[Svperstar]

I rip all my CDs to .APE then I put them away for safe keeping. I recently purchased a 4 cd set from Matthew Florianz (www.matthewflorianz.com) and as soon as they got here I fired up EAC and ripped them in .APE. I never listen to the actual CD.

 

[iSleipnir]

I rip all of my cd's to flac before even listening to them the first time! Then later I transcode to 256vbr mp3 files for my ipod and enjoy music wherever.

 

[guzzler]

Another thing worth considering, especially for those of use who move frequently, eg students, is that a CD collection is VERY expensive. Just looking about my room in a fairly dodgy area (lots of robbery etc), my 128 disc folder is far and away the single most expensive item here. Assuming an average of around £10 per disc (that's probably a little high), gives £1280 just in that easily swiped folder! Compare that to PC, about £600, PPA amp + HD600s, £200 and clothes, probably about £200, and it gives an impression of how much is lost, both financially, and in limited edition CDs.

I fully intend to rip all my CDs losslessly (of course) when time allows. I do prefer listening on a proper CD player when I'm home, but I PC storage is the way forward at the moment for me

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by miTunes75 can you rip and encode into flac with iTunes in os x?

No. AFAIK there are FLAC encoders for OS X, yet ALAC is just as lossless

and due to my environment being totally iPod/iTunes/Quicktime anyway I personally see no use for using FLAC over ALAC. Yet I can understand that some may feel a need for FLAC.

 

[madman2003]

I usually rip with cdparanoia (test&copy with a self made script) to flac. My computer beats my dvd player in terms of quality. I can remember the days when i used onboard optical out to my reciever, it was inferior to my dvd player, my current envy24 card is very nice. Computers offer me the flexibilty and quality i want, being a student i don't have that much money to spend. Every once in a while i backup music to dvd.

 

[dknightd]

I'm not really an audiophile, but I do like music.
I have most of my music on my computer now.
When I started this I did some experiments. I'm use a Mac
so iTunes seemed the obvious music player.
I tried 128 kbps mp3 - yuk! I tried 192 kbps mp3 - hmm not
too bad but I could still tell the difference between it and lossless on some
tracks. 256 kbps mp3 - I couldn't tell the difference between it
and lossless on the tracks I tried. Somebody told me LAME was
a better mp3 encoder, so I tried it, and they were right. It does
a better job at 128 and 192 than itunes does, but I could still
tell the difference between it and lossless. At 256 I could
not tell the difference between lame, itunes or lossless.
Obviously I couldn't compare every single song.
So, I standardized on 320 kbps itunes generated mp3s.

My system is fairly resolving. Benchmark DAC1 to either Senn 650
or B&W 703. Last time I checked I still could not tell the difference
between 320 kbps mp3 and lossless on the few samples I tried.
I could however tell the difference between the DAC1 and my
old CD player. I don't use the CD player anymore. Sometimes
I will still reach for an LP (eventually I'll get these
all digitized, and will probably even less often use anything
other than my computer as my player - as an aside, I keep
my ripped records at losslesly compressed 44.1x16 because
they take awhile to do - I wish I had kept some of them at 96x24.
By comparison CD's are fast and easy to rerip).

Some people say disk space is so cheap that it is silly to use
a lossy format. There is a good arguement for this. But I figure
if I can't hear the difference between 320 kbps mp3 and lossless,
which takes about twice the room, why use the extra space?
I have about 60K songs which takes about 600GB of space in
my library. I have an extra copy as a backup, and I have a
third copy in my office for offsite backup and for use there.
If I was going to redo everything lossless I'd have to buy
another 2 TB or disk. That is not a negligable expense. I could
use that money instead to buy more music

 

[Norbert]

I guess I'm a bit antiquenarian on this, I still buy cd's in the package at my local music store and then rip it to my hardrive which is backed up and safe. Would I buy them if they advertised, "recorded at half the bitrate (320 kb) of a regular cd? Am I defaulting to a marketing scheme? If I archive my cd, I want an EXACT copy. Not something that "sounds no different" given the equipment I have--I have no idea what resolution my future gear will have 5 years from now and I need an exact copy now for that contingency, don't I?

 

[majid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elephas I've compared rips using EAC to wav vs. iTunes to ALAC. I don't hear much difference between them, if at all. I've also compared the iTunes ALAC files to the original CD playing through the same DAC and to wav files playing through foobar 0.8.3. They sound very similar, and none have any clicks or pops.

I have ripped CDs in iTunes with error correction enabled, with clicks and pops in the resulting file. I re-ripped it immediately and the new file did not have them. If iTunes' rips are not even consistent or repeatable, the error correction isn't having much effect.

 

[d-slam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver Once you discover the versatility and convenience of PC-audio there is no way back.

Amen, brother. Amen.

If you have 'random' listening habits as I do the computer is a gift from the Gods. My 300 CDs are sitting in their book in the back of my closet, and they aren't coming out again for any reason, until my computer crashes. (When I get my main system set up again, I might re-rip them all to lossless, but then it's back in the closet they go!

)

With high bitrates, the slight SQ decline is more than made up for with glorious convenience.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d-slam With high bitrates, the slight SQ decline is more than made up for with glorious convenience.

Hey man, the thread starter was asking audiophiles what they do...