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[elo]

There is a number of people who would like to have their CD collection riped to the PC WITHOUT ANY quality reduction. Ripped with the same semi automatic prosess possible in MC today and with the same ability to order info about the album, tracks etc in the library as today. To do this would require that tags are included in the wav file as for other compressed formats. As far as I can understand this is not possible in current versions of MC??? I do undertsand that there will be some compatibility problems and that MC probably would need to define a new file extension in order to separate untaged wav from taged but I think many HIFI entusiast and audiophiles would welcome this. So my questions are: Is this possible today? If not is it difficult to include such a possibility in MC?

[Mr ChriZ]

Wav files can't be tagged.  However Media Center
supports a whole bunch of Lossless formats,
which allows for a bit perfect copy of the original CD,
just like wav.  The files are still compressed however
so take up less space, and also support full tagging
like MP3 files.

These two formats are the most popular
around here:
* Monkeys Audio (extension APE)
* FLAC Files

When ripping the CD's Media Center also supports
something called Secure ripping, this ensures the data
is correct as it comes off the CD, using multiple reads
and verification.

[elo]

Yes I know that and currently I am using ape as my prefered format. There is also a lot of debate about such formats and many claims to hear a quality reduction othewr claim that the reduction is in audible. I am no expert and I am wondering if the reconstructed signal is bit by bit identical to the original? ?

There has been discussions on this alsewhere in the forum without any clear conclusion and with storage costs as low as today it would be an interesting possibility to be able to copy our CD's without any compression applied

[KingSparta]

There is also a lot of debate about such formats and many claims to hear a quality reduction othewr claim that the reduction is in audible.

poppycock

[Mr ChriZ]

Yes I know that and currently I am using ape as my prefered format. There is also a lot of debate about such formats and many claims to hear a quality reduction othewr claim that the reduction is in audible. I am no expert and I am wondering if the reconstructed signal is bit by bit identical to the original? ?

There has been discussions on this alsewhere in the forum without any clear conclusion and with storage costs as low as today it would be an interesting possibility to be able to copy our CD's without any compression applied

They are definitley bit perfect and lossless, AlexB in particular here does alot of testing on this sort of thing.
I believe anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.
Tests can  and have been performed which involved writing directly the output of both formats
to disk, and then doing a direct bit comparison of them.

You could also have a look at the theory behind Monkeys audio which
is freely available here
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/theory.html

[glynor]

There is also a lot of debate about such formats and many claims to hear a quality reduction othewr claim that the reduction is in audible.

Yeah.  I think those people are the same people who think that $400 wooden knobs make a difference in the sound that your amplifier puts out (yes, that's my favorite example of audiophile absurdity).  A fool and his money are soon parted.   

On a similar note, for a good laugh, check this out: http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm

By popular demand, we bring you the Shakti Innovations Hallograph Soundfield Optimizer. I won't insult you with the details of how these "activated panels generate a musically complimentary reflective energy..." mainly because we're not told, so I don't know. What I do know is that "RENOWNED MASTERING ENGINEER STEVE HOFFMAN" endorses them.
Outstanding.
Thankfully "only one set is required per system". I say thankfully, because they'll set you back a deeply depressing $1000 a pair. Ouch.

[jgreen]

elo--

As to your original question, you can keep WAV files organized in MC and tag them using MC's internal library.  While MC does not generate a companion file for each WAV track as you hoped, you can export the MC fields to xml or spreadsheet and from there import them into many other programs, if you wish. 

As for your concerns regarding audio quality, there is NO degradation when going from WAV to another lossless fromat, such as APE or FLAC.  These formats are simply transcoding the original bits in a more efficient manner, just as WAV transcodes the original CDA image. 

"Lossy" compression formats, such as AAC, WMA (lossy), OGG or the many variants of mp3, do not preserve the original bit-for-bit record.  That being said, the sound quality can still be superb--just not bit-for-bit.  Mp3 using the L.A.M.E. codec seems to be the expert's choice for lossy.

For a discussion of formats, try hydrogenaudio.org.

[elo]

Thank you all I rest my case. I was not aware that a

[elo]

I was not aware that the losseless coding algoritms just coded the bit pattern of the source files in order to reduce the number of representing bits. So I will stick to ape....

[gregoryx]

I've done everything APE up to now (using EAC) but am now shifting to FLAC only because the Slim Devices units can play FLAC files directly from my Infrant NAS... supposedly.

I've got them playing MP3 nicely, but certainly prefer the lossless format and the two - without a PC in the middle - will not do APE.

FWIW, though MC is my player of choice, it's nice to have a backup plan that gets music from the raw storage devices to the stereo without a PC involved. Nothing beats MC's library, searches, smartlists, and such of course. 

Thanks for the fun "audiofool" links. I keep getting tempted to ditch my Audiophile magazine subscription... 'cause $150,000 amps just aren't interesting enough to me... and the never-ending cable dispute will only be settled in favor of the fools wishing to part with their money... but then there's a couple of writers who still know it's about the music, not the money... so they keep my attention.