In Reply to: The special meaning is: posted by creativepart on March 30, 2007 at 08:12:04:
At least I agree with your goal of not being locked in Apple for everything, but using EAC and WAV files as the starting point already allows you do exactly that.The only time that I use iTunes for converting ALAC into WAV is when I need iTunes on OSX to rip copy-protected CDs that otherwise would be a PITA to rip on a Windows computer (although EAC 0.95 beta 3 rather than beta 4 is reputedly capable of ripping copy-protected music CDs). iTunes (on both Windows and OSX) is useful as the APE/FLAC->ALAC converter (albeit needing to be controlled by dBpowerAMP if you want to retain file tagging information) and as a conduit for getting the ALAC files onto iPods.
A lossless format like APE, FLAC, Wavpack etc is more useful for archiving than WAV (or AIFF), as WAV and AIFF do not support internal file tagging, while most lossless formats do. If you also have dBpowerAMP, even using ALAC for archiving isn't a bad idea, as dBpowerAMP allows you to convert from ALAC into APE, FLAC, WavPack or pretty much any other file format that you may need (including WAV).
Regarding EAC, admittedly you need to spend a little time reading and implementing the instructions (experimenting with the Filename tab in Options is particularly useful, as it allows you to adjust how the cuesheets are written), but setting up EAC is a one-time chore. Once it is set up, you don't need to keep on fiddling with it.
For greater flexibility, EAC's cuesheets are also usable in a number of other music playback and CD burning programs, and if that's not enough, you can easily edit cuesheets in a text editor.
One program that also deserves mention is CD Wave Editor, which can split up a WAV image into individual files (with WAV, FLAC, APE output options) as defined by the cuesheet.
hth, jcarr
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Follow Ups
- Re: The special meaning is: - jcarr 11:21:27 03/30/07 (0)