This page describes a method to backup the contents of an audio cd with FLAC lossless compression to a matroska MKA container. Compression is about 50%, and in this single mka file there may also be a cue file (with track information), EAC log file (with extracting information) and album artwork.¹⁾

MKA files with flac compression play natively in VLC media player and in MS Windows on Media Player Classic (with ffdshow audio decoder installed). Once an mka file is properly encoded, media players will show buttons for navigating to previous and next tracks.

• Exact Audio Copy (V0.99 beta 5) link
• MKVToolnix: link

EAC is shipped with proper settings for flac encoding. Follow the installer wizard, select options for flac encoding. For freedb, set “Your E-Mail address” to an e-mail address

• Start EAC
• In the menu Action → Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet → Compressed… → (Make sure .flac is selected as file type) → Enter a file name

• Start mkvmerge GUI

(Another option to automate the mka process, would be using command line. See: ²⁾ )

• Add the .flac file

• Add the .cue file, select it, check that its MIME type is text/plain, set in the description field: Original CUE Sheet
• Add the .log file, select it, check that its MIME type is text/plain, set in the description field: EAC Log

• In the field File/segment title, add a title, which is the title of the CD.
• In the field Chapters, Chapter file, click on the browse butten and select the .cue file again which you added in the previous tab.
• In the field Cue name format enter: %t ³⁾

You're done, click on the button Start muxing

/Applications/MPlayer OSX Extended.app/Contents/Resources/Binaries/mpextended.mpBinaries/Contents/MacOS/mplayer -vo null -ao pcm:file=/Users/fluffy/out.wav input.mka