my hard drives. I'll let you know if I get dropouts. My stress test plan is to stream hi def videos to a ps3, flac and alac to a laptop, and download about a dozen torrents.

I hope formatting the drives don't take long. It can be a pain, I read.

I've also not experienced dropouts even on a lowly wireless G and squeezebox set up. But at was before 1080p torrents.