Ripping CD collection

[Gorgonzola]

Well, just buy this computer for lots of money, bro.
Yes, you need another streamer too, bro.
Give us monthly money too, bro.
A, well, you have to buy CDs or rent streaming as well, bro.
Sorry bro, we are experiencing technical difficulties with Quobuz.
Sorry bro, not Roon certified.
Of course we support Linux bro, but we don't support THAT Linux.
Wontfix bro, no usecase.
Wontfix bro, expected behaviour.

I feel that ripping and playing my own CDs is where it's at.

I hear ya, bro.

Apart from deficiencies of catalogue and searchability in case of Classical music, it's the relentless push to pay a monthly fee that I detest and wish to avoid.

I have my own collection the is comprised of 2-3k discs, (haven't counted them recently), all ripped & meticulously corrected for metadata, so it is trivial for me to locate whatever I want using my Foobar2000 interface.

Most of my listening is "serious" listening, and that type of listening is to my own collection. Sometimes I listen casually, say while I'm reading book; in that case I recommend CBC Music Playlists. CBC has huge number of preprogrammed playlists in many genres -- including 34 in the Classical genre alone.

I don't have much use for streaming devices. I set up I a Raspberry 4 system almost a ago and tried it with piCorePlayer and Volumio -- I don't use it. They had over no advantages at all vs. using my dedicated music computer and Foobar2000.

 

[threni]

Wow... uhm... no.
It pays to go to www.stevehoffman.tv and figure out which mastering of any recording is the best and then find it and actually buy it.
Never ever "just download", you'll never know what you're going to get. It's like "hey, I want a car", then throwing out some money and wait to see what shows up.

The best to can hope for at the Hoffman site is that someone else's opinion happens to coincide with your own.

 

[EB1000]

Wow... uhm... no.
It pays to go to www.stevehoffman.tv and figure out which mastering of any recording is the best and then find it and actually buy it.
Never ever "just download", you'll never know what you're going to get. It's like "hey, I want a car", then throwing out some money and wait to see what shows up.

I'm unable to tell the difference between Spotify 360kbps and Qobus HD, why would I car about the mastering of the CD? I download most of my music from Deezer servers in FLAC format. The service does not specify the album's mastering or edition.

 

[TheBatsEar]

I'm unable to tell the difference between Spotify 360kbps and Qobus HD, why would I car about the mastering of the CD?

Because the engineers of mp3 tried to let it sound just like CD, they did every trick they could imagine to fool us.

The differences in mastering are often obvious, even for tin ears such as those i seem to have.

I download most of my music from Deezer servers in FLAC format. The service does not specify the album's mastering or edition.

No need to worried then, if there is no problem, why invent one.

 

[freemansteve]

Having ripped thousands of CDs I'd say that it's worth having a couple of different optical drives. Some drives have trouble reading SACD/CD hybrid discs, some can read a scratched disc better than another drive etc.

Definitely true, and I've often ripped a 'difficult' CD on a utterly cheap'n'nasty no-brand USB/CD drive where a flashy branded CD player, or an expensive PC drive wouldn't read it at all!

 

[Andretti60]

I've seen some threads where people save the CD's to FLAC and donate there CD collection to the library. If you do that I'll take them gladly ! I couldn't give my LP collection away, and they were in just the same shape as my CD collection(not one fingerprint !)

Actually that will be illegal, at least in USA. When you buy a CD (or a vinyl) you buy the license to use it (for personal, non profit mode), you can make a copy for personal use only, but when you donate or sell the CD, you don’t own anymore the license to listen to it, therefore you should delete the copy. It is the same reason you cannot rip a CD that is borrowed from a library.

 

[freemansteve]

I ripped several thousand CDs to FLAC many years ago using EAC. I’ve used MP3TAG over the years to manage tags. I now use JRiver when I need to rip a CD. I used to snag album cover images from Amazon, now I use AlbumArtExchange.

I like MP3Tag, it is arguably the best tag tool. One neat way to get high quality album art from within MP3Tag is to use this:
(A simple script (given) in MP3Tag Tools section is all you need)

How to use AlbumArtDownloader in Tools for Cover Art

AlbumArtDownloader is arguably one of the best free album cover art downloaders around. It effortlessly searches a large number of cover art sources with standalone scripts that are constantly updated. And it presents all the found art with previews, sizes, etc. Download and install...

community.mp3tag.de

 

[TheBatsEar]

Actually that will be illegal, at least in USA. When you buy a CD (or a vinyl) you buy the license to use it (for personal, non profit mode), you can make a copy for personal use only, but when you donate or sell the CD, you don’t own anymore the license to listen to it, therefore you should delete the copy. It is the same reason you cannot rip a CD that is borrowed from a library.

The 90ies called, they want their RIAA lobbyists back.


Apropos RIAA and their European counterpart:

Towards the government: stop fucking around with small time pirates, instead break up the large streaming Megacorps that strip mine our culture for unending profit.

Also, reduction of copyright to lifetime of the author, or 25 years if it's a company. Free Mickey Mouse!

This is now a revolutionary thread!

 

[dadregga]

I've recently switched to CUERipper instead of EAC and like it.

CUERipper -> Musicbrainz Picard to tag and write to my NAS share -> Roon (running a Roon server instance on my home server) -> Multi-zone playback from any device to any DAC in the house.

 

[Apesbrain]

I've recently switched to CUERipper instead of EAC and like it.

CUETools is useful as well. Has the ability to "repair" minor ripping errors. Has come in handy a few times.

CUETools Database - CUETools

cue.tools

 

[Anonamemouse]

I like MP3Tag, it is arguably the best tag tool. One neat way to get high quality album art from within MP3Tag is to use this:
(A simple script (given) in MP3Tag Tools section is all you need)

How to use AlbumArtDownloader in Tools for Cover Art

AlbumArtDownloader is arguably one of the best free album cover art downloaders around. It effortlessly searches a large number of cover art sources with standalone scripts that are constantly updated. And it presents all the found art with previews, sizes, etc. Download and install...

community.mp3tag.de

Or just create an account at https://www.albumartexchange.com/

 

[Robin L]

I guess I've got around 1600 CDs worth of music ripped from my CDs. Very simple procedure---rip to I-Tunes as Apple Lossless files. On the computer, I-Tunes controls playback. For my DAP, the files in I-Tunes are copied in folders in the Micro SD for the DAP, folders titled after the name of the CD being copied. Metadata is transferred over in both containers. Apple Lossless is as good as I can hear right now, and I suspect it's as good as any sane person can hear.

 

[clearnfc]

With the exception of very rare CDs not available on any streaming services, ripping a CD is a total waste of time. Just download a lossless digital copy (many streaming services allow it via unofficial 3rd party apps, usually found on GitHub).

Not really. Sometimes the master is different. Sometimes, the streaming copy has been edited which kills the dymanic range.

 

[TheBatsEar]

Apple Lossless is as good as I can hear right now, and I suspect it's as good as any sane person can hear.

What?

Isn't that what lossless means, no losses at all?

 

[somebodyelse]

View attachment 194559
What?

Isn't that what lossless means, no losses at all?

Have you missed the recent attempts at creative redefinition?
https://www.mqa.co.uk/newsroom/faqs/is-mqa-lossless
LDAC and AptX Lossless - they might be lossless if the conditions are just right, but will often be lossy.

 

[dadregga]

Not really. Sometimes the master is different. Sometimes, the streaming copy has been edited which kills the dymanic range.

Yep. Seconded, and this is why I rip and tag the exact release down to the barcode and label code.

Most streaming services only offer the most recent major-label (re)masterings, and that's it. I don't always want that. Also, when new masterings of a particular album come out, older ones are usually delisted - whether or not they're better.

(Also, basically no streaming services offer multichannel - another reason I buy and rip digital discs)

No streaming service can give me everything I want, as specifically catalogued and organized as I want it - so I use Roon, serve my own streaming library, and supplement that personal library with Qobuz via Roon's "unified music library", which is frankly ideal for me.


For all the rather pointless talk about whether you can hear the difference between formats, I feel people forget that you absolutely can very easily hear the differences between masterings, remasterings, etc, and that having access to those is far more important than what format your digital files are in, or what medium they come on, or what service delivers them, or how you ripped them, because the mastering has a huge impact on what you hear.

If it's a crappy mastering job, it doesn't matter if it's delivered in 192/24 - it's going to sound worse to you than the old 44/16 release with the mastering you liked. Full stop.

Masterings matter. Formats and delivery mechanisms do not, comparatively speaking. Streaming services give you zero choices around what mastering you get.

 

[Andretti60]

For all the rather pointless talk about whether you can hear the difference between formats, I feel people forget that you absolutely can very easily hear the differences between masterings, remasterings, etc, and that having access to those is far more important than what format your digital files are in, or what medium they come on, or what service delivers them, or how you ripped them, because the mastering has a huge impact on what you hear.

I second that. Thanks for sharing that thoughts, I couldn't have been more clear.

I often buy "anniversary edition" CD of albums I used to own in vinyl, if they have also the original version (plus point if they have extra like out takes). Not every time the "remastered" version is better. It is just a "different" version, that for sure sounded good to the ears of the person who did the job. Sometimes it is better just from the point of view of the audio quality.
This is just an example:

King Crimson, Red 40th Anniversary, 2009

This 40th Anniversary edition on CD/DVD-A features new stereo & 5.1 mixes by Robert Fripp and Steven Wilson plus high resolution stereo mixes of the original, extensive additional audio material and r...

dgmlive.com

 

[Cadguy]

I have about 1000 CDs, 800 are classical the rest are jazz, rock and pop. How many hours will it take me to rip all of them, tag them and find metadata for them? How many boxes will I have to buy to get my music to my preamp?

 

[Robin L]

I have about 1000 CDs, 800 are classical the rest are jazz, rock and pop. How many hours will it take me to rip all of them, tag them and find metadata for them? How many boxes will I have to buy to get my music to my preamp?

I-Tunes is freeware. It's good for me. Of course, I've been using it for a very long time, so I'm used to the format. In any case, there's rip, tag and metadata in one fell swoop. I import to Apple lossless, about half the file size, no loss of fidelity. Box one will be something for a ripping device. I've been using a Samsung DVD reader/writer for a decade for rips. Set me back about $30. Got a laptop recently, would have had one anyway, but that would be box two. Not necessarily in the form of a box, but you will need something to store the ripped files. Have a flash drive intended to stay on the laptop, 512 gb for about $90. With these three boxes it's possible to get a signal---my ACER Aspire 5 has a 35mm trs jack that sounds subpar---but I gild the lily with the Topping E/L 30 combo. They go for around $300 the pair right now. The extra stuff [assuming you already have a computer] is about $420, skip the DAC and headphone amp, it's around $120, if you already have mass storage then all you really need is something to rip the discs.

It takes something like 10 minutes a disc for me to rip a CD, however with I-Tunes it's pretty much a no-brainer, so I can rip in the background while otherwise futzing with the computer. I've ripped about 1600 CDs to Apple Lossless files, a few are MP3s, fewer are FLAC

 

[clearnfc]

I have about 1000 CDs, 800 are classical the rest are jazz, rock and pop. How many hours will it take me to rip all of them, tag them and find metadata for them? How many boxes will I have to buy to get my music to my preamp?

1000 CDs!!! Wow!! I have to say, please be patient! You can rip around 5-10 a day for a start (each disc takes 15mins if you RIP at 4x speed). Could finish in 2-3months (with breaks in between).