Anything will do, so long as it's from the source disc. However here is my wishlist (http://vgmdb.net/db/marketplace.php?do=wishview&userid=6233) of albums I would like to have.

What this file types basically is, is an image file (i.e. perfect copies) of the discs.

If you have a disc you can copy it using Nero BurnLite 10 (http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads-nbl-free.php), which is a free download. Then it makes a copy of the disc and stores all the information in one file. Then all you need to do with that file is mount it on a virtual drive, which can be done with DAEMON Tools Lite (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite), also a free download. You can burn the .nrg file to a disc, but with DAEMON Tools, you don't have to. If you just mount the file on the virtual drive you can import the music at a much faster rate than if it was pulling that information of a disc drive.

tl;dr | virtual disc + virtual drive = just like the real thing

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The downloads in the lossless thread don't always mean they are truly lossless. I've seen lots of rips where the information shows they ripped the music at a low set bit-rate, so what you're really downloading are over-inflated .mp3 files disguised as .flac files.

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The downloads in the lossless thread don't always mean they are truly lossless. I've seen lots of rips where the information shows they ripped the music at a low set bit-rate, so what you're really downloading are over-inflated .mp3 files disguised as .flac files.
If you're referring to the "128kbps/320kbps" that you might see in the rips' logs, that don't mean anything when it comes to lossless encoding, as long as the container is a lossless format. One of the few, if not the only way, to see if a file is really lossless is to view its spectrum.

That doesn't make sense to me, when I see 128kbps/320kbps in the log files I immediately get the sense that it is a lossy encoding in a lossless shell. Since everyone rips files off the disc differently, there isn't consistency, but if you had the image yourself you could rip everything the same way, and to your own personal preference.

My preference for the .nrg format is that it's a direct copy of the disc and the users can import / convert those files into any format they choose, just as if they had the actual disc.

That doesn't make sense to me, when I see 128kbps/320kbps in the log files I immediately get the sense that it is a lossy encoding in a lossless shell. Since everyone rips files off the disc differently, there isn't consistency, but if you had the image yourself you could rip everything the same way, and to your own personal preference.
Ok, I'll try to put it in other words, with an example. There's the album FINAL FANTASY VII: Voices of the Lifestream, a free album by the OverClocked ReMix Community released in both WAV/MP3. A while ago I've grabbed those WAVS and burned them to CD.... Recently I had to rip them again in lossless because some friends of mine wanted it. Now, even if in my Exact Audio Copy settings I've 192kbps bitrate.... When I play those ripped files in FLAC through foobar2000 the bitrate shows values like: 847/944/1011kbps.... And a look to the files' spectrums ensure me the audio quality is retained as lossless. Even if you specify a bitrate, the lossless encoder will simply ignore you and define the bitrate needed by the track on its own.

Not saying that your way doesn't work, by far, I simply want to tell you that you should not really care about the bitrates reported by the logs, they don't mean that much when it comes to lossless encoding, if you're really suspicious, grab a file and look its spectrum.

I understand you now. :)

I just feel better if I do the ripping myself from a disc image. Peace of mind and all that.