Well, I went kinda nuts and bought one these units after reading all about them for many days. I also went and listened to and played with my installers trunk based unit(Alpine) and it made me reconsider using high bit rate MP3 for serious listening.

Anyway, I have a small car which I am resurrecting with regard to audio and will be passing the output of the Riocar into my HU's analog input and out to an amp to the speakers.

The unit I just bought.... and probably paid too much for on Ebay, is an unmodded and relatively unused 60Gb, Mk2A model.

Should I immediately do a firmware/software upgrade on this unit prior to loading any of my CDs?

Also, although I have been making copies of the CDs and DVDs I've bought for years, I haven't recently ever copied anything to a server for playback purposes.

Since I want to use the RioCar in my car and in my primary home rack, I'd like to use the best sounding, within reason, format as possible. Should I use wav, 320kb MP3, or somehting else?

Also, I usually use EAC for my CD copies. What software should I use to rip my CDs for copying to the RiaCar?

Thank you all very much for all your help!!!

I wouldn't worry about paying to much remember these units were well over 1000.00 USD originally and many people gladly paid that.

I would encode at the lowest bitrate that sounds good to you with the type of music you listen to. Dillinger Four sounds as good at 192k as 320k to me .

I don't think you will get any complaints about EAC on this board but there have been many threads about what the best program is. I personally use the Rio music manager software that came with my Karma.

I would recommend you get and load the latest software, 2.0 on your player, and the corresponding version of Emplode on your PC. You can find both at the link on the top of this page that says "Latest Software."

Welcome, you'll have to let us know if you think that you paid too much after your player is all setup.

You should verify that the firmware and software are up to date. You can find links to the latest software using the Quick Links at the top of this page. If you haven't already done so, check out the Empeg FAQ. It is very well done and a huge help (thank you Mr. Fabris).

For the player software, you'll want to use the latest developer image (v2.0 final). This will allow you to add 3rd party software to your player. You'll also need to download the latest version of Emplode for PC or jEmplode for multiple OS. For 3rd party software, download Hijack. It provides a myriad of tweaks and modifications to the player that you are going to want.

I'll wait for those more capable than myself to answer the question on encoding. Different strategies exist for encoding. There is a great FAQ entry on this. There have been several discussions on the topic of lossless vs lossy encoding on the BBS. You may find them by searching for OGG or FLAC.

Personally, I rip using audiograbber with the latest version of LAME. I encode to mp3s at 320 kbps VBR or CBR.

One thing to remember, the player software really shines when your music is tagged properly so tag early and tag often. I use Tag&Rename and its allmusic lookup for this.

Thanks Matt.

Are you saying that Rio still makes and sells a dash mounted and moveable music server? If so... dangit. Anyway, I've use EAC for years so I'll probably just keep using it. As for what I can hear, I previously had an inexpensive home MP3 music server and I could clearly hear the difference between a relatively high bitrate MP3 and an EAC one. With 60Gb of space to fill, I guess I can pick whatever the RioCar will play best?
I am also thinking of building some sort of home system docking station which includes a tubed output stage...

BTW, thanks for your help and suggestions!

Michael and Mach,

Thank you so much. Great info.
Although I read as much of the FAQ as I could before I bid and bought this unit, I know I missed a whole heck of alot of stuff which would probably answer most of my newbie questions. Thank you for your patience with me.

I do have a history with computers, as I used to solder old celeron processors to make them mu.tiprocesser capable, and I;ve been in home AV for so long that I always do firmware upgrades on my new DVD or STB units...

I am new to the MP3 car audio stuff. So, everything you advise me is much appreciated.

BTW, I'll be using the Rio Car, not as the primary headunit in my car. The car preamp which I just bought too is a clone to the Denon DCTs which has both an analog and digital input. Of course, the RioCar will connect to the analog RCA input.

Thanks again!

Matt mentioned that he used the software that came with his Rio Karma, which could be said to be dash mountable if you add some velcro... It's a 20GB harddrive portable.

As to digital inputs - you could get a digital out for the empeg from Eutronix, see link at top of page...

/Michael

merc, like Matt said these retailed for well over $1,000 and too many here it would be the first thing they'd grab if their house was burning down!

What ripper & encoding to use is almost a religous argument, there are many good choices out there, though if there is one thing that most will agree on is that LAME is on of the best encoders - of course that just opens another can of worms as LAME has more settings that you can shake a stick at.

Welcome to the board

Thanks Michael and Phoenix.

In my car, I have to use the analog connection to my HU since my HU doesn't do MP3 or WMA or much of anything besides CD. It doesn't even play CD-Rs. That's what got me looking at the RioCar to begin with.
However, the digital output might be a cool ised for using the Rio in my primary system since it would allow me to use a nice tube DAC or something like the ackDac.

So far, I have and have used EAC, EZ CD Copy Pro for copying CDs and DVD Shrink and Nero 6 Ultra to rip and burn DVDs.

What ripper do folks like to use along with the LAME encoder?

I'll throw my vote for EAC on the pile. Congrats on your new toy.

-Zeke

I use EAC for anything with a scratch (or some whacky copy prevention stuff) and AudioGrabber for disks in good conditions.

Tag&Rename to manage/fix tags and rename to standardised format.

/Michael

Unless you have a real love of your current head unit i think it should be consigned to the bin as you won't be using it much for the next while.

Buy a seprate amp and run the empeg through that unless you already got one.

EAC is a nice ripper that works fine with lame but if you want a quick and dirty solution use something like music match just be prepared to redo it at some point but the quick and dirty will get you running

Welcome! Looking at recent ebay auctions, and guessing which one is yours, I'd say you did not pay too much. The 60GB model went for well over twice that originally (of course, for about 2 weeks it went for half that, but that was a strange time ).

I'll also vote EAC/lame. I prefer MP3 Tag Studio, though, for fixing bad tags. I believe you can also set EAC up so that you can have it quickly rip all your CDs, then leave it going unattended while it encodes the MP3s. This is very useful when you've got a lot of albums.

Also, like everyone here, I'd recommend upgrading to the latest software for your empeg and PC, though to answer the question I think you're asking in your post, it's not necessary to do it before you load music onto the player.

So again, welcome to the community, and congratulations on one of the best purchases you've ever made!

i ripped all of my cd's into wma format at 160'ish kps....i am also running my empeg into the aux in of a clarion hu...beleive me it sounds sooooo much better then when i was running it straight into the amps....i am sure the clarion does some sound shaping and i do like the individual bass and trebble controlls...the EQ in the empeg is nice...but not practicle for minute to minute tweaking.....

enjoy...its really lots of fun!

I could clearly hear the difference between a relatively high bitrate MP3 and an EAC one

Huh?

EAC extracts the uncompressed data from the CDs. It then needs to be compressed into an MP3, high bitrate or not.

Yeah... that didn't make alot of sense, did it?

What I meant is between an exact copy of my CDs on to CD-Rs and a high bitrate MP3, on my primary system. I'm currently planning on using 320kb VBR MP3s unless I change my mind or get convinced otherwise. I think that even at this high bitrate I still should be able to fit quite a few albums into the 60Gb of HD space.

edsmiata,
Thanks for telling me about your success with running the Rio output through your HU.

I run mine through my HU in both vehicles and it sounds great, and I don't give up my CD or tuner functionality.

Well, I went kinda nuts and bought one these units after reading all about them for many days

Not nuts at all. They're cool. Still the best MP3 car player available, after all these years. Congrats on your new toy.

Others have already commented on the FAQ, but I'll go through your posts and point out specific FAQ entries that relate to your questions, just so you have the easy links at your fingertips.

Should I immediately do a firmware/software upgrade on this unit prior to loading any of my CDs?

Yes. Install the version 2.0 final, developer, of the firmware, and version 2.0 final of the empeg software. Detailed instructions and tips are found here. If you are using USB as the connection to your PC, make sure to read this.

Since I want to use the RioCar in my car and in my primary home rack, I'd like to use the best sounding, within reason, format as possible. Should I use wav, 320kb MP3, or somehting else?

MP3 creation is discussed at length here. But really, the most important thing to remember is that tagging and organization is just as important as audio quality, click here and here for more info.

Also, I usually use EAC for my CD copies. What software should I use to rip my CDs for copying to the RiaCar?

EAC is great, continue using it. Make sure you've got the latest version of the LAME encoder to go with it.

Are you saying that Rio still makes and sells a dash mounted and moveable music server?

Nope, the RioCar was it.

I'm currently planning on using 320kb VBR MP3s unless I change my mind or get convinced otherwise. I think that even at this high bitrate I still should be able to fit quite a few albums into the 60Gb of HD space.

Keep in mind that the hard disks can be upgraded.

Thanks Tony.

I had already downloaded the files you listed. I also already have EAC and LAME, although I might not have the latest versions, yet

Since I think I can fit about 500 albums(?) at 256, I doubt I'd be upgrading the capacity any time soon.

Trust me, you can never have too much space...

By the way, if you're going to upload 500 albums over a short period of time, you might want to get ethernet working. Finally, you might want to consider doing it in batches.

320kb VBR MP3s

There's not really any such thing. 320kbps is the highest bitrate that mp3 will do. So in order for all the frames to average to 320, they'd all have to be 320.

In all honesty, I'd do a blind comparison. Find the one with the lowest bitrate that sounds no worse than any higher bitrate, then use the next higher step. Personally, I use lame's --preset average, which averages around 190kbps, which is a hell of a lot smaller than 320.

As you all can tell by my mistakes, I am truly an RioCar newbie. Time for another, probably dumb, question.

Since I can upgrade my hard drives to something like 160Gb, I am wondering if it would be easier and better to just do what I've done for years... that is, simply make a copy of my CDs content onto the RioCar? Even with only 60Gb capacity, I can still fit 90 albums on the RioCar. I'd also guess that this would provide the absolute best sound quality when used in my primary system. But, this also brings with it some questions.

First, can the RioCar even playback the CD's original content as it sits on the CD?
Second, would the unit get too hot from all the HD thrashing since each song would be reading much more data to play?
Third, can you put the ID tags on these files needed for the RioCar to search and categorize these songs?

Once again, thank you for all your help and patience with my newbie questions!

The player can play WAV (RIFF) audio files, which roughly correspond to what's on the CD, and are what every CD ripper I know gives as output by default.

Not only do you generate extra heat by reading more from the CD, you will also decrease the lifespan of your drives due to keeping them running continuously. They are more likely to be affected by bumps in the road, for example.

I don't think that adding tags to WAV files works for uploading onto the player - you would need to add the tags in (J)Emplode after uploading. Searching, etc, would all work correctly once you have done so.

Caveat: I've never felt the urge to try uploading WAV files, so others may be more authoritative.

I'd be surprised if you could tell the difference between a high-bitrate mp3 and the "original" WAV. Combining that with the fact that folks claim that the empeg has to keep the drives spun up all the time when playing WAVs, I think you definitely ought to go the mp3 route.

Seriously, just take an hour, rip a complex track (preferably one that has a wide range of sounds, bass, treble, quiet, loud, etc.) and encode it a number of times with different settings. You can even try WMA if you want to, but I'd be wary of it for non-technical reasons. I'm sure that you'll find a limit at which higher-bitrate encodings sound no better. And I bet it's no higher than about 200kbps.

Maybe I'm just tone deaf, but I can't tell the differance between a CD and a good MP3.
While you can fit 90 CDs in WAV on a 60gig HDD, and 160gig will hold ~240 CDs you'll quickly find that you want to load more, you'll start finding CDs under the couch, in the basement and in the freezer and wanting to put them one, but now have no space.

If you do have golden ears and can tell the differance, at least use FLAC, that will give you the same quality but take half the sapce.

If your willing to slum it give "LAME --alt-preset standard" a go, it averages out at about 192kbs or about 75megs per album.
Actually an even better thing todo would be to rip a song you know really well, and encode it into several different formats, then convert it back to WAV, burn to CD and then see if you can pick out the different formats.
No real point in taking up more space then you really need is there? Well except for bragging rights!

Is there any way to copy the same track to the same CD in uncompressed wav, 192kbs, 256kbs and 320kbs formats? This would allow me to easily switch between the different encoding to see if I can tell the difference on my primary music system.

If It can be done, can I use EAC/LAME to do it and how can I do it?

Thanks!

Sure. First, rip the track off the original CD in whatever manner you usually use, writing to WAV.

Then use your mp3 encoder of choice (lame, if you don't already have a choice) and compress the WAV to whatever bitrate you want. It shouldn't delete the original, so do it again and again with all the bitrates you want to test. I'm undecided on if you should intentionally encoded one at what you'd know to be a low bitrate so that you know what things to listen for, but it's an idea you may want to consider.

Then use your CD burner software of choice to burn it back onto a CD. Make sure to burn it as audio, of course, and not data. I'd be surprised if any modern CD burner couldn't interpret mp3s and reconvert them to the correct bitstream for the CD, but just in case yours doesn't know how, you might have to reconvert the compressed mp3s to WAVs. Winamp has a builtin feature for this (select the Disk Writer output), and would probably be the easiest thing to use. There are many other ways to convert back, too, if you can think of one that's easier. But, again, your CD burner software will probably do it for you.

Oh, and it may be hard to do it, but you might want to see if you can randomize the tracks in an unknown order so that you're not expecting certain things from certain tracks. Those sorts of expectations can subconsciusly fool you. Maybe you could get a friend to mix them up and burn them instead of doing it yourself.