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I am going to rip a bunch of cds and a fair amount of concerts on
cassettes to my computer. My question: If time and disk space were of
no importance, which format is the best way to go? My goal is to be
able to make sure in 5 years I have made the most adaptable choice for
future technology while also keeping audio quality as high as possible.
What are the positives and negatives for the two? Am I missing another
format (not interested in any mp3 format)?
Thank you in advance for your help.

[Arny Krueger]

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ups.com...

I am going to rip a bunch of cds and a fair amount of concerts on
cassettes to my computer.

My question: If time and disk space were of
no importance, which format is the best way to go?

..wav files.

My goal is to be
able to make sure in 5 years I have made the most adaptable choice for
future technology while also keeping audio quality as high as possible.

..wav files have been around for decades, and there is no sign of them
slipping from use.

What are the positives and negatives for the two?

..wav is far more acessible. Just about every audio program that reads and
writes audio files on a PC supports it directly. If you are processing
files, it is usually the fastest for loading and saving. It's only
disadvantage compared to other formats is its size, which is really not all
that unmanagable.

[Walt]

Soundhaspriority wrote:
wrote

I am going to rip a bunch of cds and a fair amount of concerts on
cassettes to my computer. My question: If time and disk space were of
no importance, which format is the best way to go? My goal is to be
able to make sure in 5 years I have made the most adaptable choice for
future technology while also keeping audio quality as high as possible.
What are the positives and negatives for the two? Am I missing another
format (not interested in any mp3 format)?


But since you've said disk space is unimportant, this nullifies the point of
the question somewhat.

Yep. If drive space is not a concern, why muck around with FLAC?

Your greater concern, at this point, is the absence of nonvolatile storage
commensurate with what is available in hard disks. I just bought a 750 gb
Seagate, but no one should trust a hard disk for archival storage. Unless
you have, at the minimum, duplicate hard disk storage, your investment in
time and effort could prove surprisingly volatile.

Agreed. The hard drive *will* fail at some point, so you have to be
sure to back it up. And if you're backing it up to a CD, why not just
write a redbook compatable CD and be done with it. I'd bet that CD
players will be around for decades. So that's my recomendation. Second
choice would be .wav files copied to a CD.

//Walt