[Nellie75]

I’ve talked the wife into getting a NAS for all our photos, videos, music, etc. I have about 1000 CDs just sitting on the shelf downstairs and was thinking of ripping them to put on the NAS when it arrives. However, I’m sure over 90% of it is on our Amazon Music subscription. Is there any advantage to ripping CDs these days?

 

[bfreedma]

I’ve talked the wife into getting a NAS for all our photos, videos, music, etc. I have about 1000 CDs just sitting on the shelf downstairs and was thinking of ripping them to put on the NAS when it arrives. However, I’m sure over 90% of it is on our Amazon Music subscription. Is there any advantage to ripping CDs these days?

IMO, other than if you need them for off line listening (airplane/vacation...), there is no advantage to ripping if you have a streaming service that includes the titles in your library.

 

[Nellie75]

IMO, other than if you need them for off line listening (airplane/vacation...), there is no advantage to ripping if you have a streaming service that includes the titles in your library.

Agreed. I believe I can even download Amazon Music in 44.1 or better and play offline anyway. Then everything is in one spot and not spread across different apps.

However, I’m not a big fan of AM user interface. Maybe having a big beautiful interface of all my stuff would make me explore it more? Also curious if sq would be a touch better with my own FLAC files.

 

[BobSmith8901]

IMO, other than if you need them for off line listening (airplane/vacation...), there is no advantage to ripping if you have a streaming service that includes the titles in your library.

Wow, a thousand, that would be a big job. I think I have around 250 that I ripped to FLAC in 2015 or 2016. The motivation back then was to have them on a micro-SD card or two and be able to have my whole collection on my then new FiiO DAP.

As time went on I transferred them onto one 256Gb card and now have that card in my latest DAP. I do a lot of streaming through Tidal but when I was able to tweak my Neutron Player properly on my Shanling M6 Pro21, it really opened up those standard 16/44.1 tracks in a new way. I now find that in this set-up on the new DAP,, these FLAC files provide me with a very clean, simple, vivid-sounding, unmediated- by- streaming, playback that I go back to quite often. It's sort of made me appreciated the CD collection that I built up starting back in the day. You might just want to take some of your favorites, rip them and go from there.

 

[bfreedma]

Agreed. I believe I can even download Amazon Music in 44.1 or better and play offline anyway. Then everything is in one spot and not spread across different apps.

However, I’m not a big fan of AM user interface. Maybe having a big beautiful interface of all my stuff would make me explore it more? Also curious if sq would be a touch better with my own FLAC files.

Roon would be an ideal solution for you but unfortunately, it doesn't support Amazon, only Tidal and Qobuz. Otherwise, it's exactly what you're looking for - software that seamless meshes your local library with your streaming service within the same well worked out interface.

 

[bfreedma]

Wow, a thousand, that would be a big job. I think I have around 250 that I ripped to FLAC in 2015 or 2016. The motivation back then was to have them on a micro-SD card or two and be able to have my whole collection on my then new FiiO DAP.

As time went on I transferred them onto one 256Gb card and now have that card in my latest DAP. I do a lot of streaming through Tidal but when I was able to tweak my Neutron Player properly on my Shanling M6 Pro21, it really opened up those standard 16/44.1 tracks in a new way. I now find that in this set-up on the new DAP,, these FLAC files provide me with a very clean, simple, vivid-sounding, unmediated- by- streaming, playback that I go back to quite often. It's sort of made me appreciated the CD collection that I built up starting back in the day. You might just want to take some of your favorites, rip them and go from there.

It's definitely a big job - I had to rip almost 4000 CDs.

Not really too onerous though if you purchase/download efficient software and run through 50 or so a day. With many of us working from home, the opportunity is there.

What I used is as follows. There are other equally good solutions.

Rip - dbPowerAmp. (not free, but has a huge suite of functionality beyond ripping)
Tag - MP3tag (freeware - author accepts donations). I found the tag sources and ability to manipulate file names better than what dbPowerAmp offers.

 

[BobSmith8901]

It's definitely a big job - I had to rip almost 4000 CDs.

Not really too onerous though if you purchase/download efficient software and run through 50 or so a day. With many of us working from home, the opportunity is there.

What I used is as follows. There are other equally good solutions.

Rip - dbPowerAmp. (not free, but has a huge suite of functionality beyond ripping)
Tag - MP3tag (freeware - author accepts donations). I found the tag sources and ability to manipulate file names better than what dbPowerAmp offers.

That sounds pretty intense but you eased your load with smart technology. My ripping was quite primitive relatively speaking. I think I ended up finding MusicBee to my liking and then tweaking with MP3tag. Just sat down at my PC and gutted it out disc by disc.

Speaking of primitive, a couple years before that I ripped my entire DAT collection to MP3 (hadn't glommed onto FLAC yet!) but at least I did it at 192kHz. My SONY DAT deck had bit the dust and I ended up having to purchase a left-over radio station TASCAM deck off of ebay. I guess I was really determined not to lose all of my music, including some original DMP commercial DATs. I used Total Recorder for the job and it took a long time. When I was done, the TASCAM was just about at the end of its rope and the transport bit the biscuit shortly thereafter. But it did its job!

 

[bfreedma]

That sounds pretty intense but you eased your load with smart technology. My ripping was quite primitive relatively speaking. I think I ended up finding MusicBee to my liking and then tweaking with MP3tag. Just sat down at my PC and gutted it out disc by disc.

Speaking of primitive, a couple years before that I ripped my entire DAT collection to MP3 (hadn't glommed onto FLAC yet!) but at least I did it at 192kHz. My SONY DAT deck had bit the dust and I ended up having to purchase a left-over radio station TASCAM deck off of ebay. I guess I was really determined not to lose all of my music, including some original DMP commercial DATs. I used Total Recorder for the job and it took a long time. When I was done, the TASCAM was just about at the end of its rope and the transport bit the biscuit shortly thereafter. But it did its job!

DAT transfer sound like a tougher project - I only had a few of those thankfully.

Batching up the tagging helped, but it was still a large mindless task spread over weeks. Endlessly loading/unloading and ripping CDs. To ensure that isn't necessary again, I have both local backups and a backup in the Cloud.

 

[bagwell359]

I would only RIP stuff i coulnd't stream.

 

[MisterMoJo]

EAC is the only way to rip...

 

[sl418]

I've used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip a couple hundred CD's and it's worked quite well, pretty fast too. Didn't want to pay a monthly fee for streaming high quality tracks and wanted to have whatever I needed when out on long road trips with poor cell reception. Was able to get most of the CD's for a buck or so. However, if Spotify comes through with a reasonable price for an HD family plan, probably do that. Supposed to be any day now?

 

[Nellie75]

Thanks for the feedback. I made a lot of big decisions in the last 24 hours. I signed up for Apple Music and was really impressed with the quality of the lossless music and the ability to merge my CD collection with streaming. I liked the sound quality of Amazon but never felt at home with their UI. I did an online chat with them to see if I could end my annual subscription and get refunded for my remaining 7 months. I was prepard to get a big fat "No". The rep said they would refund my entire year! $150. So, I am now in Apple Music and loving it. By my estimation, there are only about 50 albums that are not offered on their service, so I'm just going to to iTunes imort to ALAC. I looked at EAC but for this small amount of music, Im just going to go the easy route. Its been a great activity for this week as I am quarantined with COVID. So, I took several photos of my collection and am just looking through the pictures on my phone while I write down the ones that are not availble in lossless. Then I will start ripping what ever is left on my list! It may not be Roon but it is pretty close from what I can tell. And my library is now on all my screens and streaming. I really think this is going to get my kids intersted in music more. They are visual and are pretty enamoured with the album covers and the lyrics scrolling by in real time. This is great!

 

[bfreedma]

Thanks for the feedback. I made a lot of big decisions in the last 24 hours. I signed up for Apple Music and was really impressed with the quality of the lossless music and the ability to merge my CD collection with streaming. I liked the sound quality of Amazon but never felt at home with their UI. I did an online chat with them to see if I could end my annual subscription and get refunded for my remaining 7 months. I was prepard to get a big fat "No". The rep said they would refund my entire year! $150. So, I am now in Apple Music and loving it. By my estimation, there are only about 50 albums that are not offered on their service, so I'm just going to to iTunes imort to ALAC. I looked at EAC but for this small amount of music, Im just going to go the easy route. Its been a great activity for this week as I am quarantined with COVID. So, I took several photos of my collection and am just looking through the pictures on my phone while I write down the ones that are not availble in lossless. Then I will start ripping what ever is left on my list! It may not be Roon but it is pretty close from what I can tell. And my library is now on all my screens and streaming. I really think this is going to get my kids intersted in music more. They are visual and are pretty enamoured with the album covers and the lyrics scrolling by in real time. This is great!

Glad you found a solution that fits what you need. Enjoy!

One more advantage of ripping my 4000 or so CDs was being able to box them and put them in the basement. Made space for more audio gear…

 

[vcoheda]

i have been selling my CD collection for years and will continue to do so. in total, i had maybe 2000 CDs; now it is about half that. just no point in keeping the physical media. all of my music is on external hard drives. i cannot remember the last time i used the cd drive of my yamaha player. for almost all new music, i download (purchase) as opposed to buying the media.

 

[Nellie75]

i have been selling my CD collection for years and will continue to do so. in total, i had maybe 2000 CDs; now it is about half that. just no point in keeping the physical media. all of my music is on external hard drives. i cannot remember the last time i used the cd drive of my yamaha player. for almost all new music, i download (purchase) as opposed to buying the media.

I won’t buy any more CDs but they look nice on the shelf and I don’t want to regret selling them, which usually happens when I get rid of stuff. Besides, I got the room and I’m not sure Id get
Much for my collection.