[Closed] CD ripping and Hifi upgrade help

I was thinking this the other day and come to the conclusion why keep it at all? If things like Spotify and other service are the way we're heading going forward then are you really going to re-visit your ripped CD's on some hard drive somewhere when you have access to all the music ever produced at your fingertips?

I really think that physical formats are dead other than for those who enjoy the physical theatre of interacting with physical formats like those who like vinyl and enjoy the act of taking a record out of the sleeve, mounting it on the player and all the other ritualised things that come with vinyl...its a bit more than just the music. Which I get but not necessarily my bag.

Hi wobbliscott - that is a good point.

Spotify is awesome, but I suppose my biggest issue is that I just end up listening to the same stuff all the time, as I don't make the time to look at the old stuff I used to listen to. But that is probably more about me being disorganized/lazy, than anything else.

But just using streaming would save loads of money, time and effort...

Spotify is still only MP3 and not lossless so for that reason it is out for me. I have both a Qobuz sub and a Tidal one accordingly but still am in the process of ripping my entire CD collection.

Why? Because there are some CDs I own that are not on the various platforms, many of the ones I have bought have particular meaning to me which is why I bought them in the first place (so I want to keep the orginal) and finally CDs to drop off the various providers. I noticed the other day that Ray Lamontagne had dropped of Qobuz when I had been listening to one of his albums but the day before.

I would rip the CDs yourself. I started ripping my collection of c. 500 disks about a week ago and I am well over halfway. Sit working from home, dealing with emails and phone calls and just feed discs in.

I don't know if it's available for the Mac but I sue dBPowerAmp. Be sure to rip in some form of lossless format and ensure it's bit perfect and you're golden. Big advantage of dBPowerAmp is it can utilise multiple CD drives at once and as I have 2 drives in my workstation I find I am getting through them at about 80 discs per day 🙂

Over a month I ripped all of my CDs by manually (at the time using a tool called morituri, which does lossless rips and uses musicbrainz for the metadata). As I work from home this was easy enough to do in the background. The files are held on my NAS (also a Time Machine backup for all the macs in the house) which runs Plex server, there's a Google Chomecast Audio plugged into the amp, and the Plex app on my phone.

Works pretty well. We've since also subscribed to Spotify as the kids want to listen to their own music too so that became more cost effective, but again Spotify -> Chromecast -> speakers.

As to ripping software I seem to remember being recommended XLD as a ripper for Macs. I recommend looking for software that uses Musicbrainz for track listing, as CDDB or even worse FreeDB are *terrible*.

I've ripped all my CDs (600ish) to my iMac, and from there uploaded onto my Googleplay account.

You get something like 50,000 tunes free storage, and they can be up to 300mb per tune, so you could upload uncompressed files (though that would take a long time!) I just ripped them as the highest quality MP3. About 15-20mb per tune.

Then I stream to a Chromecast audio plugged into my stereo.
Works well, I can use phone as controller, quality is ok, and the service seems to have got more stable (i.e. less crashes or dropouts) over the last year.

Since we moved to Spain over three years ago my CD collection has been boxed and in a utility room. All my music was on iTunes anyway so I decided to just get rid of it. Bought a Synology Nas drive and transferred all my music onto it. I can play music in and outside the house (no neighbours) via an old iPad and we have music on every day Tbf. However, I have found Classic Rock Florida machine radio station. There is no presenter/talking or news etc, and we predominantly listen to this even though I have around 1.5k CD´s on the Nas. I used Noteburner to transfer my music to the Nas and you put a hundred or so albums in a queue and just let it do its thing. Do you still have music on iTunes? If so its very easy. Ouch that Brennen B2 is expensive.

I went through a similar thought process many years ago. I ended up ripping all my CDs lossless to a NAS drive. Similar number of albums. It took a while to chip through it but didn't take so long a few weeks maybe. I still buy CDs (don't judge me) but some of them are unopened as you are offered a lossless download when you buy the CD.

That's probably the cheapest / simplest way of getting access to your CDs?

I have been through a similar process and came to a slightly odd compromise.

Having been into music for as long as can remember (I'm 48), I have quite a lot of CDs. The initial thought was to sell them all and simply use Tidal hi-fi to get the best quality of most of the albums I own.

Trouble was I felt odd not owning the album and it just didn't sit right. Very odd to explain but maybe others can sympathise!

Canned that idea and then just ripped all my CDs into iTunes using dBpoweramp and Apple lossless encoding. The quality seems good enough and from there I can do what I want with the library.

Most of the time it is primarily synced to an ipod touch for playback in the car through quite a decent aftermarket install, or accessed directly from the PC though a USB soundcard and out to headphones or amp+speakers.

Also have Alexa devices and Amazon music for casual listening where sound quality isn't that important.

wobbliscott
Subscriber

I was thinking this the other day and come to the conclusion why keep it at all? If things like Spotify and other service are the way we’re heading going forward then are you really going to re-visit your ripped CD’s on some hard drive somewhere when you have access to all the music ever produced at your fingertips?

Well that's okay, assuming Spotify keeps the album on there. An album I listened to a lot disappeared one day, not sure why. It's still listed, you just can't play it.

Similar thing happened on Netflix, almost all the Disney films were removed, in that case Disney started their own service, therefore removed their films from Netflix to strong arm consumers into buying theirs.

If you have the CD and the time/means to back it up, I would do that.

Yep, ripped my CDs many years ago - too much stuff either disappears or never appeared on streaming services.

Way back I used EAC which let me do ripping and encoding separately but I suspect CPUs now can handle encoding easily at the speed of the CD drive. Titles/art can be auto downloaded from the internet so just a matter of taking a stack with you to the computer before a work/YouTube session and just feed them in one after another.

All of my CDs are on a NAS drive, I ripped them FLAC a few years ago. They are streamed to various Sonos. BUT I very rarely listen to any of them now as I stream everything (mostly Apple Music), unless it’s something I can’t find on there.

Apple Music is good for listening to full albums on, it hasn’t gone down the road of playlists like Spotify has. Occasionally I can tell the quality isn’t quite as good but it’s pretty rare.

I used dbpoweramp too, works well and will rip FLAC and MP3 at the same time, but again MP3s are now redundant as I stream on phone too.

Definitely keep the CDs - if nothing else they're the best form of physical backup if your alternative solution gets corrupted, or Spotify drops particular albums etc.

Then, rip them yourself. You're at home anyway, the tools to do so are free, and the money you save on someone else ripping it can go towards a NAS and CD drive.
Mediamonkey is the ideal solution, as it's free, handles all the ripping, tagging and cataloguing and works with most formats you might need. I reripped much of my library a few years back and it took a few days, just running in the background while I pottered doing other things.

As you say, from there you'll probably want a NAS. There are various options, but £200 should see you good, and there are a few threads and experts on here!

Most are on itunes, but I’ve stopped using itunes since it became subscription and I got annoyed with it all.

Eh? iTunes, or Music as it’s called now, is free, it’s the Apple Music online subscription system, their answer to Spotify that you have to pay for! I refuse to use it, because everything I’ve got in my iTunes music library I rip at 320Kb, if you go onto the iTunes Match system, it gets downgraded to 256Kb. If you go for Spotify, and get rid of your cd’s, there’s no guarantee that the system will be around in the future - Spotify haven’t made a penny in profit since it was set up, and they’re negotiating with the record industry to cut the already insultingly low payments to artists even further!
I’m currently in the process of re-ripping half of my library after my Mac HHD and backup drives both failed, I lost about 100Gb of music, but I’ve got a better backup drive now, and by the time I’m finished, all of my music will be on my phone, and I’ll put it onto my pad as well, they’ve both got 512Gb of storage now.
Thing is, it’s MY music, it’s all paid for, a significant amount direct from artists, and a lot is signed - I’m not renting a poor quality copy from a business that could easily just drop out completely, and it’s still in my possession as a worst-case backup, as I’ve discovered.
I’ve got cd’s from artists which I’m pretty certain just cannot be found on the likes of Spotify, there’s no way I’m getting rid of those.

There are some dodgy copyright issues linked to Braintax. He was getting the royalty for years from a few other uk artists , whenever their stuff was played on some streaming platforms, illegally.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukhiphopheads/comments/dbtw3u/taskforce_win_the_fight_with_braintax_on_spotify/

Screw feeding in 300 discs, I'd torrent that lot. Life's too short. It's music you've already paid for and the net result is the same as if you'd ripped them.

Rip em to a NAS. I have a QNap and you can get an iTunes app that plays from the NAS, so you could transfer your library to a NAS easily, without ditching iTunes (yes, there is still such a thing).
Then just add your CDs as you rip them (or download them).

Back of an envelope calculation:

Assuming (an optimistic) three minutes per CD to rip to FLAC plus disc swapping time, that's like a thousand minutes, or 16-17 hours. Do you really want to sit there for like two working days feeding it discs?

I know we'e self-isolating but you surely can't be that bored yet!

@Cougar - I've done around 250-300 over the last week or so. I do other stuff on the computer at the same time - feed a couple of discs in, hit ruip, crack off a couple of work emails etc. Repeat.

Hasn't been too painful and having to drives running concurrently makes a huge difference...

Sooner you than me.

Personally I fixed this problem with a Spotify subscription, but hey.

I N R A T S and I'm no expert but I would say:

Good, old hifi is generally not at all bad.
Modern lifestyle hifi isn't, necessarily good.
Ripping a cd collection doesn't take that long if you do other tasks at the same time.

Edit: as Cougar says, a few days of multi tasking. Youth of today!

I had the same thing as the OP. Between us we had about 900+ CDs. I bought a Brennan B2 and then spent "what appeared to be half my life" ripping them. It took me a couple of months TBH.
Now that I have them all as FLAC I can listen to them via the Brennan and as I exported them all to a drive I have them on a Sony media player.

Got to agree with Cougar, any that are already available online via newsgroups, torrents, P2P or blog links, just grab those. Rip the few that may be left with DB Poweramp or the equivalent.
Personally, I'd keep the CDs to play for best quality, but yeah, you've already given your reasons for not wanting to do this...

unfortunately I can’t afford a NAIM.

Well, your price range for a Brennan and a NAS drive gets you a Naim Muso QB. You can plug in a small USB memory stick with all your FLACs on it and never need the NAS, then it works with Tidal, Spotify and all internet radio too - amp and speakers built in and sounds really nice.

Failling that, any chance you could just plug your Mac Mini into your current hifi? You can pick up a cheap USB DAC for relatively cheap too if you want to avoid just running out of the headphone socket.

Failling that, any chance you could just plug your Mac Mini into your current hifi? You can pick up a cheap USB DAC for relatively cheap too if you want to avoid just running out of the headphone socket.

Might as well just keep using the Sonos Connect that he already has and get a cheap NAS.

Or if you’re going down the route of using a computer as a solution just share the music from the Mac (I assume you can do this, I think you can with a Windows PC).

Buy more shelves.

Might as well just keep using the Sonos Connect that he already has and get a cheap NAS.

'Cheap' NAS is still money to spend though if not possibly required

‘Cheap’ NAS is still money to spend though if not possibly required

The op mentioned having the option of paying a 3rd party to rip his CDs, so I don’t think the spend is a worry - plus a NAS is worth it for all the other options it gives you (unlike a Spotify sub 😉)

After much research, I ripped hundreds of CDs to iTunes on Apple Lossless format thinking that would be future proof. There's about 100Gb on the iPod classic alone. I also compressed them to AAC VBR for phone and iPod Nano use. Over the next few years, a number of glitches developed and worsened with each iTunes upgrade. iTunes has lost hundreds of tracks, corrupted many more and Apple are clearly pushing their Music service, which I don't want. Fortunately I kept most of the CDs and can start again. Is an NAC the way to go or would a Brennen be simpler? I tried Media Bee but didn't get on with it.

An album I listened to a lot disappeared one day...

I believe one reason is whether the rights owner want it featured. If an artist / band switches labels it's up to the label whether the music they own is featured on a streaming station.

(The Therapy? album Crooked Timber isn't on Spotify because it's the only album they recorded on Demolition Records. Annoyingly it's one of my favourite albums by them.)

I'm in a similar boat. I have all my CDs ripped as FLAC files on a HDD (and in a big Ikea box). The HDD is plugged into my hifi but I've also been playing around with the HDD plugged into the BT router then shared across the home network. A cheap 'NAS' solution, if you like.

Another variable with Spotify is that it's only 320kbs so it's fine for kids and kitchens but if your system is decent, and you want quality, then it falls short.

The other issue for me is the interface to use. If it's computer based then you can obviously just pick a player and play off that. If it's hifi based then you need a streamer+app type setup, which may suit if you love your phone but for me is a trickier choice.

Used db Poweramp to rip my CDs to lossless FLAC on my NAS years ago. 100s of CDs but no big deal time wise as there's no law that says you have to do the lot over a couple of days.

DB Poweramp is designed for this job. It comes with a batch ripping tool, so once you have it set up, all you do is put a CD in the tray and push it closed. DB Poweramp starts automatically, looks up the CD track info, rips the CD and ejects it when finished. No buttons to click, just feed in a new CD every time it finishes and spits out the previous one. So, as others have said above, it becomes a job you can do in the background while watching TV.

I ripped 99% of my massive CD collection to my PC about 5 years ago now. Utilised them for a few weeks via Sonos before I got Spotify and since then haven't looked back. Not bought a CD since (bought more vinyl) and listen to a LOT of different music, stuff that I don't own and would have never thought of owning. I love listening to music - I spend pretty much every waking hour with music on so Spotify suits me down to the ground (through TV, 4 Sonos speakers and a Sonos amp connected to the hifi in the living room). To be honest, it all sounds great to me - I'm not one of these people that has to sit in a darkened soundproofed room with a billion pounds of hifi equipment to enjoy it.

iTunes has lost hundreds of tracks, corrupted many more

Probably a corrupt disk or something. I've got, dunno, coming on for a TB and iTunes manages it just fine. It's all backed up to my NAS anyway, so even if the PC dies, I won't lose a thing.

stenhousemuir
Member

There are some dodgy copyright issues linked to Braintax. He was getting the royalty for years from a few other uk artists , whenever their stuff was played on some streaming platforms, illegally.

That explains it. THanks

kcr
Member

DB Poweramp is designed for this job. It comes with a batch ripping tool, so once you have it set up, all you do is put a CD in the tray and push it closed. DB Poweramp starts automatically, looks up the CD track info, rips the CD and ejects it when finished. No buttons to click, just feed in a new CD every time it finishes and spits out the previous one. So, as others have said above, it becomes a job you can do in the background while watching TV.

Yes it's excellent, there's a linux system with similar results but I can't think of the name right now.

Edit- it's ripright

Thanks all. The either don't bother/rip it myself angle seem to be largely where it is heading; my initial interest in something like the Brennan is that it takes away the need for me to use my terrible IT skills.

If I do bother, can I rip stuff in lossless format (using the software DB Poweramp) onto a Mac, without too much trouble? Does it have to be in Apple format, or can it be in FLAC?

How easy is it to then configure a NAS? I don't really want to use the mac mini as a server to stream from - it's often off and no longer very 'neat' in footprint (I have it running off a thunderbolt SSD).

As mentioned above by others, I'd like just to continue to use Sonos in some form (I think that they have stopped their 'we won't support our gear long term anymore' issue). I find their user interface easy enough to manage.

[Spotify]

To be honest, it all sounds great to me – I’m not one of these people that has to sit in a darkened soundproofed room with a billion pounds of hifi equipment to enjoy it.

Fair enough (and I don't want to get all audiophile) but it's pretty easy to spot compressed vs redbook/flac quality back to back. CD vs Spotify on the same song, on a half decent system, I'd be surprised if you still felt both sounded equally great.

If absolute audio quality is not a major concern and if you don't have something rare, I'd just box up the CDs for safe keeping and subscribe to a streaming service, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal etc ... The cost of a Brennan goes a long way to paying for many years of premium streaming. The quality of premium streaming services is very good these days and especially with Tidal and others that give "HD audio streaming" you get excellent quality that I think on your system might find it hard to distinguish from a CD. Sure Apple Music and Spotify will be a small reduction in quality compared to a CD but it will still be good.

If you do want to rip your CDs just use your Mac. Really not that hard to set up one of the many CD ripping software available. Lots of how to guides on Youtube and the web. The CD ripping software will allow you to choose the format to sort the ripped files in. I'd go for FLAC or WAV so you keep the full data.

I would also use the Mac as the media server. Your Sonos should be able to connect to it fine and play music off that.

Use a USB / external hard disk to keep a back up copy of your ripped music for when the hard drive in the Mac fails.

I really don't think you need any new hardware, other than maybe a NAS and some hard drives.

Thanks All for the above advice. Now tempted to:

- get some decent CD ripping software
- get a CD rom drive

& dump my crappy old CDs, copy the good ones and just try and use my mac/NAS to stream.

Appreciate the advice.

If you do want to rip your CDs just use your Mac. Really not that hard to set up one of the many CD ripping software available. Lots of how to guides on Youtube and the web. The CD ripping software will allow you to choose the format to sort the ripped files in. I’d go for FLAC or WAV so you keep the full data.

I would also use the Mac as the media server. Your Sonos should be able to connect to it fine and play music off that.

Exactly, this is what I’ve been doing for years, first on my old PowerBook, for use on my 180Gb iPod Classic, then using my Mac Mini, which I bought in 2011. Regarding backups, I was using a backup drive, but I hadn’t realised there was an issue with it and when my Mac’s HDD failed, there was only about half of the backup available. I’ve got a different backup drive now, and I’ll be getting another one soon, both FireWire drives, which will let me daisy chain them and run a software RAID so I’ll have a second identical backup. Slowly rebuilding my iTunes library, most of my own CD’s are now ripped, but there’s a load that a mate ripped onto DVD’s, which seem to be playing up a bit, so I might just get a 250Gb Flash drive and get him to stuff them onto that, then I can just pick and choose. I’ve now got nearly 150Gb on my phone, heading towards 200+.
Being furloughed is handy for doing stuff like this, I keep finding albums I’ve missed, or only a few tracks recovered from when the drive failed - reading something about Donald Fagan’s The Nightfly someone mentioned the follow up Kamakiriad, which I’d forgotten about, so I’ve got to go and find that now! 😎

One thing to note is thay often Spotify only licences one particular version of an album meaning tracks are either missing or different to what is on your version. Then you have the fun of looking up every other compilation version to find the right one. Until it's no longer licenced.

Yes it is good and yes it's handy but it's not the be all and end all of music. The way the Internet twists and turns today's Facebook is tomorrow's MySpace.

– get some decent CD ripping software

Mediamonkey! Pretty much any format you could possibly use, tags and names the files itself, and free!

I use BDpoweramp to rip to both uncompressed FLAK and lossless ACC the ACC goes to iTunes the Flak files power the streamer. I can't tell the difference between my ripped cd"s and Tidal masters played on my Cyrus system and would rather buy 4 or 5 cd's a month than pay £20 a month for tidal.

Sorry to hijack, but another buying advice query.....
I've just sold most of my old vinyl, which has sat around unused for 15 years - who knew that the SH LPs you bought as a student would go up in value so much 😎
I've a load of CDs as well, but with kids etc, I only really listen to Spotify and DAB now. I would like some better sound though - invest some of the vinyl sale cash in something to play Spotify/whatever in the living room, with the option of second set of speakers in the family room. Any views on this set up? or For a bit more cash
I realise it's sort of £1K hardtail quality, but sounds decent for the money and like I can plug in my old CD player? Also run the TV through it?
I don't want to spend more than £500 really. Thoughts appreciated.

Depends on what system you have now. But both systems you linked are from good brand names that have a reputation for making good hifi equipment. So I don't think you can go far wrong with either system. The more expensive system has WiFi built in and from what I tell has the streaming services built in so you don't need your phone? but double check, I maybe wrong.

Also have a look at Cambridge Audio stuff. They make some great budget equipment and have embraced the streaming world and have a few products with wireless connectivity and steaming functionality.

Also if space is a concern have a look at the Denon DM*** mini hifi units. I've always been impressed with their sound from such small box. Sorry haven't kept up to date with the latest model numbers so cant recommend a particular model.

@boxelder The RN602 is a great bit of kit but doesn't have DAB built in like the lower priced 202 though you can of course connect a DAB player.Be aware that unless you are a Spotify etc premium subscriber you can only play Spotify on the amp via Bluetooth from a phone or other device which apparently isn't considered as good as "audiophile" quality as hard wired/Wifi in most cases. Bluetooth sounds perfectly fine to me.

Wouldn't worry too much about DAB, see if you can find something with Internet Radio client built in.

Am biased, but for that sort of cash I'd get this and a S/H pair of bookshelf speakers:

Naim UnitiQute2

Wowza is that all for a 2nd hand Naim UnitiQute2?

If budget can stretch a bit that would be a significant upgrade over the other stuff listed.

That UnitiQute looks interesting, but nervous of it being well used and without warranty.
Think I'll go for either Cambridge Audio or Denon DM41, along with some Monitor Audio Bronze speakers.
Thanks for the advice - as usual, this place is an excellent source of knowledge (I hope......)