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[JoanRivers]

I recently purchased the product. Don't have anything in my music library at the moment. Was thinking of just trying to rip a CD now to see if I could get the hang of the product.
The only option I see to do that is Audio Monkey...there are three different choices for that option. Presumably the first one is the best?
Anyway, looked up the option on Wikipedia and it states:

"Monkey's Audio main drawbacks are the fact that it employs a symmetric algorithm, meaning the decoding takes comparable resources to encoding, which makes it unsuitable for all but the fastest portable players (via Rockbox firmware), and that it has limited support on software platforms other than Windows; on other platforms only decoding is officially supported by third-party programs. Although the original source code is freely available, the license is not considered to be an open source one. A GPL version of the decoder has been independently written for Rockbox and then included in ffmpeg".

Since I purchased the master licence for MC, just wondering if Audio Monkey is my only option to rip CDs, assuming I may want to switch to another OS or access my Windows music with another OS.

Anyway, thoughts on Audio Monkey for someone in my situation? Can you choose an alternative to Audio Monkey? If yes, what's the best one? I am looking to have lossless copies of my CDs.

On my first computer, so getting the hang of downloading stuff and using products etc.

Edit in:

Went back to the product...I get the feeling that options don't consistently appear, re other options to Audio Monkey...I can now see 11 other options to Audio Monkey (could have sworn I clicked that section before and only had one option).

Anyway, any reason Audio Monkey is the default option?

FLAC the answer to my question? What does "External encoder" mean? Something you import to MC?

[JimH]

Our CTO, Matt Ashland, is the author of Monkey's Audio.  We think it's the best.

The Wikipedia article seems a little out of date.  I doubt that you could measure significant difference in power required to encode or decode at default settings.

In any case, you can choose a codec you like and use it.

[Hendrik]

FLAC the answer to my question? What does "External encoder" mean? Something you import to MC?

FLAC is a good choice for compatibility across all sorts of devices (except Apple), and practically the industry standard for lossless audio files, unless you use a Mac or iPhones, etc, then you would want ALAC.
So if in doubt, pick FLAC, its never a bad choice!

[JoanRivers]

Our CTO, Matt Ashland, is the author of Monkey's Audio.  We think it's the best.

The Wikipedia article seems a little out of date.  I doubt that you could measure significant difference in power required to encode or decode at default settings.

In any case, you can choose a codec you like and use it.

If this isn't a topic that's covered in your FAQ link, maybe it should be?

I.e. just some entries on the best codec for a particular purpose. E.g. if you want lossless files, these would be the ones to go for and pros/cons of each.

Since I'm just here in passing, I suppose my query would be which codec uses less space on your drive for storing ripped music. That would go to compression, wouldn't it? So, even though you can compress music, you can still have it lossless.

This is new to me in any case. Not currently looking to use MC to rip CDs...as I said, just wanted to try it out to get the hang of it.

Unrelated question, for MC add-ons or extensions etc, how does that affect MC's privacy settings? Shares more of your details with other entities if you enable additional features?

[JimH]

Any lossless codec will be fine.  Disk space considerations are very small among them.

I don't understand your last question, but maybe you could post it as a new topic, and add a few details.  Do you mean plug-ins?  An example might help.

[zenpmd]

Sorry to hijack but is there anything we need to think about with ripping? I just rip flac set to zero in j river and job done?

[astromo]

Sorry to hijack but is there anything we need to think about with ripping? I just rip flac set to zero in j river and job done?

I go the other way and max out compression and run at a setting of 8.

[JoanRivers]

Any lossless codec will be fine.  Disk space considerations are very small among them.

I don't understand your last question, but maybe you could post it as a new topic, and add a few details.  Do you mean plug-ins?  An example might help.

Back to the Monkey's Audio point - since I have the Master license for MC, is that a codec that works well/transfers easily/shares easily with other OS?

re plug-ins etc...I noticed that I've got icons for other MC products in my PC, stuff like CD Labeler etc. Including stuff like that as well as any 3rd party additions to MC (do such things exist?), just wondering if all these additions have different privacy/security implications.

I did download Kodi and that had some add-ons or whatever you call them. Presumably they're not from the actual devs of Kodi.

My concern would be whether or not MC and other such products have by themselves, or with additions to them, poor privacy/security for users. Google Play is notorious for having apps which require way more permissions than is necessary for what they do, and they can leak your private information etc.

Just hoping that MC and Kodi and all the major ones aren't like that/Google Play etc.

[astromo]

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/developers.html

According to the above link, the APE SDK is written for Windows and OSX.

APE is on the http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Formats list and Matt is its mastermind. So while I don't have an OSX version of MC and I can't vouch conclusively, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say "yep, APE will play nicely with all the MC OS platforms".

And if it ever chucked its audio toys out of the cot, then I'd bet Matt would get in pretty quick and fix it up.

[JimH]

APE is on the http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Formats list and Matt is its mastermind. So while I don't have an OSX version of MC and I can't vouch conclusively, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say "yep, APE will play nicely with all the MC OS platforms".

It does.

[JimH]

I go the other way and max out compression and run at a setting of 8.

High compression only saves a couple per cent and it costs some time.

[JoanRivers]

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/developers.html

According to the above link, the APE SDK is written for Windows and OSX.

APE is on the http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Formats list and Matt is its mastermind. So while I don't have an OSX version of MC and I can't vouch conclusively, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say "yep, APE will play nicely with all the MC OS platforms".

And if it ever chucked its audio toys out of the cot, then I'd bet Matt would get in pretty quick and fix it up.

I posted months ago on this on your Linux board here. Just wondering if anything's changed re interoperability. Here's my thread:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=93544.msg645028#msg645028

re astromo's reply - I haven't as yet started ripping my CDs to my Windows drive. Once I have my second drive set up with some version of Linux, probably, just wondering about the practicalities of accessing my Windows library when using my Linux OS on the other drive. So, if I used Monkey's Audio on Window's side, that wouldn't work with Linux? Again, having a knowledge base at this site on various codecs would be good for newies like me. I.e. pros and cons of them. Important facts would be whether its lossless or not, how much it's compressed, what OS it is supported by etc.

Someone in my Linux thread mentioned that at the moment the Linux MC doesn't support ripping. That changed in the meantime?

Basically, it would be ideal for me if I could losslessly rip my CDs on Windows MC and either share that or import that to other OS without hassles. astromo mentioned Monkey's Audio working with Mac OS. My intent would be to have my Window's MC music library work with ANY OS/system. Possible? I mean the major players, like Linux, Mac etc. Android not so important.

Am curious about compression ratios for major lossless codecs. E.g. FLAC v Monkey's Audio etc. What are people's subjective experience of listening to music ripped with these systems?

[Hendrik]

For maximum compatibility you should rip to FLAC, or if you need compat with Apple devices (iPod, iPhone, iTunes), ALAC.
The size difference between all these formats is marginal.

FLAC works in nearly all multimedia software on all OS'es, and on the majority of devices - with the notable exception of Apple devices/software, for which ALAC is preferable then.
While APE works just fine if you're using MC on Windows/Mac/Linux (MC supports the same formats on all platforms), its not that widely supported in other multimedia software products or on devices.

Regarding ripping on Linux, its still not supported. It was added to the Mac version recently, but on Linux its not available yet.