[jpzk]

Hi everyone!

I need a FREE (or very low cost) CD "ripper" software which can convert CD music to either MP3 or WAV files.
I am told that WAV files are better but bigger?

I have so many CD's (too many in fact) and I want to convert most of them so I can listen to my music in my car (no CD player in there .... seems like it's old technology nowadays )
I want that "converted" music to be just as good as the original on the CD's.
Note: those CD's are all originals.

There are some free ones out there and the one I was interested in has a 16MB RAM requirement; my laptop has only 8MB of RAM.

I have never used such software either and I have no idea how it works, how it saves the files and where it saves them.

Any suggestions ?

Edit: I don't use iTunes/Apple stuff.
Edit: My bad ... system has 8GB of RAM and NOT 8MB !

---

Last edited by jpzk; 04-17-2021 at 07:44 AM. Reason: added info

[pepperberry farm]

I use iTunes for CD's to mp4

[boriscleto]

Apple iTunes was the only Mp3 ripper I used for the last 20 years. 8 MB of RAM? Is this 1995?

You Tube

You Tube

[jon.partsch]

Without doubt or hesitation I recommend dBpoweramp Music Converter.

the software is either free or very cheap. It requires a bit of setup and research to guarantee the best results, and requires connection to internet to check results of your conversions to a database of known "good" conversions. Oranization of your files is up to you. Use a lossless format like FLAC, AAC Loseless. I have used iTunes to manage the library after conversion. This is the gold standard as far as I am concerned. It requires a little bit of leaning, but is cheap and well worth the effort.

dBpoweramp: mp3 Converter, CD Ripper, FLAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, AAC, AIFF. Fix album art, Asset UPnP Server

---------- Post added 04-16-2021 at 03:05 PM ----------

I use iTunes for CD's to mp4

Apple iTunes was the only Mp3 ripper I used for the last 20 years. 8 MB of RAM? Is this 1995?

I strongly recommend against iTunes for ripping conversion - it has no error checking capibility. dBpoweramp generates a checksum for each rip/conversion and compares it to a database of known "good" rips. It virtually guarantees bit-perfect conversion by doing this. iTunes is great for library management but not for the initial conversion/ripping.

[steephill]

iTunes is easy to use but how are you going to play your stuff in your car? Are you going to connect a smartphone via Bluetooth for example?

[jon.partsch]

I need a FREE (or very low cost) CD "ripper" software which can convert CD music to either MP3 or WAV files.
I am told that WAV files are better but bigger?

Do not use WAV - uncompressed files are way too huge. There is no need.

Do not use MP3 - it is lossy compression, and an inefficient compression at that - the quality of the music will be impacted.

Do use FLAC, AAC lossless, or OGG OggPCM or any *lossless* compression format. FLAC seems the most popular with serious audio enthusiasts, but I prefer AAC lossless for (perceived) better compatibility with iTunes.

[pepperberry farm]

iTunes is easy to use but how are you going to play your stuff in your car? Are you going to connect a smartphone via Bluetooth for example?

I have an iPod that plugs into a USB port in my car...

[boriscleto]

There is absolutely no reason to use a lossless compression format to listen to music in your car. Do use a format that is supported by your audio player, most likely MP4. Encode at a higher bit rate if you think quality is an issue. The majority of people are not audiophiles who can hear the line noise over the speakers at a loud party.

[pepperberry farm]

There is absolutely no reason to use a lossless compression format to listen to music in your car. Do use a format that is supported by your audio player, most likely MP4. Encode at a higher bit rate if you think quality is an issue. The majority of people are not audiophiles who can hear the line noise over the speakers at a loud party.

let alone over road noise, traffic noise, engine noise, or any of the other dozen NVH issues while driving....

make it simple, make it work, and make it bloody loud...

[ThorSanchez]

There is absolutely no reason to use a lossless compression format to listen to music in your car. Do use a format that is supported by your audio player, most likely MP4. Encode at a higher bit rate if you think quality is an issue. The majority of people are not audiophiles who can hear the line noise over the speakers at a loud party.

Exactly. The OP needs to ask themselves if they have a high end stereo system in an anechoic chamber, or if they like to brag about things like lossless audio and their medium format photos they print at 8 meters on the diagonal and view from 6" away.

If the answer to these things is no, then high bitrate mp3s are fine.

[tokyoscape]

Hi everyone!

I need a FREE (or very low cost) CD "ripper" software which can convert CD music to either MP3 or WAV files.
I am told that WAV files are better but bigger?

I have so many CD's (too many in fact) and I want to convert most of them so I can listen to my music in my car (no CD player in there .... seems like it's old technology nowadays )
I want that "converted" music to be just as good as the original on the CD's.
Note: those CD's are all originals.

I used to use the old in windows media player to rip the cd. I think the feature is still there...?
Burn and rip CDs

See under "Rip CDs"

[jpzk]

I use iTunes for CD's to mp4

I don't use iTunes/Apple.

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 09:45 PM ----------

Apple iTunes was the only Mp3 ripper I used for the last 20 years. 8 MB of RAM? Is this 1995?

Since I don't use iTunes, that'll have to be something else.
8 MB RAM and 1995? ... Yeah I guess you'd call that a dinosaur.

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 09:57 PM ----------

Without doubt or hesitation I recommend dBpoweramp Music Converter.

the software is either free or very cheap. It requires a bit of setup and research to guarantee the best results, and requires connection to internet to check results of your conversions to a database of known "good" conversions. Oranization of your files is up to you. Use a lossless format like FLAC, AAC Loseless. I have used iTunes to manage the library after conversion. This is the gold standard as far as I am concerned. It requires a little bit of leaning, but is cheap and well worth the effort.

dBpoweramp: mp3 Converter, CD Ripper, FLAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, AAC, AIFF. Fix album art, Asset UPnP Server

---------- Post added 04-16-2021 at 03:05 PM ----------





I strongly recommend against iTunes for ripping conversion - it has no error checking capibility. dBpoweramp generates a checksum for each rip/conversion and compares it to a database of known "good" rips. It virtually guarantees bit-perfect conversion by doing this. iTunes is great for library management but not for the initial conversion/ripping.

Thanks for the info.
I've followed that link ... $39.00 USD for single PC installation; seems to be a great software, albeit somewhat complicated?

So, this would allow me to take a CD (original), run it through the software and save the resulting files to be played via a device (my Android phone for instance) in my car?
I've never heard of FLAC, AAC Loseless files. Do they take a lot of room?

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 09:59 PM ----------

Do not use WAV - uncompressed files are way too huge. There is no need.

Do not use MP3 - it is lossy compression, and an inefficient compression at that - the quality of the music will be impacted.

Do use FLAC, AAC lossless, or OGG OggPCM or any *lossless* compression format. FLAC seems the most popular with serious audio enthusiasts, but I prefer AAC lossless for (perceived) better compatibility with iTunes.

Thanks.
It seems that this Flac or AAC lossless type of files is the way togo.
Again though: I don't use iTunes.

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 10:01 PM ----------

iTunes is easy to use but how are you going to play your stuff in your car? Are you going to connect a smartphone via Bluetooth for example?

Most likely via my Android phone via Bluetooth (or a direct connection via USB).
I'm not using iTunes.

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 10:05 PM ----------

There is absolutely no reason to use a lossless compression format to listen to music in your car. Do use a format that is supported by your audio player, most likely MP4. Encode at a higher bit rate if you think quality is an issue. The majority of people are not audiophiles who can hear the line noise over the speakers at a loud party.

Confusing now: I should have added that I will also listen to that music elsewhere than in the car.

---------- Post added 04-16-21 at 10:08 PM ----------

Exactly. The OP needs to ask themselves if they have a high end stereo system in an anechoic chamber, or if they like to brag about things like lossless audio and their medium format photos they print at 8 meters on the diagonal and view from 6" away.

If the answer to these things is no, then high bitrate mp3s are fine.

So now we have the "lossless" and MP3 camps!
And no, I sure don't have that sort of high end stereo system in an anechoic chamber.

[boriscleto]

Lossless formats will cut the size of a CD in half, but that's six times larger than lossy compression. Even if you double the bit rate of the lossy compression, to 320 Kbs, you will save space and still have good audio.

LAME (LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder) has a links page for various front ends...

LAME MP3 Encoder :: Related Links

WinAmp still seems to exist...

Winamp - Lama's Ass Whipper Academy

[jon.partsch]

Lossless, wav, mp3, iTunes, compression, bluetooth....

LOL

Okay, so a WAV file is like a RAW file from a camera. MP3 is like a JPEG. JPEGs are compressed and have lost information vs a RAW file and this information cannot be recovered unless you go back to the original RAW file. A lossless compression codec like FLAC is kinda' like if you took a RAW file and put it in a ZIP archive to compress it and take up less space on your hard drive - all the information is still in the file, you just have to "unzip" it.

WAV is best because it has all the information that is on the CD, but a lossless compression like FLAC or AAC lossless has all the same data, it just takes up less room on your hard drive or phone or whatever. There are audio players that can "unzip" these files on the fly, so you don't have to do anything - it just takes up less space than WAV, so this is good.

Now, the way I look at it is that if you are going to convert your entire music collection to digital files, you want to only do that once, and you want to do it at the best quality even if you don't have high end audio equipment. You may someday, who knows, and you don't want to have to do the process of converting the entire music collection over again just to get a bit higher quality out of it. I say you should create an archive of lossless music files and then down-convert from there to MP3 or whatever format you need for your phone or whatever you are going to be playing your music on. This down-conversion is much much easier than ripping from CD, so it doesn't matter that much if you want to do it over and over again using different bit rates or different formats.

[luftfluss]

Personally, I can't tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and FLAC - they sound identical to me.

But as @jon.partsch suggests, I rip my music to FLAC for archival, and use MP3 on the USB drive in my car.