Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

In dbPoweramp it would usually keep going and eventually rip the track even if it failed the accuracy test thing.

An issue that I'm sure others on here he had. Trying to work out a pleasing solution to record player, TV and speakers in the living room of a Victorian terrace. Each alcove is about a metre width and 30cm depth.

TV is probably going in the alcove next to the window. Something like a 37 inch. Will have either a small soundbar (probably Sonos beam) or speakers. Not keen on wall mounting the TV, it would probably put it a little high.

Struggling to fit the record player in there too if the TV is there so the obvious spot would be the other alcove.

Not sure where to put speakers though, in that left alcove they'd be a bit squashed. Could maybe go either side of the chimney breast but don't want wires trailing across. Am also struggling to convince my girlfriend that wall mounted either side of the breast would be a good look (but could possibly be persuaded with nice looking speakers and neat wiring).

Any thoughts?

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I've had rips last for hrs and it still doesn't pull in the track, this is usually with albums.
I may have lowered the bar in terms of how many times it re reads a track to rip it.
But I've been getting errors on tracks and an error message.
Which seems to point to the error sometimes being in the encoding rather than the file itself.

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Have you tried removing and re-inserting the cd?

Just tried with the two that have fallen over today, and it gives the same error message.
I've tried re ripping, changing the settings in between each try. No go.

Had to say it, sorry it didn't make any difference.

Or giving it a clean sometimes works

That's odd. I found that CDs which were too damaged to play without skipping in a CD player generally ripped ok. As you say, some of them took a long time.

There were a very small number where I gave up altogether. Maybe 3 or 4 out of 1,000 or so.

It's more the fact it'll rip 10 tracks out of 11 and there's no way I can see of ripping it, rather than ripping that single track through itunes (if it will rip through itunes, I'm putting aside the super ropey ones for later) which then makes it a ball ache to then put them together.

If dbpoweramp won't do it XLD sometimes will.

Clean and polish the disk. I used a tube of quixx scratch remover doing 700 over the last couple of years. Only very few that didn't rip properly due to damage to the silver side or drastic scratches.

Vitsoe all day long. I've been using it for that kind of thing for the past 2 years and my only regret is not buying it sooner.

It depends on the accuracy the ripper is demanding. I found the number of problem disks went up when I started using XLD or dbpoweramp.

All mine were ripped with dbPoweramp

Did you dial down the accuracy demands?

Another factor I discovered was the disk condition if it had been played in a car player. I was given a load of cd's from the car CD player era and they were the hardest to get rips from.

As far as I can remember, I used the default settings.

I had a large collection of CDs so in the main they hadn't been heavily used or abused.

I'm pretty sure that would be why you found it easier. I've not had any problems with mine that have been babied. Especially anything from the era when it got ripped to mp3 and never touched again.

I had to change the settings, on default it would take an hour and still fail. I as happier if it failed fast, I clean the disk and try again for switch to XLD. It's the sector by sector thing that dbpoweramp does that I had to adjust.

We're probably going to get something built in to put stuff on. Main issue is acceptable looking speakers and where to put them/hide the wire run.

Anyone happen to know of someone in South Wales/ Bristol who could service and set up my Technics SL-1300mk2? The auto return has broken and reading up I think it's a bit beyond my skill set to fix.

Really tricky as one persons acceptable is another persons horror show. In terms of reducing wiring you could consider the KEF wireless speakers which are getting rave reviews or a system which has ethernet connections. You will still need nice power cables though, that's not too difficult these days, you could even power most domestic size monitors with some homemade cables utilising braided lighting cable which a lot of people find appealing.

I have been making built in furniture professionally for 20 years but when it came to my own place I really couldn't see how I could make a better job of it than Vitsoe for anything like the same money/effort. Especially when it came to music storage where Vitsoe excels.

Cheers. Yep, it is a bit vague. The Kef wireless ones look decent but once I start trailing the wires for inputs (tv, turntable, etc) then it will probably be messier than just an amp with speaker wires. I've discovered that I have easy access to a large chimney breast so the current plan is to drill into that at various spots and use it as a conduit for all of the various wiring. Thinking of a Quad Vena II Play for amp/dac/streaming. Seems to tick all the boxes on inputs and neatness and has a lot of good reviews.

What that leaves me with is needing some speakers that are probably a foot deep max and can sit close to the rear wall. Finding a few speakers like the Dali Menuet but not much that I can spot.

I suppose the idea with the Kef is you have a preamp/streamer that your connections go to and then wireless to the kef from there leaving you with just the power connections to run to the speaker.

Speaking of KEFs, what are people recommending in terms of amps to pair with LS50s these days?
I want to upgrade my old NAD C340 to something a bit more powerful.

Some floorstanding speakers by Castle Harlech might be going free to me

Not heard of the maker, decent enough brand to take a punt on?