ac3320

Did you have a chance to try the Apogee One? If the One has just as good of sound quality, I'm inclined to save a few bugs, and have a built-in mic for recording my dreadnought. But I am willing to spend a couple hundred more if the One is just as good of a DAC as the Duet 2

Results?

vBulletin is not the prettiest thing in the world; I actually favor quite a bit more the previous layout But it is faster to navigate now

Honestly the original 1985 CD has such a nice DR it's not really worth going for the Hi-res versions, IMO.

Yeah, I had thought of that too. It's just that now I'm tied to Toast. I'd rather be tied to a native OS X app, or something like XLD. Toast feels too Windows-Adobe-ish to me in that it installs a plethora of programs no one ever uses, and sacrifices the no-brainer Cocoa look for something much lamer. I'd be more inclined to BIN+CUE it before I made a Toast image, you know?

Thanks to the both of you for your input! I have found a way to do it, at least in XLD. The problem is that the [Japanese] XLD tutorial link is busted, and everyone's "How-to's" are based on an older version of XLD, and so it was throwing me off. The important steps are delineated in my screenshots below. Moral of the story, I was unable to find the "Save as a single file + cue" option thingy, which was hidden in the "include pregap.." options

I'm not sure if you missed my point or if my point was not clear enough Note that I can rip the CDs just fine to whatever format I want. The problem is that I want to have an exact image/duplicate copy of the entire CD stored in the digital realm. Ripping a CD is easy enough, but so far I am not sure how if I have been ripping the included pregaps with XLD. It *seems* that XLD should be doing this correctly, by just appending the pregap to the previous track, but it just seems a little fishy to me. I would even settle for a single FLAC file + the CUE sheet from XLD, but I can't seem to figure that out either (Of course I'd rather just have the whole image somewhere on a HD somewhere, but i'd settle for a FLAC/ALAC rip or something).

anyone?

any takers?

I can do a bin/cue with Toast, but their "Disk Image" is a *.Sd2f file. Not sure what that is. PS: I can't seem to make a single FLAC+cue with XLD right now either. Sigh. lol

I have used Disk Utility in the past to create cdr (-->iso) images from Apple OS X install media like the 10.6 DVD, the iWork/iLife suites, etc. I am able to make an audio CD using the same methods, but I am not sure if Disk Utility is really copying bit for bit the entire audio CD. Finder "tries" to make the Audio CD filesystem-able, calling all the tracks "AIFF," but that is not entirely true, as I understand things. Alternatively, I have heard you can do it with XLD and Toast, but for some reason, I do not see a way to do such a thing. All I want is an archival copy (not FLAC+cue, though that would be nice too) of my CD incase it explodes in the next day, I will have a pristine, completely copyable digital copy of said CD. Anyone out there smarter than me?

Remasters suck! In general, at least. Sometimes, the remaster has comparable DR with the original release (Band on the Run Remaster 2010). But that is an exception to the rule. Try to seek out Mobile Fidelity (MFSL/MoFi), Audio Fidelity (AFZ), Sony's Super Bit Mapping (SBM), Dunhill Compact Classics (DCC), or original releases. Anything by Steve Hoffman (even the bootleg stuff is gold). All of the aforementioned sound labs' releases are consistently of a higher DR than the bulk of remastered junk that comes out these days. I do not really buy into all the "gold superiority," but the increased dynamic range is worth it. I axed a bunch of HDtracks stuff I had in my library for MFSL versions of the same album. Hi-res is not always better! A Hi-res album from a crappy master will sound just as crappy as a Redbook release from the same master. HDtracks only passes on the junk that studios pass to them, so it's not their fault... After you try out music with higher DR, it's harder to go back to compressed 90's and 00's music. RHCP is almost ruined for me (almost). Sadly, most Pop/Rock artists can't do any better -- DR's of 6 and 7 are the norm (just as you mentioned). Happy hunting!

Furthermore, am I correct in assuming that XLD will append the pregap value to the previous track (end)?

I have quite a few CDs that I have in my collection... I used XLD to rip the CDs to individual ALAC files (pre-gap included) and then added those files to iTunes. It is my understanding that XLD takes whatever the pre-gap time value is and appends that to the end of the previous track. If that is the case, what is the most proper way to burn a CD, using iTunes, that contains the correct amount of pre-gap space? I know that for a live album, I would just make sure to burn a gapless album -- there's a checkmark in the burning dialog box. Should I... 1. Just burn a gapless album regardless since XLD appends the amounts? Seems like this is the best choice. IF it was a live album, XLD would just have nothing to append, so no harm done. 2. Something else? May have answered my own question...

does anyone know if the redbook version is less compressed? probably not, as it IS a comp album