All my music is currently in Itunes but I want to put some of my cd's on a sd card in the Octavia , got the card (128gb) but can anyone suggest a decent program to do it , I want the highest quality possible and something that will be structured and not all over the place?

 

I have columbus btw is thats important

 

 

CDEX....

 

Get it from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/files/latest/download

 

Don't use the windows package off cdex.mu unless you don't mind checking/unchecking many ****ty options for toolbars etc.

+1 on CDEX but if your stereo is WMA compatible you could just use Windows Media Player.

+1 on CDEX but if your stereo is WMA compatible you could just use Windows Media Player.

That is what I do.

You can pretty much copy the itunes library over to the card and it'll work fine as-is.

 

That's all I did for my Octy.

You can pretty much copy the itunes library over to the card and it'll work fine as-is.

 

That's all I did for my Octy.

Same here, I just copied the albums from the iTunes media library....very quick and very easy

isnt there a loss in quality over ripping from audio disc ?

Unless you're after a lossless format from the CDs then they're going to be 'reduced' quality regardless. I re-ripped all my CDs to iTunes at 320kbs AAC files and they sound fine to me (disclaimer - i am NOT an audiophile) I'm not sure what lossless formats the Columbus will play, but you'll run out of space quite quickly if you're stuck with AIFF. Though you may get away with FLAC on Columbus I believe?

 

If your iTunes library is around 320kbs already I'd just copy that over and have a listen. I can't hear any difference between my iTunes files and the original CD - but I'm sure some people will.

You can pretty much copy the itunes library over to the card and it'll work fine as-is.

 

That's all I did for my Octy.

 

That might just be easier than ripping the whole lot again

 

I don't think many car systems support FLAC and not many people can really tell the difference. CDs are compressed to start with really, if you want the full majesty of analogue then you'll have to fit a turntable to your Octy.

 

According to the manual flac is supported on Columbus

I think a 128gb card maybe too big for all but the latest Columbus models...

I just do a direct copy of 17¾Gb of music on to DataTraveller USB stick. Takes about 30 minutes to do. Car takes a while to process it, but it works OK and you can get the USB sticks for around about a tenner.

 

32Gb: http://www.7dayshop.com/32gb-usb-flash-drives#

 

64Gb: http://www.7dayshop.com/64gb-usb-flash-drives

You might be wasting a bit of time putting it all on a 128 card ,I think the max is 32 or 64,personally I carry a couple of 32gb also easier to search an album,

I have the latest columbus , I did a search and others recommended the card I have bought

When I had a Columbus I put all the music on the hard disc and kept a copy on an SD card. If you are going to use the Windows Media Player to rip the music from the CD then before you do the ripping then, depending which version you have, click on the organise tab in the top left corner, in the box that opens click on options, in the next box click on the rip music tab and in the box that opens you can change the format to MP3 and the bit rate. Do that BEFORE you start ripping and you will have the best quality music to play in the car.

Ian

FLAC would be preferable IMO.... Again.... CDEX to rip and encode on-the-fly.

 

Some discussion on the web about flac encoding times.... If you have an i5 or similar PC, it's not really an irritation. I have tended to use FLAC compression level 8. Though the file sizes do not vary very much.

 

http://z-issue.com/wp/flac-compression-level-comparison/

 

I rip to both MP3 and FLAC. MP3 loses "impact" to some degree. Though any back-to-back listening I did was with Linn speakers and a Mission amp in the lounge.

 

J.

Higher bit levels help keep the tiny - low level sounds; for a car 99.99% of the time you wouldnt be able to hear these due to road/engine noise (and the fact car radios really arent all that good), so 128K is more than good enough; in fact, unless you have a audiophile grade set-up on your PC, you wont hear the difference between 128,192 and 320k.

 

(Asus sound card, Crimson Electric power-amp and some old Gale reference speakers - from when Gale made proper speakers and not cheap tat for Richer Sounds - wired together with Naim cable)

I have all my music encoded at 192kbs mp3s and I noticed a significant difference between them and the same music at 320kbs AAC encoding. So much, in fact, I re-ripped 60gb of my collection so they can go in the car.

I notice very little or no difference between the AACs and non-compressed though. So for the car setup at least you hit a point of diminishing return early enough IMHO.

I rip my cds using dBpoweramp as flac to an external harddrive for my home hi-fi. I then use the batch converter in dBpoweramp to convert to 320 bit fixed rate mp3 & store on my win7 PC, then import into iTunes. I then use these in iTunes for ipad & then copy to SD card for car.

 

long winded but you can downsize the album art easier etc & sound is good in the car, but would prefer FLAC on the car to save me having to convert the master files!

 

PS dBpoweramp is the best, it costs a small amount but is acurip, & the ID edit tags function is better, & it rips frame by frame & you can set the rip abort if it detects bad frames & etc, way more advanced than most other rippers............well infact it is industry based & you know that you have a bit perfect copy!