[stonesfan129]

12TB drives aren’t cheap and I’d need two. And I’d have to rip then transcode. It would take more time. Plus I would have to rip and tag in ALAC, which isn’t a broad format. If I own the CD anyway and my copy sounds identical, I don’t need a third copy.

Grab an 8TB WD EasyStore drive off of Best Buy's website. They frequently have sales on these and they contain a WD Red NAS drive. Those drives are built for long-term storage.

 

[bigshot]

Why do I need a master file if I own all the CDs? Isn't that a lossless master?

 

[bfreedma]

They are, and hopefully you (or anyone else) never have to deal with the potential risk of loss by theft, fire, flood etc., but those are reasons I keep a lossless copy stored off site. It’s cheap insurance, particularly for some material that’s out of print and would be hard to replace.

 

[bigshot]

It's been about 30 years now and I haven't had a fire or flood yet. Maybe I should build an ark! I maintain backups of my lossy library. I probably have a couple of thousand CDs left to rip. Adding an extra step to the ripping process adds up. Time is short. I think I'll be fine. For the purposes of listening to music AAC 256 VBR is all I need. That sounds just as good as my CDs and it much simpler and more manageable. If FLAC and ALAC were more cross platform compatible, I might have considered it way back when in the beginning. But at this point, it makes no sense. If my house burns down, I'll just get new music that I haven't heard yet.

 

[RRod]

I don't much see the point of using 320MP3 or 256AAC for all DAP files if you have the FLACs/ALACs backed-up. With the original files in hand, one should be trying to push the small-file-size envelope with the lossy codec. There aren't many tracks that fool 96AAC, especially if you don't sit around trying to nitpick, and the ones that do trick it are the the ones that can use 256 instead. Note that I would imagine that a well-calibrated speaker setup can use a notch lower bitrate than many headphones, as headphones tend to be too damn bright and thus bring out artifacts that would otherwise go unnoticed. To OP: does your DAP support the Opus codec? If so, give that a try at sub-128k rates.

 

[bfreedma]

It's been about 30 years now and I haven't had a fire or flood yet. Maybe I should build an ark! I maintain backups of my lossy library. I probably have a couple of thousand CDs left to rip. Adding an extra step to the ripping process adds up. Time is short. I think I'll be fine. For the purposes of listening to music AAC 256 VBR is all I need. That sounds just as good as my CDs and it much simpler and more manageable. If FLAC and ALAC were more cross platform compatible, I might have considered it way back when in the beginning. But at this point, it makes no sense. If my house burns down, I'll just get new music that I haven't heard yet.

Understood. You asked why someone would want a “master” in addition to a CD. For me, it’s worth the peace of mind, but we all have our own risk calculations.

Again though, it doesn’t have to add any extra effort to rip to multiple formats using tools built to do just that. And for me, the extra 10 seconds or so for the transcode is about how long it takes to eject and replace the CD, so time isn’t the issue. Regardless, we’ve both found processes that fit what we want/need.

 

[iridium7777]

your 2TB in AAC will probably be around 5-6TB in ALAC/FLAC, you can probably pick up a portable 8TB drive for the price you paid for your 2TB way back.

my suggestion to the OP, burn everything in FLAC/ALAC. a 200gb card on amazon is something like 30$, a 400GB is around 80$. at 200GB you can have all of your current AAC files + burning another 100cds in FLAC/ALAC, probably more than enough music for a pocket. at 400GB you can have all of your current music, all of your CDs and room to spare.

I think I'm in a different situation because of the size of my library. Last time I checked, I have over a year and a half worth of music split into seven different libraries by genre. It fills a 2TB drive at AAC256. If I wanted to maintain lossless on all that, it would require multiple drives and a massive amount of transcoding time. I really appreciate simplicity as long as the sound quality is equal, which it is. I don't foresee ever needing anything other than AAC 256.

 

[bigshot]

I own the CDs. That's my master copy. If I maintain a master as ALAC, then I need to back it up twice to protect it... one for on site, one for off site. Then I need to do the same with the AAC copies. Now I've got seven copies. Anyone want to go for eight or nine "just to be safe"? Maybe I should burn a copy of the CD and duplicate all the booklets and packaging in case my CD gets lost. And then a second CD copy in case my house burns down.

This is a rabbit hole I just don't understand. All I need is my music sounding perfect and a protection backup.

 

[bfreedma]

I own the CDs. That's my master copy. If I maintain a master as ALAC, then I need to back it up twice to protect it... one for on site, one for off site. Then I need to do the same with the AAC copies. Now I've got seven copies. Anyone want to go for eight or nine "just to be safe"? Maybe I should burn a copy of the CD and duplicate all the booklets and packaging in case my CD gets lost. And then a second CD copy in case my house burns down.

This is a rabbit hole I just don't understand. All I need is my music sounding perfect and a protection backup.

No need to be snarky. You don't see the need for insurance - so be it. Question - since you've never had a fire, do you not have insurance for your house?

My advice as someone who's been through it (a burglary in my case). Hopefully it never happens to you, but if it does, you'll be very happy for whatever you're able to maintain through a loss - it helps compensate for losing things that are irreplaceable. As for multiple copies, there is no real cost for maintenance and the cost for storage is close enough to zero to be negligible. It took me less than an hour to construct my ripping, storage, and off site backup model, essentially no extra time to do rips, and exactly zero time to maintain it. My 1.5TB library costs me less than $3 per month for Amazon Glacier based storage, so again, negligible.

Do what works for you, but don't belittle others who prefer to be a little more risk averse.

 

[bigshot]

I'm not belittling. I'm just stating why it works for me to just rip straight to AAC but people keep telling me I need a lossless copy. I don't need another lossless copy. I have the CDs. They're my lossless copy. I have AAC. It's my playing copy. AAC sounds exactly the same as the lossless copy and it is much more convenient. The CD in a box in the garage and AAC on my media server is all I need. It's simple and it works. If AAC wasn't audibly transparent, then I would need another copy. But it is transparent and I don't need anything else. The AAC is fine for all my playing purposes, and the CD itself is fine as a lossless backup. I don't need files that I'll never use.

 

[iridium7777]

i don't keep cds. they're only temporary until they get ripped into alac. my garage is nowhere near big enough to hold overflow of 4000+ cds, nor would i want to invest the time of ever cataloging and storing them in some easily searchable manner. thus my solution was applicable for those that don't want to store around plastic hardware indefinitely.

if i want a cd i'll rip one.

 

[bigshot]

Technically, the license to be able to rip CDs for personal use requires you to own the physical CD. But feel free to dispose of the CDs after ripping if you want. I store CDs without jewel cases. I do the same with DVDs and now I'm getting to the point of doing that with blu-rays.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

Technically, the license to be able to rip CDs for personal use requires you to own the physical CD. But feel free to dispose of the CDs after ripping if you want. I store CDs without jewel cases. I do the same with DVDs and now I'm getting to the point of doing that with blu-rays.

Sitting here listening to spotify.....and second guessing my need for a huge music collection

 

[Steve999]

Sitting here listening to spotify.....and second guessing my need for a huge music collection

I hear that!! I find Spotify’s Ogg Vorbis lossy compression particularly immune to digital clipping situations in various playback chains for whatever reason, and I noticed the other day, for example, that Spotify has way more Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers than does Apple Music. I only buy CDs or “rip” an LP now if it’s something precious to me or I can’t get it through a streaming service. I have pretty much ripped my entire CD collection to lossy but that only takes up 80GB or so, and generally just as good copies are on Spotify. Spotify is the most platform agnostic for me. The CD library on my iPad is nice for the subway or other situations when I don’t have WiFi. The chance to discover new music on Spotify or other streaming services is just incredible. I would guess in the long run we’ll get lossless streaming from the big players, just a guess.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

I hear that!! I find Spotify’s Ogg Vorbis lossy compression particularly immune to digital clipping situations in various playback chains for whatever reason, and I noticed the other day, for example, that Spotify has way more Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers than does Apple Music. I only buy CDs or “rip” an LP now if it’s something precious to me or I can’t get it through a streaming service. I have pretty much ripped my entire CD collection to lossy but that only takes up 80GB or so, and generally just as good copies are on Spotify. Spotify is the most platform agnostic for me. The CD library on my iPad is nice for the subway or other situations when I don’t have WiFi. The chance to discover new music on Spotify or other streaming services is just incredible. I would guess in the long run we’ll get lossless streaming from the big players, just a guess.

I'm 58....this streaming thing is a huge step for me...being able to pick individual tunes off albums that i wouldn't normally play because the rest of the album is weak,swapping genres for a song or 2 ...huge....i tend to let one song lead me to the next ...from blues rock to blues to jazz to classical to metal or punk...very cool and convenient.