Would Eversolo use different databases dependent on country/IP address location? I'm in Canada. No problem w missing Artist names, just album art sometimes. I find rips r faster w A6 than old PC using JRiver. I wonder what FLAC compression rate level is being used on the A6.
Both your questions are hard to answer... For the compression ratio, though, some tests can be performed: 1. get the file, and convert it back to .wav with ffmpeg 2. try encoding it to flac at different compression rates, and see the one that is closer (or exact...) to the original. I may guess they use fast-compression, which gives slightly bigger files, but easier and faster decompression.
Yes FLAC files are always identical 1:1 to the original. Seen tests doing this cycled which always remain OK. The compression is the time/power you like to allocate for getting the smallest results as this is a pure mathematical process. Not all programs have this trivial option. Never bother myself to change the default.
Just curious which default compression setting used by A6. As per Nutal, given the speedy rip times, probably the least amt of compression/processing. Tidal streams might be more compressed to save on Internet bandwidth. I could simply compare the bit rates of the same track (wav, ripped FLAC, Tidal FLAC) to get an idea.
I think you'll always get the same result, comparing two (at different compression ratio) FLACs. But you can try, of course; could be interesting.
Eversolo/Zidoo report the bitrate by simply dividing the filesize/sampling so it will vary with the compression. Any metadata will be included also which gives minor deviations too. Reported as a flaw by me. FLAC compression only varies minor using different compression settings. Nothing to pay attention to but feel free to play with it.
I decided to rip some Christmas CDs but only if CDRipper showed correct track names, artist and album art. For artists w multiple albums I created an artist folder in my New Volume (SSD) and designated this as the storage path. For single albums I just designated the SSD. The A6 created album folder contained jpg & cue files, but no new artist entry is created under MUSIC. I rescan SSD after each ripping session but nothing seems to get updated. I can see album entries under ALBUM. Earlier this year A6 created Artist and Album entries for copied rips from PC using JRiver Media Center. For me it's faster to rip w A6 than Windows 10 PC. Could it be CDRipper (and Internet CD metadatabase) is not providing Artist metadata to the A6 MUSIC management software? GENRE metadata seems to be getting thru, creating interesting playlists. Is software complexity preventing the A6 from becoming a really good music manager for local music? I wish it could do everything well...like a Swiss Army .
The absence of artist on either the CD play or ripper screens is very obvious from the beginning of the A6 development. Even with the latest firmware improvements, there is usually no artist evident even though all other metadata is present. What I do is to rip into an SSD folder named Rips. I then insert the artist name into the main title area of the ripper screen using the supplied edit features. This appends the artist onto every trackname. Then let the rip occur, these days fast and without errors. After the rip, I then move the folder for the ripped album into an Artist folder either newly created by me if a new artist, or into an existing artist folder if I already have albums by that artist. I then remove the folder from the Rips area of the SSD to avoid duplications in the next step. This is to Update the Library which in my case is the entire internal SSD. Then the artist pops up correctly in the library under both artist and album. I have turned off the auto update of sources feature incidentally. Hope this helps, presumably Eversolo will fix this artist issue at some stage.
Thanks again for your ripping tips; I have used for Album Art with great success. With Artist Name it seems even more effort to compensate for the A6's shortcomings. If A6 was a competent ripper/music manager I was going to post a Tips video showing its value as a music server but 7 months in, its still a bit of a "kludge" (definition: an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose). I hope Mirror is monitoring this thread. Guess I'll pay JRiver for latest update to retain access to its online CD database, use it to rip CDs and then copy files to the A6...a less than elegant multistep process. In terms of metadata success rate I had been getting 12% of CDs that were not recognized by CDRipper which seems lower than some on this thread were experiencing. With JRiver, almost all of my 250+ rips found the correct metadata. I try to avoid ripping compilation and multi-artist CDs because of the metadata involved.
Let‘s hope that we get an update of the CDRipper app and the CD Player in general. Information retrieval is less than perfect. I ripped my whole collection of Maasaki Suzuki’s Sacred Bach Cantatas: Some disks have all the information, some get just the disk title but nothing regarding the tracks… I love the sound quality of the A6 but the software is less than adequate… No tutorials, basic manual, a lot of hidden functions, unstable library…work in progress ?
I can strongly recommend the program dbPowerAmp - together with the PerfectTune addon. It also incorporates AccurateRip. With my older LG Blueray burner I ripped more than 800 CDs with maybe 5 which were detected to be party incorrectly ripped. On inspection they were clearly damaged. In all cases the tracks were correctly named. Some artwork was missing, this was fixed easily with "PrefectTune". dbPowerAmp supports a batch mode, so all you have to do is to put in a CD and then wait until the CD drawer opens automatically again.
Concerning problems with the ripper jamming up on some CDs. I'm convinced this might be a copyright flag issue. On every cd I have had fail to rip I have found that if you hit the rip button before the metadata populates then you can rip the cd with no problem. Needless to say the cd will have no identifying data, but you can add a title for the cd and if you must you can label each track. This trick is better served for someone who wants to do a quick rip and just wants to enter the cd name for a quick library addition. Of course if you want all the bells and whistles of metadata you're better off ripping the cd on the computer and transferring it via the network. So, what do you guys think? Think I might be right on the copyright flag thingee? None of my Star Trek CDs would rip if I let the metadata populate before I hit the rip button.
Makes some sense, only thing is... the copyright (copy-protection...?) flag you mention is not in the metadata in the cloud, it is written on the CD itself, and every serious player should read it straight away... OTOH if the metadata you mention is read from the CDTEXT section of the disc (you can try this by disconnecting the A6 from the LAN, hence not allowing it to access any web service), it could be that the problem is related to such CDTEXT breaking the software (strange encoding? unexpected characters? wrong handling of the data? the sky is your limit here...). As a double check, you could try a CD that rips successfully (it should get no metadata). You could try it also on your PC with the two types of discs, to ensure the metadata is read from the CD I mean... as without internet, both will show no metadata, and you couldn't tell for sure which is which... I am just trying to better identify the problem, so that the devs may have their life easier in trying to fix it.
Okay, when I get home I'll experiment with one of the CDs and see how So being the insecure guy that I am I must protest at the fact that you completely emasculated me with FACTS. Nothing sucks more than coming up with a novel theory and it being shot down by someone that obviously has more knowledge in his pinky finger than I have in my big melon head. And because this is the internet and even emojis don't always explain your context...THIS IS A JOKE. Thank you for your reply and passing on this valuable information. I got home this morning ready to try testing out the different protocols you suggested so I could better inform the developers on what might be the problem. I turned on the unit and up popped a message for a new update. I installed the update and then proceeded to try ripping one of the problem discs. I let the metadata populate and hit the rip button and viola...it rips fine. I got another problem disc and did the same thing. It ripped properly as well. Looks like we were dealing with a software issue after all and the new bug fixes took care of it. Wish this update had come earlier. Would have saved me hours of ripping and copy/pasting metadata on my computer. Oh well, it's the results that matter in the end. Hopefully I won't run into any other issues with discs, but if I do, I'll certainly complain here but without melon head theories. Take care.
I've had no problem ripping commercial CDs. I always give the CD Ripper app enough time to find metadata. My complaint has been the local media manager populates the Album database but the Artist info is sometimes missing making search by artist name useless. Just downloaded new firmware 1.2.98. Hope it solves all these CD ripping problems once and for all.
Always manually add the Artist name if not visible on the ripper screen before the rip occurs. Use the edit field on the main title area to achieve this, it appends the entered name onto every track name. You will then find it OK when searching. I hope even this step will now be unnecessary with the new firmware but we shall see.
Thanks for this reminder. For imported ripped CD files this would not work. I wish users could manually edit Artist and Album databases. The A6 seems to go externally to find artist images. Visually pleasing but not that useful. If it could just use artist name from album metadata to populate Artist database and forget the fancy stuff.
I m new to Eversolo A6 since yesterday. I experience the same issue - Artist is not populated, but Album and song titles are. Anyway, I happily use the Ripper, ripping CDs to default folder, connect to the storage remotely via Windows Explorer over the network. I use mp3tag freeware to correct the tags ... like the filename or artist or year or track numbers (for whatever reason they tracks start from 0 even the first track should be 1). Once I finish, I move the file to Music folder and Artist name using Windows Explorer. Music folder is the top of my Library, so once the files move into the hierarchy under Music folder, they are automatically added to the Music library. Hope it helps others ... while reading the posts here, I was quite surprised by some of the posts, making things more complicated.
I’ve been having good luck with the a6-series 2 CD ripping. That being said, I’ve noticed that if there are internet issues, it won’t grab the cover art. I’ve also noticed pretty big differences between different CD players that are both rated at 24. They both work, after a fashion, but when I spent 3 extra bucks to get an LG CD/blue ray unit, it was much faster and quieter, and much less hunting to start the ripping process.
