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Confession

Ah, yeah... that makes sense. I kind of got fixated on streaming only lossless as that's what I tend to do, but I see your point when you've got all those devices and there isn't a single kind of lossless file that works for them all.
 
I have to support two Squeezeboxes, two PS3s, three Windows Phones, two Apple iPads, one Google Nexus 7 Android tablet, three Windows 8 PCs, four Roku boxes, a Pioneer car stereo with a USB port and three Sandisk Sansa Music Players. Windows Phone does not play nice with Apple Lossless or FLAC. iOS does not play nice with WMAL or FLAC. Roku does not play nice with any of the three, nor does the PS3. I think Android can handle FLAC with the right software, but not Apple Lossless or WMAL.

It really does suck that there is no universally supported lossless codec.
 
Nice thread Haywood!

I basically do two things: maintain all of my original source material (CDs, SACDs, etc.) and wherever possible rip them to 192kbps MP3 format.

If I ever want to do hyper-critical listening (I say semi-seriously) I pull out the source material. But for everything else, including streaming from a computer running as a server, it's the MP3s.

As some may recall me musing about last year, I was toying with the idea of re-ripping everything to lossless. But then sanity prevailed: given that I can honestly say that I've never heard a problem with 192kbps MP3 (let alone believe that I could distinguish it from the original source under almost any listening situation that I typical am in) I figured why invest the time (and storage space) to do so.

So other than maintaining an identical MP3 library on three different hard drives in case of loss / accident etc., I think I've found the sweet spot for quality / cost / convenience.

My only beef / hiccup is that because one place where I want to play those MP3s from is my iPod Touch, I'm partially locked-into the Mac universe in terms of ease of creating and updating a playlist for it. That's why I use iTunes (an older 64 bit version) for all my ripping - and just grab the files I want for others devices / streaming from the My Music folder associated with it.

I'm sure there's other ways that work better for others, but I'm satisfied.

Jeff
 
I'm using iTunes for ripping and library management, although I think I'm going to need to buy a third-party tagging and library management utility, because iTunes metadata blows. I use Plex Media Server to get to my music, for the most part. I've got Plex clients on all of my Windows 8 machines, Windows Phones, iPads and Roku Boxes, plus Plex is DLNA compliant, so it works on my PS3s as well.
 
Haywood said:
I'm using iTunes for ripping and library management, although I think I'm going to need to buy a third-party tagging and library management utility, because iTunes metadata blows. I use Plex Media Server to get to my music, for the most part. I've got Plex clients on all of my Windows 8 machines, Windows Phones, iPads and Roku Boxes, plus Plex is DLNA compliant, so it works on my PS3s as well.
Click to expand...

One of my beefs about iTunes is the way it "libraries" rips. I spend a lot of (too much) time editing the pre- and post-rip "info" in order for it to fit properly. If all I were doing is using iTunes then I might not bother, but because I need to access the My Music folder for so many other reasons, I like it to be keep in a more logical manner than iTunes tries to dictate.
 
Not sure if you guys are using dbpoweramp or not, but that is one of the best utilities to burn, tag, or convert the library to a different format. It's worth the money.
 
JeffMackwood said:
Haywood said:
I'm using iTunes for ripping and library management, although I think I'm going to need to buy a third-party tagging and library management utility, because iTunes metadata blows. I use Plex Media Server to get to my music, for the most part. I've got Plex clients on all of my Windows 8 machines, Windows Phones, iPads and Roku Boxes, plus Plex is DLNA compliant, so it works on my PS3s as well.
Click to expand...

One of my beefs about iTunes is the way it "libraries" rips. I spend a lot of (too much) time editing the pre- and post-rip "info" in order for it to fit properly. If all I were doing is using iTunes then I might not bother, but because I need to access the My Music folder for so many other reasons, I like it to be keep in a more logical manner than iTunes tries to dictate.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%. I've spent hours tuning my library for that reason.
 
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