Is it worth it to rip CD collections to FLAC anymore?

[originalsnuffy]

I use dbPower amp CD ripper with Accu(rate)rip

I primarily rip with JRiver but any number of apps can rip properly. Not really rocket science nowadays.

 

[redrol]

Ill never stop doing it. As long as CDs exist.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Ill never stop doing it. As long as CDs exist.

My kids were asking the other day what it is.

 

[gerelmx1986]

My kids were asking the other day what it is.

They asked what the process is or what a (SA)CD is? Gosh i feel like when i asked my father how do you play these black giant CDs (refering to his Vinyls)

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

I ripped all my CDs a few years ago, with extreme caution, using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with all the right settings, and keeping the logs for peace of mind.
I don't see why I should pay a monthly fee for accessing music that I already own, convenient as it may be.
Ripping my CDs was a crazy job that took me about 6 months, but I had several thousand CDs, including singles.

I now have >50.000 tunes. 36.000 are lossless (all encoded in FLAC 1.3.2), the rest are lossy.

I manage everything with a heavily customized foobar2000 (lots of homemade scripts), as partially shown by the screen caps.
I have many infos at my fingertips, including dozens of custom tags, HD covers, scrolling lyrics, bios, artist pics, eye-candy, and most of the things Roon provides, but for free.
Most importantly, I can customize everything to my every desire.

I also use a heavily customized foobar2000 for managing my video collection (movies, shows), much better than Plex & co. One of the best decisions I ever made.
And everything is stored locally. The whole audio library takes about 1 TB currently. Video library is of course bigger, at about 6.5 TB currently.
Of course everything has an offline backup, just in case.

It may not be the hypest solution, but it gives me full control and peace of mind.

 

[dufferdan]

I ripped 1600 CDs over the years to both 320kbps AAC for iTues and lossless ALAC for in-house streaming on my Squeezebox Touch to stereo. With the Apple ecosystem fully in control of my house, I had Apple News service and I also got Apple Music and tried the Apple Match stuff. With Apple Music, I can download files to my phone for playing int he car off line. We do a lot of driving through mountainous terrain to our cabin with large gaps with no cell/data service, so offline is where it is at. I am on the family plan, so for me, and an an extra $3/month, we all have Apple Music, News, Apple TV, Fitness (which actually isn’t bad, tho the instructor are frequently annoying) and some other stuff.

Anyways, so last week I ran a test, unscientific to the nth degree, but a comparison…..

So I set up an A-B best I could.

My Squeezebox Touch, Ethernet connection to main Mac in office hooked up via home wired Ethernet network.
Touch to Beresford Caiman via coax digital audio connection

IPad Air 2 via USB/Card reader/connector to iPad. Plugged into power via iPad charger into card reader connector. USB from connector to Caiman USB input. iPad volume was set to full output. IPad Air connected to home WiFi network.

Caiman DAC to Rotel integrated amp via RCA connectors.

With both inputs into Caiman, I just had to switch between input 1 and 4.

Teed up Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon on the home network and Apple Music, lossless

The home network is all CDs ripped to ALAC lossless, 16/44.1. Apple Music feed was 24/96 I think ( or whatever is the closest standard, not 88.2)

Listened via AKG 701 headphones. Plugged into my Cambridge amp. Neutral, not bass or treble heavy. For the most part, let’s the music do it’s thing without a ton of colouration.

Went through Money, Time and The Great Gig in the Sky

First off, the feed from the Squeezebox was definitely a snick louder, so that is a risk to accurate perception. However, first punch, the Apple Music 24/96 version did not grab out of the gate. Whereas the CD rip via Squeezebox was immediately engaging. Snap, highs ring, punchy bass, extended decay. The Apple 24/96 was definitely lighter on dynamic range, immediacy was lacking, little snap or decay of cymbals. I tried to listen to it for more extended segments before switching back, and the ears did become somewhat acclimated, but going back to the Squeezebox input made the differences stark.

Not super scientific. Both sources were synched at the start point, but the mixes obviously had some timing differences as occasionally I had to re-sync mid-song. But I was never out by more than a second or two.

I also have some ripped hi-res DVD and Blu ray audio files (Doors LAWoman, etc) that are in 24/96, so when I get a chance, I’ll try another comparison. But I am pretty sure a 2008/09 implementation of USB in a then budget, though quality DAC, is far surpassed today. It could also be a function that the Apple Music version has been remastered and possibly killed a bit by loudness eq compressing highs and lows. I also cannot discount the impact of a 14 year old USB input design into what was then a reasonable value DAC, but in the day, most used either coax or optical toslink.

I have been looking to upgrade the TV in basement and AVR in main basement viewing room, as well as considering a revamp of the upstairs audio system. Thinking of a new streamer (Cambridge CXN or other equivalent), a little more oomph from amp…possible a made in Canada Bryson unit, and for sure a DAC upgrade. The original thought was a new Schiit Bifrost 2 but am leaning to a Topping 70s MQA. Those internal fights are ongoing. (I know the Schiit Bifrost doesn’t get a lot of love here, but I have loved my original version I just failed to upgrade the DAC chips before the module was gone. So I would get the Bifrost 2/Uber USB and multibit option. Since it would be for the computer based headphone listening. That likely gets bought regardless. )

Certainly for listening in non-critical applications like a noisy car environment, the downloaded files are more than fine. Even if they are somewhat compressed. It will be using a more modern Topping USB input vs the coax connection from the ripped library that will be interesting to me.

Ordered the Topping last night. Test to be re-run next week. Actually went a little bananas last night, also ordered a DROP AAA THX balanced headphone amp and balanced adapter/headphone cable for my Seinnheiser HD6XX cans. The Bifrost, when ordered, is both balanced and single ended, so I can run balanced to the DROP amp and single ended to my tube Valhalla 2 headphone amp…..rathole entered fully!

Anyways, will update when I have a chance to compare with hi-rez rips.

 

[MRC001]

... 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.

There's one important reason that hasn't yet been mentioned: remasters. Many of those old albums available on streaming have been remastered. In most cases, they have been remastered with the sole purpose of making them sound as loud as possible with heavy dynamic compression. Some people might like this, as dynamic compression can sound more punchy. Yet to my ears the heavy compression makes them sound like crap: artificial, distorted and fatiguing. In most cases I much prefer the original masters, which you can't get anymore, except by ripping the old CDs to FLAC.

 

[dufferdan]

I allude to this in my post immediately above, just a little long winded and rambly.

I get the sense, especially early CD’s which used the LP masters to directly generate CDs, where the tape masters had greater dynamic range than the LP format, the direct transfers have the snap and range better apparent than the 90’s and 2000’s when compression became all the rage. Given the higher noise floor of the LP format, the potential dynamic range of CD in many cases sounded better. Even with the early DACs built into the CD players of the 80’s and 90’s.

I am looking forward to seeing if the USB implementation of the Topping D70es changes what I heard vs the 13/14 yr old Caiman. Or if it is the Apple Hi-res master being more compressed. Not sure how I will differentiate between the two though. But the CD at 16/44 definitely sounded better than the Apple hi-res thru USB

 

[Bytor123]

Should I get rid of my wax cylinders?

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Squeezbox? Why not gramophone?

 

[dufferdan]

LOL, yeah, fair comment. Tho the Touch is pretty cool little unit. By my whole kit is long in the tooth. If I change that out, likely a Cambridge CXN v2.

 

[arielext]

I do rip all my CDs still using EAC and convert them to FLAC and store them on my local NAS.

Instead of most (if not all ) out there I play my collection using JSMusicDB. A web based music player and database I wrote/write in my spare time.
It's based on standard web technology and as such is also served as a PWA (sort of like a website as app), so I use it as a music player for my Android devices as well.
It has support for ReplayGain and last.fm scrobbling (yeah I still do that ).

The back-end is node.js based and run on my NAS while the front-end is "just a website". Credentials are encrypted on the NAS, while the whole front-end is served only using HTTPS (a requirement for PWAs).
The whole application fits in 60kB and is always up to date. I never have to install anything, anywhere.

Some screenshots:

Album view (dark mode)

Now playing screen (light mode); with real-time spectrum analyser

Artist view (light mode): All images are stored on the NAS as well and are optimized for the visiting device.

Mobile home (light)

Mobile endless scrollable list of all albums sorted by year

The accent colour in the screenshots are different cause it is based on the average colour of the album art of the actual playing track. This colour adapts to the light or dark scheme so that the colour is always readable.

A few settings to get some grip / flavour
- Save playlistsstate means it will remember where you were and pick up exactly where you left it next time it starts
- Manual scrobbling: Normally the track is scrobbled directly to last.fm but the user can decide
- Continues play: never stop after an album the next album is played. After a playlist the next playlist is picked
- Apply replaygain: yes/no to equal loudness
- The dynamic accent colour is toggleable, otherwise it's blue
- The website can follow your preference for light/dark or based on the clock (sunrise/sunset if you allow the website to know your location)


Want to know a bit more?
- all source code for the front-end: https://github.com/lucienimmink/JSMusicDB
- all source code for the back-end: https://github.com/lucienimmink/node-mp3stream
- all source code for the meta-data scanner (mp3, aac, vorbis and flac support): https://github.com/lucienimmink/scanner.py

a heavily work in progress website that explains what I am working on: https://www.arielext.org/
and to end it off the actual website itself: https://www.jsmusicdb.com/

Wait, what were we discussing here?

 

[MRC001]

Should I get rid of my wax cylinders?

With modern recordings and remasters, I'll bet wax cylinders could handle whatever dynamic range remains after it comes out of the compressor! Releasing these recordings in 24-bit is an ironic joke.

 

[BAJACRACKER]

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 had over 7000 songs on 1 dedicated external drive that I spent countless days on composing. It crashed. I CRIED !

 

[gerelmx1986]

I had over 7000 songs on 1 dedicated external drive that I spent countless days on composing. It crashed. I CRIED !

That’s the reason i have 4 copies of my music. 3 external drives and two 1TB mucro SD on a DAP with two alots