Compatible USB Drive to rip to Nucleus +

@Mike_LC - is there a way of knowing based on published specs how well it would do as a ripper. Would faster (say 8X) equal higher quality? What I want is to get a bit perfect copy.

I don’t think faster vs slower makes a difference. It’s the quality of the drive and the approach of the software. Let me explain.

One of the best tools on the market is XLD. You can download it from a number of places including: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xld/

It’s approach is to:

  1. Enable configuration to the actual drive you have including setting offset values, whether it supports c2 error correction, whether it detects pre-gap, etc. This makes the ripping more accurate and faster.

  2. Allows for a two-pass approach. If you don’t get the same results twice – it’s probably a bad rip.

  3. It compares the rip to a database of rips for that CD by others (called AcurateRIP) – if it gets the same results as 99 out of 100 other users (for example), it’s probably good.

It is this kind of approach that ensure you get the best, high quality, accurate rip. You can also use XLD for transcoding for use by other CODECs.

I don’t know much about Roon’s integrated ripping but I would guess it’s not sophisticated like this but having it integrated makes it really convenient. If you want to rip your collection once in lossless format and ensure you’ve done as best you can to get a perfect rip you’d be better served running a tool like XLD on a Mac and then moving the files to your nucleus. XLD is not the only tool that does similar things but it’s one of the best but I know there are other on Windows if that is your preferred computer platform. Many users here use DBPowerAmp on Windows which also uses the AccurateRIP db as an example.

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Hmmmm/… I was told that if the tracks were not ripped to the Nucleus, it would not work. Perhaps they meant the files had to be on the Nucleus in either an internal drive or one that is connected via usb.

This link indicates CD Paranoia is used by the Nucleus/Roon Software.

If you are correct in my ability to rip on my mac and copy to the nucleus, I don’t need to buy another drive I can use the Apple Super Drive which is supposed to ve very good.

This is what I do. My mac and and attached storage is my media master. I rip there, do any metadata editing there and then copy/sync files over to the ssd on the nucleus. You do not have to rip on the nucleus.

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Sounds good. I have just dowloaded and installed xld. As it turns out there are two choices for ripping, XLD Secure Ripper, and CD Paranioa III. I assume you use XLD Ripper, correct?

Yup. I’d use the XLD Secure Ripper

The LG is 8x and I did use it to try the Roon CD Ripper. It is convenient to have the files available imediately. I used DBPOWERAMP to rip my small library, 300 cds, on my Windows Desktop then used drag and drop over the network to the internal ssd on the Nuc. Have not used the CD ripper enough to form an opinion.

@Jon_Saperia you’ve probably used the CD Ripper more then I have by now but I did just rip 2 new cd’s. The results were as expected, files in CD-Rips folder with the albums labeled ripped,date,time and the tracks named with numbers.flac. That part is different from my pc ripper with the actual albums and track titles but the end results is the same. Albums appear in my library with the metadata. Works fine for quick ripping of a couple of cd’s which is what I wanted. If I had a new collection to rip I would go for the desktop versions.

Thanks everyone for the pointers. @Craig_Palmer suggests I can rip the cds on my mac. That way I can use my superdrive. I will do one as a test to see how it goes. I have created the directory on the SSD in the Nucleus + per the instructions call CD-Rips.

You can setup a watch folder on the nucleus to watch your rip folder on your mac. That way you have them available immediately (or almost immediately). You can then (if you want) do further metadata editing or whatever and move the final version over to the ssd on the nucleus and delete it in the watch folder and nucleus will pick up the new version and delete the old. This is what I do. I also use this approach for watching folders where dowloaded itunes, hdtracks, qobuzz etc files would appear if I buy them so they appear immediately and then edit them as needed and move over to the nucleus ssd when finalized.

@Craig_Palmer - I appreciate the tips. I have not done any meta data editing yet. I may in the future. I wish Roon had a list view like MediaCenter so you can see a lot of the meta data for each album at once - perhaps there is a way and I have not yet found it.

Not related to this thread but, a person is about to arrive so I can audition a set of speakers. It seems each time I upgrade my components, I like my old speakers less (they are about 35 years old :-)). I will try some ripping later.

I have been running XLD for about 20 minutes on a CD and it is not even1% done. How long does it normally take for you to rip a cd with this software? These are the settings, I did not change anyhthing:

Yea. The idea of fast ripping and 100% assurance you have a bit perfect rip are at complete odds with each other…

FWIW, dBpoweramp uses AccurateRip and is blazing fast.

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Yes, but at the rate it was going, I calculated it would take 40 hours per CD which is just broken. I just came back from buying an LG drive that I will connect to the Nucleus. I will give that a go. An important point to remember is that almost all the CDs I am going to transfer were from the 80’s and early 90’s they sound terrible. I am sure the Chord can help some but in the end they will still be terrible source recordings.:frowning:

Hmm. That can’t be right. My setup took a couple of minutes per cd with XLD.

The CD Reader directly connected to the Nucleus apparently works. I say that because I could not see anything on the UI that indicated it was working ( the light on the drive was blinking). It seems to read the CD a bit faster than playback time so that is OK.

The software places the CD the CD-Rip Directory, no notices on the UI when done, nothing. Perhaps this is a good thing. It just works and the CD appears in you library.

As to sound - I am not sure it is any better, but I have not played with filters for CDs yet.

You need to refresh to get an update on the admin page.

In another thread, I posted that accessing the device (Nucleus +) directly over the network instead of the Roon UI but typing the IP address of the device, works fine.

1.0.183 should support super drive… let me know…

Thanks for the update. I did the install and while I have already ripped all my CDs, I plugged in my super drive to the Nucleus plus and it was instantly recognized. Well done. Thanks