The 160GB iPod Classic is the king of lossless audio MP3 players, but there are rivals.
(Credit: CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)With the increased capacity of today's computer hard drives and MP3 players, ripping your CDs to a large, lossless audio format such as FLAC or Apple Lossless isn't such a crazy idea. In fact, some folks are convinced that lossless audio is the wave of the future.
While I personally have a handful of my favorite albums ripped to lossless files on my computer, I'm a little skeptical of the idea of a lossless revolution taking root. For better or worse, the MP3's popularity will likely remain unshaken for many years to come, for a variety of reasons.
That said, anything's possible, and there's a good chance you already own an MP3 player that supports at least one lossless audio format. If the idea of being unprepared of the bloody overthrow of the MP3 by lossless loyalists makes you feel uneasy, however, then here's a quick roundup of some of our favorite lossless MP3 players.
Now that nearly every popular online music store is selling a la carte tracks in the unprotected MP3 format, it's high time to clean house and convert those legally-acquired-yet-unfortunately-DRM-saddled WMAs. Maybe you don't want to depend on the parent company continuing to back up the licenses going forward, or perhaps you shunned the iPod years ago but the appeal of the 3G iPhone is far more alluring...or maybe you just want all your music in one, universally-supported format. No matter what the reasons, conversion from a protected format to an unprotected one takes some effort. There are two ways to go about the process, and while neither is particularly complicated, it's always helpful to have some steps to follow. You'll find both methods outlined below.
One note before we begin: This tip is made to keep additional costs to you as low as possible, but if you have more than $50 worth of tracks to convert, I highly recommend investing in Replay Music. This software costs $40, but it'll be worth every penny if you have a large number of tracks to convert because it automatically splits and tags the songs as you record. It can save you countless hours; plus, you can use it to record audio streams from other sources as well. Incidentally, all scenarios mentioned can be used for converting protected AACs, just use iTunes rather than Windows Media Player.
Option 1: Burn CDs and rerip
Necessary equipment:
- Windows Media Player
- CD-RW drive
- Blank CD-Rs
- Open Windows Media Player
- Right-click anywhere on the frame of the WMP window and select Options, then select Rip Music
- Select MP3 from the drop down menu, deselect all the boxes below that, adjust the bit rate to your liking, and click OK
- Click the Burn tab at the top of the screen
- Insert blank CD-R into CD-RW drive
- Select the files you want to convert from the library and drag them to the burn list pane
- Click start burn
- When the disc has finished burning, reinsert it into the drive
- Click the Rip tab in WMP
- Click Start Rip
- Repeat steps 4 through 10 until all necessary files have been converted
(Note: later versions of WMP will automatically split long track listing into discs based on length, eliminating the need to repeat step 6.)
Option 2: Stream and record
Necessary equipment:
- Windows Media Player
- Audacity
- LAME encoder (saved to your desktop)
- Patience
- Open WMP and Audacity, but completely close out all other programs and disable any audio alerts on your computer
- Create a playlist in WMP of all the files you wish to convert
- In Audacity, go to Edit, then Preferences, then Audio/IO, select 2 (Stereo) from the Channels drop-down menu, and click OK
- Then, click the Record (red circle) button on the top tool bar
- In WMP, start playback for the playlist
- Once the tracks have all played, click the Stop (beige square) button in Audacity and close WMP
- Under View, play with the Zoom In/Zoom Out/Fit in Window until you find a view where you can clearly see the points of silence, indicated by flat lines for both channels
- Using the Select tool, indicated by an "I" in the upper left corner of the toolbar, select the the first track, dragging from one point of silence to the next
- Click Edit, then click Copy
- Open a new file (File, New) and click Edit, then click Paste
- In the new window, select File, then click Export as MP3 and then name the file (selecting the LAME encoder from the desktop when prompted)
- In the next window that pops up, fill in as much of the ID3 tag info (Artist, Album, and so on) as you can and click OK
- Repeat steps 8 through 12 until each file has been saved separately
(Note: An alternative method is to start and stop recording for each individual track, saving after each one. This requires less skill in finding track silences, but is much more time consuming.)
I had a problem. Years ago, I bought Microsoft's now-discontinued Digital Media Plus Pack for converting my LP records into digital files. Because it's a Microsoft product from back in the day when Microsoft was gung-ho about Windows Media, it only rips to Windows Media Audio. And of course, it's Windows only. (Other than that, it's a great tool--very easy to use, never messes up line leveling, and has a good algorithm for removing pops and scratches.)
Back when I used iTunes and my iPod exclusively, I'd simply rip the album into WMA, then import the folder from MyMusic into iTunes. It would ask me if I wanted to convert to AAC (the default--it can also convert to MP3), I'd accept, then delete the WMAs so as not to clutter my hard drive with duplicates.
dBpoweramp lets you convert just about any audio file format to any other.
(Credit: Screenshot)But since 2006, I've been using a Zune (review unit) as my primary music player. Zune plays both AAC and WMA files, and it automatically reads your iTunes library. I got lazy and stopped converting my vinyl from WMA to AAC.
Now I've got a Shuffle. And a library full of WMA files that it can't play. Of course, I could do what I used to do--import the folders from My Music into iTunes, convert to AAC, then delete the originals. But what if I want to convert those WMAs into MP3s to make sure they can play on any device with any software app? OK, I guess I could change the default on iTunes. But what happens when you add a bunch of downloaded FLAC files into the mix? Or Ogg files? What about converting AAC back to WMA--I can't see any reason why I'd want to do that today, but who knows where Microsoft and Apple are heading with their file format support?
I needed to future-proof my music collection, while still maintaining the best quality-to-size ratio possible. (MP3 is one of the lossiest formats.)
dBpoweramp Music Converter is the solution. $18 for the regular edition. (The $28 reference edition has features for professionals and more serious amateurs.) You can download just about any imaginable codec from the associated Web site. By default it performs file conversion within the same folder as the original files, so you can easily keep track of what's where. (Not like iTunes, which moves every converted file into the iTunes library by default.) Or, if you want to export directly to an iTunes folder, it can do that. It even adds a feature to the Windows Explorer so when you hover over a file, it'll display full ID3 tag information for that file--useful for changing mysterious file names to match song titles.
Highly recommended.
dBpoweramp shows ID3 tags within Windows Explorer. So you can find out the real title of that Track 4.WMA file you've been carrying around..
(Credit: Screenshot)
(Credit:
Blaupunkt)
It was bound to happen eventually and, in fact, it's surprising that we haven't seen this sooner.
Blaupunkt's "Melbourne SD27" is the first car stereo that shuns CDs, according to SCI FI Tech, instead playing MP3 and WMA files with a front-loading SD card. To make things even easier, there's an optional adapter that can be used for an iPod, mobile phone or GPS device.
The writing was already on the wall for car stereos to go this route, but the kicker that could accelerate the trend even faster is this gadget's price of only $160. That's got to be one of the lowest entry prices for any major first-mover tech product we've seen in years.
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