bug80

That's a good recommendation! Beatifull music, although the mastering engineer did a really, really bad job here. Clipping all over the place.

freedb works fine, I use it when I rip a CD with EAC. So far, I've ripped about 2 or 3 CD's that were tagged incorrectly.

foobar2000 does the trick as well and it supports almost all formats. It is an amazing player as well (plus it is a tagger/cd-burner/dsp engine/etc). It needs some getting used to, however.

As long as Wine does not support USB communication this is impossible, unfortunately. But, I think it is more likely that Sonicstage or Simpleburner will run under a future Wine version, than that a Linux version of Sonicstage is released by sony.

"Life is extremely dangerous. You'll never get through it alive" - me

With EAC and a "forgiving" CD-ROM/DVD drive you can rip almost every copy protected CD. So, if Simpleburner ever fails try EAC. I have only one CD in my collection that I can't rip, out of the early days of copy protection (the infamous Sony protection that may actually hang your PC).

I think you're listening to the wrong albums, then

I know, but I've heard that, since files could not be larger than 4 GB anyway, it was decided to not change the 32-bit file size parameter. Could be wrong information, though. Ah thanks, I was looking for that.

Ok, thanks.

Are you sure HiMDrenderer doesn't decode to WAV first? It probably uses flac.exe which expects WAV files as input. By the way, I've heard a special WAV header extension exists that allows for files > 4 GB. Historically, the limit was set to 4 GB, because that's the greatest file size the FAT32 file system supports. As soon as the WAV header is altered to allow for larger files, it is no longer "standard", so I don't think himdrenderer writes it or flac.exe reads it.

An ancient place called "CD store"

Briljant album! I wonder what the guys come up with for the next album, I've heard they're recording right now (?). Anyway, I've just refreshed the contents of my flash player (not a MD, but technically speaking the output - music - is the same ) Most of the albums are encoded using Lame --alt-preset standard (vbr). Bright Eyes - I'm wide awake it's morning Coparck - Few chances come once in a lifetime Elliott Smith - Figure 8 Elliott Smith - XO Maria Taylor - 11:11 Martha Wainwright - Martha Wainwright Millionaire - Paradisiac Moondog jr - Everyday I wear a greasy black feather on my hat Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - No more shall we part Sexsmith & Kerr - Destination unknown Ryan Adams - Cold Roses Sufjan Stevens - Illinois Zita Swoon - Life = a sexy sanctuary If you like one or more of these albums you definitely have to check some others from the list. They're all really good.

Great! The idea is a bit like audioscrobbler. But I think this is more fun

Good question. I did some searching, but couldn't find anything that meets your demands. When I was searching for a new card, I searched for one I could make recordings with and had an optical out for my Minidisc recorder, so the E-MU 0404 was exactly right for me. EDIT: I found the Xitel MD-PORT on Ebay, for only $9,95. Not sure if shipping to the Netherlands is possible, though.

That is true for most bands, I think. Only the Marquee (tent) at Werchter has a club feeling to it. Festivals are especially nice to see many "large" bands you normally wouldn't by a ticket for. One major exception: Radiohead at that festival two years ago (best concert I've ever seen). Luckily, the Werchter festival always has a number of fine less famous bands playing in the Marquee. Some of my finest musical moments were in the Marquee This year I saw there Elvis Costello, Tom McRae, Interpol and the Belgian Heroes Zita Swoon and Admiral Freebee, for example. Hehe, me too, but I decided that Werchter >> Thesis.

I saw NIN on the Rock Werchter festival this year and was suprised. Very good show.

I used my MZ-N510 NetMD a couple of times during running and it never skipped. I think it's important that it doesn't move too much (I used the carrying pouch that came with the unit). Maybe the skipping is a sign that your running shoes have worn out.

Check out the E-MU 0404. It has analog, optical and coaxial in/out and with the latest drivers it supports 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz sampling rates (16 and 24 bit). Availability in the Netherlands is good, price is around 99 euro, which may be above your budget, but this card is really good. This card focusses on quality instead of features. edit: Forgot to mention that there's no Linux support for this card yet, unfortunately

Of course it is a matter of opinion, but after performing countless numbers of blind listening tests, I'm sure I prefer almost any format (MP3, AAC, OGG) over ATRAC3 on that bitrate. Have you performed blind testing yet? The results can be surprising. See this public 128 kbs listening test where ATRAC3 is chosen to be the worst codec of a set including Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP3, AAC and (even) WMA.

Not if the MP3's have a Lame header and are burned using Nero (this combination results in gapless audio). Maybe other burning software supports Lame headers, but Nero does for sure.

Be carefull, you talking about two different things. Normalizing the volume means, that the amplitude of the audio files are made the same, for example 0 dB. This is very straightforward. Algorithms that normalize the volume search for the absolute peak value of a file and after that multiply the whole file with a certain factor to make the peak 0 dB (in this example). What you mean is normalizing the loudness which is not the same. Whether or not two files have the same loudness to our ears depends on a couple of things, for example the frequency content. Algorithms that normalize the loudness, like MP3gain and ReplayGain generally integrate the audio over small blocks and perform frequency weighting (dB(B ) filtering for example). After that, statistical analysis is performed, which results in the final "loudness" of the file. edit: dB(B ) without a space becomes dB(

Also, make sure that the bitrate of your target files is higher than that of the original ATRAC files. For example, if the original ATRAC file was LP2 (132 kbs), I'd suggest to make the final MP3 at least 192 kbs. Encoding with Lame at the "--preset standard" or higher setting would be even better. In general, transcoding = bad, but if you really have to do it make sure the damage is as low as possible.

I recently downloaded the iTunes originals album, by R.E.M., and was surprised with the quality. I can still hear some artifacts, but not as much as with ATRAC3. However, that's the only experience I have with music from the iTunes store. It may be possible that they use fast encoding algorithms which result in lower quality files. I decided to not pay for music at this bitrate, but this album was "iTunes only", unfortunately.

That is correct. AAC@128 kbs sounds way better than ATRAC@132 kbs in general, trust me.

People can still download it from me. Does that mean I'm "seeding" it? Sorry, I'm not really into the torrent talk yet