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pc vs mac, eac vs itunes

Multi part question: (1) Thinking of going to a musicserver rather than a wall full of cds. I have not been a mac user and would lean toward a pc based system. However, I have not completely closed off the mac option. Main concern is not degrading or changing the data. I have heard that EAC is the best option to insure this and I am wondering if the mac options will ensure the same integrity. I am not concerned with cost of external drives, my plan is to store on a number of external drives and make backups to a spare set of external drives. Looking for feedback on comparison of EAC with a mac option (or is it possible to use EAC with a mac?). (2) Goal is to be able to access everything from sitting on the couch. Any suggestions - both pc and mac based - would be appreciated.
musicnoise
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
3,575 posts
 
Sufentanil - Safe deposit box is a great idea since i won't touch this drive after I'm done ripping. You are right that backup takes long (forgot about that) - I have only firewire 400 and have to do it overnight.
musicnoise OP
377 posts
 
Sufentanil: You raise an important issue as to going with a RAID. As between RAID and concantenating individual drives (JBOD) RAID is probably a better idea. My understanding is that RAID or JBOD has the primary advantage of allowing the system to see one large partition rather than a number of different partitions. Say that one had, for eg. three external 1 terabyte drives (with the artists separated alphabetically i.e. A-H drive J, I-P drive K and Q-Z drive L) and was willing to simply look at the respective drive to grab the music, would the only advantage of having the single large partition be that you didn't have switch between drives, or am I missing something more fundamental here - such as software limitations in accessing the music held on separate partitions.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
3,575 posts
 
Musicnoise - As I understand RAID drives work either in stripping or mirroring mode. Stripping increases speed (not needed here) but makes security even worse (one drive fails - you loose both) while mirroring provides automatic backup (writes to both disks at the same time) but is also not very secure since protects only from drive failure and not from virus or OS going crazy. The best in my opinion is separate disk kept unpowered in remote location. There is no need for more than one disk since 1.5TB mentioned previously would hold about 6000 CDs in Apple Lossless. There is no need for separating disks alphabetically unless you have more than 6000 CDs (not likely).
acurus
107 posts
 
EAC is a pain in the butt and offers no advantage whatsoever over DBpoweramp which uses the identical error correction program which is what makes EAC so good. DBpoweramp is very easy to use and you can rip to whatever format you like. I used FLAC as it was identical in every way to WAV (dont listen to those guys who say WAV is better, I spent hours upon hours of comparing WAV versus FLAC rips and they are IDENTICAL, absolutely, period, end of story!). WAV is pita and it does not hold tags and takes more space, there is no reason to use WAV for anything.

I would not rip using iTunes as it does not do error correction. If you want to use a MAC use DBPOWERAMP and rip to AIFF.....If you want to use a PC rip to FLAC.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
3,575 posts
 
Acurus - If I remember correctly EAC reads offending sector up to 16 times and picks better 8. MAX (free application) uses CDParanoia error correction algorithm (reading CD as data CD) with option to specify number of attempts or set it to "no skip".

You are right about Itunes - it either doesn't correct at all or does it poorly. I found disks that are completely rejected by MAX in "no skip" mode (I need to lower iteration or polish them to pass) while I tunes rips them skipping over problem area. During playback I hear gaps.
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