Chas, I'm happy to share what I've learned. As you prefer, we can carry on the conversation in this thread or you can click on my name to send an email. The typing is the same for me either way, I have no preference.

Here's a beginning, I'll try to be brief. My music collection is one of my keenest hobbies, and I've been at this electronification of it (my made up word) for over 10 years. I know most people are much less enthusiastic about it than I am, but even a basic collection benefits from these steps.

You'll see none of this is very automatic or easily automated. In fact, it's pretty manual and labor intensive. That's no discouragement, it's very worth doing.

In my view, if your wish is to rip CDs into digital form to have them available for a multitude of other purposes, the only sensible format to use is a lossless one. FLAC is multi-platform (and open source) but not Apple compatible. Apple has its own lossless format, it's called ALAC. ALAC is not very PC compatible. But lossless is lossless. A CD can be ripped to FLAC, that FLAC converted to ALAC, that ALAC file converted back to Red Book (also called WAV), and the result is a file that's bit-perfect identical to the CD. So, take your pick for a starting point. (one difference is that FLAC and ALAC can have tags while WAV can't have tags, aka meta data, that will transfer automatically to any converted daughter files. More on that later)

The advantage of ripping CDs to a lossless format is that you'll NEVER have to search through or refile a CD again and all your collection is instantly accessible. If you want a copy to play in the car, burn one then toss it when you're tired of it (a blank CD is what, a dime?). It takes just a few minutes to do so.

When you want to put them on smaller devices where the sound quality doesn't matter as much (a phone, a tablet), you'll make a smaller format copy (like MP3 for Android or AAC for an Apple device)

What hardware is the music played on? Can your home sound system play one of the lossless formats? The sound transport in my house uses the Squeezebox system, simply awesome equipment that's no longer sold. What's available today is the Sonos system. Take a look at the information on Sonos, it too is a combination transport and player system for music that's been ripped (as well as internet stations like Pandora, Slacker, etc.)

For ripping, dbPoweramp (about $30 last time I looked) is highly regarded and very full of features. For example, I believe it will create two copies at the same time when ripping, a lossless copy for your permanent collection and an MP3 copy to transfer to a portable device. For me, I do that in two steps because I use freeware named Exact Audio Copy (EAC). It's slightly less flexible but considered very precise and reliable. Both programs access public databases when ripping so that the new files have (mostly) accurate tags and the folder has the album cover (mostly).

To clean up tags, file names, etc, I use MP3 Tag (also freeware). MP3 Tab will access public databases and Amazon webpages for tag data, and also other sources for album covers.

To convert files between formats (FLAC to Mp3 for instance) I use Foobar (also freeware). When you convert a Flac file (or an Alac file) to MP3, the tag data and the album covers will travel along automatically with Foobar or itunes or whatever similar program is used.

I do know that Itunes will rip CDs to Apple Lossless format but whatever else it does and how I don't know. I know little about itunes because I strongly dislike Apple and its products and I completely avoid them with one exception - I use itunes for one very limited and narrow non-music purpose. Even with that, it would take me a few pages to full vent about how annoying I find it.

Phew, fire away with any questions or needed clarification. Good luck, in the end, it's all about the music.

Snidely,
Can you explain how I can get my library on iTunes into my Sonos player ? I can't find good directions online.
Thanks,
Salbwil

I don't have any experience working with Sonos, as described before. But i think I can point you in the right direction.

First, don't confuse programs with files. A ripped recording of "America the Beautiful" is a music file. iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, Foobar, etc, are programs that play music files. Programs are all in their own subdirectories under the Programs folder of Windows (or Apple), music files are elsewhere, wherever you've chosen to put them. There's no tie in or connection between one and the other, any music program can play any music file (assuming it's in a compatible format). You just need to tell the program where it is.

Similarly, the Sonos system has programs that play music files. Maybe it does its own discovery from your hard drive by searching all the folders, I don't know. Otherwise, there would be a setting where you tell that program the name and location of the folder where the music files are. Nothing more to it than that.

How you arrange your music files in folders matters, to make them easiest to access and add new files to. Many people like to arrange their folders by artist, then by album. There are a multitude of other ways too. Some may prefer to arrange folders by genre, then by artist. Or, genre, then by composition (as with classical music). Or, if all you have is singles, dump them all into one folder. There's are many websites for music enthusiasts that can give you useful information.

Album art is usually not handled by ripping programs, but some multifunction player programs (WMP, iTunes, etc.) will fetch and manage it, as well as the device you play it on.
If you're just using a ripping-only program, you could use
"Album Art Downloader"

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=57392

For ripping, probably the most well known is EAC (Exact Audio Copy) as Snidely mentioned.
I use it but don't have it set at the most demanding ripping settings - that is, for multiple retries on error discovery. If it misses one bit of one note, I doubt I'd notice it anyway.

In the same vein . . . and I've been ripping and transcoding audio for well over a decade as well . . . I wouldn't go so far as to say that lossless encoding is the *only* sensible option.There are tradeoffs..

Many blind studies have been done that show that most people can't tell the difference between an uncompressed music file and a high quality compressed one, especially if you use one of the better codecs like AAC or Ogg, and higher bitrate encodings.

And even then, it's often used in excess. Most people could not tell the difference between a 160 bit encoding and 320bit, much less a 240bit vs 320 bit - in a blind test. They say they can tell, but it doesn't come out that way in blind tests.
The case could be made for archiving I suppose.
But keep in mind, your library will be at least 500% larger than it would be if encoded at even one of the highest bitrate compressed encodings.

For getting Sonos to find your library, it's in the manual.
In the manual's search box.
Type in "library" and several sets of instructions come up :

Here's the online manual :
http://www.sonos.com/support/onlineuserguide/en/

Here is a link that might be useful: Sonos Online Manual

I've used Album Art Downloader only when EAC finds nothing, which is rare. EAC normally does a great job of finding the right cover art. You have the choice of putting the cover into the tag, or into the folder as a separate image file.

MP3Tag, which is needed for at least half of the CDs I rip to cleanup sloppy metadata, cleverly accesses Amazon (in the background) to get album art. Winamp also does a good job of straightening out tags on already ripped files, I use it occasionally.

Some people can't tell the difference between average coffee and really good coffee, and so they don't care. The same and the same as between average wine and really good wine. You get the picture. For sound, many have become accustomed to playing crippled lossy files through crappy sound systems and so yes, many can't tell the difference. That doesn't mean there isn't one. I have a medium quality system (several thousands but not several tens of thousands, nor several hundreds) and most people have been able to tell the difference if I do an A-B with high and low quality files. If someone's frame of reference is iTunes Store lossy files, $25 earphones, and a $100 docking station, then quality isn't important.

If ripping CDs for easy access (and before putting them into storage) there's no reason to not rip to lossless files. I can create MP3 versions for smartphones, car use from memory sticks, etc, anytime I want, but maintain the better version for my master collection and play through my stereo system. DBPoweramp will create two versions (lossy and lossless) at the same time when ripping a CD.

The poor quality of CDs as a starting point is also another tale, that efforts like Pono and high quality flacs are trying to address. I know people with REALLY high end sound systems who won't play CDs or files digitized from them.

>>Some people can't tell the difference between average coffee and really good coffee, and so they don't care.

Yeh, sure . . . some. But most people can tell because there is in fact a significant difference, so it's not a correct analogy. (And for the group of people that can't tell, why would they want to waste their money on expensive coffee ?)

>>The same and the same as between average wine and really good wine.

That's somewhat true, because the differences are much more subtle. But that begs the same question.
Moreover, there's a problem of hype and expectation there . . . is a $200 bottle of wine really and noticeably 2000% better than a $10 bottle of wine in a blind test ?

>>You get the picture. For sound, many have become accustomed to playing crippled lossy files through crappy sound systems and so yes, many can't tell the difference. That doesn't mean there isn't one. I have a medium quality system (several thousands but not several tens of thousands, nor several hundreds) and most people have been able to tell the difference if I do an A-B with high and low quality files.
You just made the argument for "there's NO reason to not rip to lossless files" to be false.
You're making a case for why some (5% ? - pick a number, doesn't matter) elite group of people might want to use lossless, whereas the rest wouldn't. As well, for some purposes yes, for others, no.

We're not talking about "high and low quality files", we're talking about lossless, vs high quality compressed, and often less.
Sure, there's a difference, but can a majority of the population (2σ of the mean) with the majority of systems out there tell ?
No, and not even on decent systems. The evidence just doesn't support it.

Thus, never say Never. There is not a one size fits all.
;-)

This post was edited by kbarb on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 0:38

I've deleted the comments I originally posted in this space because kbarb decide to edit the post above this one I'd originally responded to. Had I seen the post as it appears now, my response would have been somewhat different.

It's like hearing someone say something in a conversation, you respond and then they say "No, i didn't say that, here's what I said....". And you can say, "No that isn't what you said, I heard what you said quite well".

Except that on an internet forum, when that happens as here, all that's there to see is the altered text, the original is gone.

This post was edited by snidely on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 1:27

Hey, whizbang....

Next time you want to change an earlier comment or say something else, post a follow-up. Don't edit an earlier comment, that's tacky.

If you don't like what you said the first time or realize you made some mistakes (which is what I thought of some of your comments), delete the whole thing.

Your edits made significant changes to your original comment two above this one. I've deleted my comments (which I NEVER do) because they were in response to comments the meaning of which were changed with your long after the fact edits.

To be clear, you made comments with a timestamp of Sunday @1302. I replied not quite 2 hours later @ 1444. With timestamp of Monday, 0038 (about 10 hours after my reply), you edited the 1302 comment.

>>Hey, whizbang

Snidely, really . . . there's no need for name calling and getting personal here - let's keep it civilized.

I generally don't edit comments for substantial change in meaning, especially on a point of contention, if it doesn't appear that someone has made a followup comment. I suppose it's possible I hadn't noticed a follow up, or that it hadn't appeared despite refresh.

Just curious though, what exactly was the supposed edit that has you so upset ?
Was it a typo I fixed, a small fix for clarity, or some substantial change in point of view ?

And lol, we're not in a court of law here. Don't take it all so personally and defensively, it's all just points of view from different perspectives. No one is out to get you.

I'll edit as I see fit (using best discretion as always), just like I'm editing this one, because it appears that no one has replied to it.
Lol.

This post was edited by kbarb on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 14:39

I did no name calling and in return I'm not being defensive.

I only described what you did, there's no need to repeat what I said. I've known people with similar habits to yours. I try to avoid having conversations with them.

You can do as you like. Other readers can come to their own conclusions either way.

>>I only described what you did

No, you took a time stamp, and went from there to a presumption, finally an insinuation of malevolence.

But so far, not a single shred of details or explanation for some supposed egregious behavior, so I'm inclined to think there's some other issue at hand here.

"Affirming the consequent" - a common fallacy.

And jeezus, on a gardening forum no less.

ignore rhubarb Snidely. Thanks for posting the info.