Macintosh set up?

Hi folks,

How do (what software do you use) Mac/iPhone users do the following:
rip CDs? (from the previous topic, I have all my ripped CDs in the garage in zip lock bags, in boxes)
get music onto your iPhone?

a bit more: I used iTunes for music for a long time but then got into Roon. Roon plays my music through DAC to preamp-amp-speakers. Roon won’t get music on my phone. Roon won’t rip CDs. A friend uses db power amp to rip CDs, and keeps a hi res version for playback at home and creates a low res version for importing into iTunes for putting on phones for the car.

Do most Apple folks end up with separate libraries like this for home and car.

thanks for any other ideas, descriptions of what you do.

I use XLD on Mac to create an Apple lossless file on my NAS. XLD also adds the tune to my iTunes library (it actually creates a library pointer to the file on the NAS). I then go into iTunes and ask it to create a 320kbps variable bitrate AAC version (which iTunes stores locally on my Mac). I then delete the lossless version from the iTunes library.

This does not delete the actual file from the NAS, just the pointer to it in iTunes library.

So… now my iTunes library contains best quality AAC versions of what is on my NAS. My NAS contains lossless versions.

I periodically sync my iPad and an iPod classic (for the car) to my iTunes library

320kbps variable AAC is plenty good enough for me for my car and on the iPad for listening on headphones on the train/aeroplane etc.

Xld or MAX for ripping. Syncing music to iphone via itunes I personally think is just a mess, so I use Tidal for streaming on the go

@john_hess Yes, I think so! I’ve ended up with 2 libraries. I rip to FLAC for my Roon Server, then either re-rip or convert a 256 AAC (iTunes Plus) version for iTunes/iPhone and the car.

As @oafrenning says, its a mess, mainly because Apple’s FLAC support is pretty poor, but also because for my ears, I don’t need to have high res (or even CD quality) files on my phone.

Thanks Dan, oafrenning and Mike for the replies.

I just got a new 1TB SSD for my music computer (MacBook Air) and have a chance to rebuild the library and my procedures. Because it’s the main music server I’ll have to look into getting music from it to my phone while my phone is usually backed up to a different computer. They’re all authorized, so I’m hoping I can make this work.

cheers, John

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