soundPCMguy

I will be using Zune software on a PC but haven't installed it yet until I'm done with ripping and adding artwork to my FLAC files. What I'd like to know is for the people who have their archives in FLAC (and have already done the ID3v2 tags with artwork for their FLACs): 1.How have you organized your FLACs and your MP3s on your audio harddrive? 2.Do you physically keep all your FLACs and MP3 on different HDD or partitions? 3. Since Zune will not play even see FLAC files should the FLAC files be kept within the same folder with the MP3s?

I purchased a new 1 TB SATA internal HDD and am trying to add it to my system to copy data to it. I have a 2006 era Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939, Form Factor ATX CPU Socket Type 939 motherboard. it has two SATA ports. my primary and slave internal Harddrives are IDE drives. I am running Windows XP SP3. I am adding a new WD black caviar 1 TB SATA drive for more storage internally today. It is not being recognized. I looked at the online WD PDF of jumper settings and cannot figure that's it. This is my first time using one of the two 150Mbps SATA ports on my motherboard. Must I use the SATA 0 port or SATA 1 or it doesn't matter? Since the new SATA HDD did not come with a jumper is this necessary to tell the HDD to run at 150Mbps by adding a jumper on pins 5 & 6 or not necessary? I'm not a extreme techie and have never messed with the BIOS before. Will a motherboard always recognize a SATA HDD first and not boot from an IDE drive? My longer plan is to start adding a bunch of music to this new 1 TB SATA drive and within 6 months probably purchase a new AMR3+ Mobo,CPU, RAM, a new SATA 500GB boot HDD, Windows7 OS. (and get rid of the old IDE drives completely.) How do I get this new SATA drive recognized?

Thanks CharlyD. After my initial research it would seem that ripping to FLAC and then to MP3 is the best option to have an archive as well as MP3s with metadata & ID3v2 tags. At the moment I'm wondering if starting the whole process of 400 audio CDs with a circa 2006 AMD Athlon 64X2 2-Core 2.21GHz CPU with 1GB RAM is worth it for the initial rip & FLAC conversion or if I should wait to start the library until I get a new Windows 7 computer with a AMD Phenom II 6-core 3.2 GHz CPU and 4 GB RAM sometime in the next 6 months? Is it truly night and day speed with ripping & converting? Quick question- Does RAM matter in doing conversions to FLAC & MP3? Obviously the thing I cannot automate is the actual putting in the audio CD into the DVD-ROM drive and closing the drawer. As far as a batch conversions from FLAC to MP3 I'm guessing I could set it up to work overnight?

CD Audio to WAV then to MP3 or WMA - software I starting to rip about 400 CDs into uncompressed WAV files to archive for long term and get rid of all the physical audio CDs. I am going to purchase a Windows Phone 7 phone in the next 6 months. I plan on using the Zune software as a digital music library. I will also need to convert files from WAV to MP3 I thought the best compromise bitrate would be 192kbps MP3. Opinions on that bitrate for portable use in 32,64,128 GB portable units in the next 2-5 years? I will always be keeping my WAV files on a RAID 1 harddrive for the computer and to have just-in-case. The MP3s would be for a Windows Phone 7/ZuneHD type of portable player. now for those who already want to hit reply and tell me I should be using FLAC or WMA Lossless codecs: [i don't want a no-loss-of-quality-audio-waveform which decodes in realtime. I am keeping an archival copy of my music "just-in-case". uncompressed WAV files are built upon the foundation of LPCM audio. they will be around for decades. You also can play them through any physical professional hardware AES/EBU or S/PDIF interface directly to any phyiscal DAC hardware. Now that you know I am a professional in the film & TV business hopefully you'll understand. ] I didn't really want to invest the time to convert many songs to WMA or AAC file formats as they are not as widely accepted by many players. Would you guys suggest me using the Zune software to rip to WAV and then convert from WAV to MP3? Why would you suggest to me to convert to WMA instead? or AAC for that matter. Is AAC really going to last 10-15 years or will MP3 still be around as a mainstream digital audio format?

>Remember using these expensive cables on a hard drive is worthless >they are in Block mode not Streaming and will not be effected by >the use of costly cables. I agree. Something also to consider is "USB connections eventually wear out as the connection loosens through repeated plugging and unplugging. The lifetime of a USB-A male connector is approximately 1,500 connect/disconnect cycles." Standard type A USB standard connectors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus If the USB cable has a USB 2.0 sign on the packaging then the cable conforms to the USB 2.0 specification. Since we are talking about data it works. After that data arrives at the DAC device it is up to the DAC box's design as to how the audio sounds. You can use _ANY_ USB 2.0 cable and the sound itself does not change. I see that monoprice.com has a USB 2.0 Cables - Regular Type USB 2.0 A Male to B Male 28/24AWG CABLE - (Gold Plated) - 3ft Product ID: 5437 for $0.94 each. info: USB 2.0 compliant cables. These reliable cables feature Gold Plated Connectors for corrosion resistance and heavy gauge wires for years of reliable use. 3 feet not long enough? USB 2.0 A Male to B Male 28/24AWG CABLE - (Gold Plated) - 15ft Product ID: 5440 only $1.94 each. It's not streaming PCM audio like a coaxial S/PDIF cable where the data can have errors caused by the rounding off of the electrical signal's square waves in real time.