Transfering CDs to iTunes FLAC. Am I missing....?

John, I have over 1300 albums in FLAC format on a hard drive, and if you've found a way to import to FLAC using iTunes, please share! I'm using iTunes version 7.6 as well and there's no choice for importing to FLAC on my PC. Are you sure you didn't choose Apple Lossless format?

I used EAC to extract from discs and use Foobar 2000 as a player and there were many growing pains learning the programming language to get all the files tagged correctly, but it was worth it. Good choice on the FLAC format for sound quality. My only advice, if you have a large library, is test, test, test before doing the whole shot. Compilation discs, soundtracks, musicals and classical discs can import with some unexpected results for file names, artist/composer names and folder structures. Good luck.

Guys - thanks so much for the info. Argh, I guess i'm dumber than I thought. I somehow assumed Apple Lossless was FLAC...don't know why. Darn, I don't know when this stuff needs to be so difficult...;-) Is Apple Lossless not as good a format then? I definitely want to use the best format I can for archiving my music. Also, I intend to use the new Slim Devices controller for accessing and selecting music on the fly as I walk around the house.

So, it sounds like I have to jump through some serious hoops to get everyhing organized on FLAC on my Windows machine...Would things be easier if I bough a Mac Mini - perhaps avoiding any of that Foobar stuff...

Any links you might have on guidance for the process would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
John

John, don't loose any sleep over the FLAC vs. Apple Lossless format on your files. The sound quality will be excellent with both. If you like the organization and interface of iTunes, it makes sense to use Apple lossless. I personally didn't want to be locked into using iTunes and really like the customization of Foobar. It has many advanced features and plugins that I really wanted to exploit with my home theater PC to feed my audio OCD.

The Transporter is a really slick device and works with the Apple Lossless format, so it sounds like this would be the perfect choice for you. Getting all your music imported is a seriously tedious task, so whatever process and program you choose for ripping should cause you the least amount of grief. You will really enjoy having all your music at your disposal when it's all done. Enjoy!

Thanks Ejresh, I feel a it better (especially because I've already ripped close to 100 CDs). That is a good point though about not being tied to Apple. Right now I find the iTunes interface pretty slick, so don't feel much of an itch to have more features or something else. I especially like that I don't have to manually label or tag anything.

I guess I'll take a peek at Foobar to see if there are some features that I'm missing.

Anyways, thanks for all the advice and tips!
John.

John,

You can convert Apple Lossless to FLAC using dbPowerAmp. This is an EXCELLENT program that does conversions from one file type to another. And, it costs only $14. You can download a free trial version off the 'Net.

One very cool feature is that it has a command line interface in addition to its GUI. This means that you can batch convert all of your Apple Lossless at one time, if you like...

-RW-