usb flash drive OR a daemon tools virtual drive to use as a cd burner.

Basically, I want to use my usb flash drive or daemon tools to burn music and then rip into lossless formats. I tried optical storage, but has not given good results lately despite the fact the cd-rw is new. With USB drive, it is a u3 flash drive 1gb from sandisk. And I have daemon tools lite on windows 7. All I know is the main idea is to have one of the two(if possible) be passed as a cd burner. The only problem is, I do not know how to do that, and any help is appreciated.

Hi Pheonix220. Welcome .

Daemon Tools is a disk emulator, which means that it will create 'images' or ISOs from a CD or other source and can then "mount" it so that it appears to be a physical drive on your system.

I'm not sure exactly what your goal is, but I find it unlikely that Daemon Tools will be of use unless you want to creae ISOs of music for mounting and playing?

If you are more specific about what your needs are, perhaps we can be more helpful.

Well, my ultimate goal is to burn mp3s and then rip them into lossless formats, without the use of cds.

My thought were

1. If daemon tools, have a virtual drive behave as if a cd-rw has been inserted and do it that way (and from your response, that is nearly impossible).

2. If usb, create a CDFS(of some sort) partition in the usb, and then have some or all of the partition behave as if it has a cd-rw in the drive.

If i am undersdtanding you correctly, it may be a waste of time.

If you currently have a MP3 thats been compressed (say a 320kbps file) there has already been some quality loss from the original.

When you expand that Lossy file back out to a CD format, there may be a bit of quality loss again. And a bit pointless, if you intend to re-rip from it. No matter what format or bitrate you use, it will never be better than the original. Only worse.

Then by returning to a lossy format, the quality degardes even further.



If you truly want the music on your PC as a lossless file, your best bet is to rip from the original CD as a .FLAC or a .WMA Lossless.
Not from a compressed file --> CD -- > lossless.

Basically, you really want to avoid recoding the same file. especially if the source was a lossy format in the first place.


However, the easiest way to do this without the use of a CD is just stick to the lossless codecs and keep it as a file.

Wishmaster is right on target. Having the CDs is the best way, and also gives you a 'master library' as backup. But, if you are buying and downloading the mp3s, it is pointless to convert them up, as you cannot achieve a quality that is better than its source.

If it is not possible to obtain the CD, you could always find a source that offers its music files in a lossless format. Just make sure that whatever player you use supports the format. Here is an article that explains the theory, and it has a few links at the bottom that purportedly sells music at lossless quality (flac). I can't vouch for the links, but may be worth checking into:

Music Made Better: Why You Should Buy (and Sell) Music in FLAC

Again, I find the best way is to buy the CD (I use Amazon) and rip it either to high quality mp3 (320 bitrate) or flac.

Alright, thanks... I never thought about the loss in quality in burning it, then re-encoding it.