What is the point of CD rips?

[axellieb]

Lost my entire rip collection a few weeks back. Not an enormous collection but probably about 200 CDs. The SD card they were stored on couldn't be rescued and I had no back-up.

Yeah.

Have been playing around with Tidal since then and so far, it seems to suit me just fine. Albums that I can't find on there are very few. Maybe 5% of my collection.

So, my question is: is there even a point in re-ripping my collection that I'm missing? I can't think of one. I mean apart from the few CDs I can't find on Tidal. And indeed, what is even the point of buying CDs at this point, again apart from the rare cases that aren't on Tidal and the like?

 

[artburda]

Lost my entire rip collection a few weeks back. Not an enormous collection but probably about 200 CDs. The SD card they were stored on couldn't be rescued and I had no back-up. Yeah.

Have been playing around with Tidal since then and so far, it seems to suit me just fine. Albums that I can't find on there are very few. Maybe 5% of my collection.

So, my question is: is there even a point in re-ripping my collection that I'm missing? I can't think of one. I mean apart from the few CDs I can't find on Tidal. And indeed, what is even the point of buying CDs at this point, again apart from the rare cases that aren't on Tidal and the like?

Maybe you have different masterings of the albums on CD, which you may or may not like better than the ones available on tidal. Most streaming services have only the latest (re)masters available.

 

[Doodski]

Lost my entire rip collection a few weeks back. Not an enormous collection but probably about 200 CDs. The SD card they were stored on couldn't be rescued and I had no back-up.

Yeah.

Have been playing around with Tidal since then and so far, it seems to suit me just fine. Albums that I can't find on there are very few. Maybe 5% of my collection.

So, my question is: is there even a point in re-ripping my collection that I'm missing? I can't think of one. I mean apart from the few CDs I can't find on Tidal. And indeed, what is even the point of buying CDs at this point, again apart from the rare cases that aren't on Tidal and the like?

I lost ~34 K songs to a catastrophic event. I saw it and did go streaming and no more downloading and ripping. I never looked back.

 

[Kegemusha]

Same here, CD quality stream is fine for me too, but I do have CD player.

 

[Brian Hall]

The point of buying and ripping CDs is have a copy in case the album is removed from the streaming services and to give a bit of money to the groups you like (if buying new, not used).

The reason for ripping CDs is to have them on a local server accessible from your devices to stream locally whenever you want without having to find the physical CD and put it in a drive. Also to be able to copy them to your phone or DAP to make sure you have your music available with you. I keep about 40GB of my ripped CDs on my phone and also have my full collection on a DAP.

To have several backup copies in case one fails as you mentioned.

Internet outages do happen every now and then. At least in my area.

 

[Doodski]

The point of buying and ripping CDs is have a copy in case the album is removed from the streaming services

^^^THIS.
Major issue I find. Stuff gets deleted and moved to some other source.

 

[StigErik]

Multiple backups is a good idea .. I have my ~75k tracks backed up on several disks stored off-site, and in the cloud as well.

My main reason for keeping the ripped CDs is that I have full control over which mastering I'm listening to. A lot of the older stuff (>20 years) has been remastered dozens of times, making it sound worse for every remaster. Classical music is also kind of a nightmare on streaming services, especially finding the right recording when there are hundreds of Beethovens 5th symphony out there, not to mention that many of the records I like can't be found on streaming.

 

[Exaybachay]

Same here, CD quality stream is fine for me too, but I do have CD player.

CD quality streams, often of the worst sounding releases / remasters available.

 

[JSmith]

what is even the point of buying CDs

So you own the album and no one can take it off you, you own it... unless the disc gets damaged or disc rot, hence the ripping/backup part.

I encourage more people to buy CD's, as many will end up lost to time.


JSmith

 

[Doodski]

Multiple backups is a good idea .. I have my ~75k tracks backed up on several disks stored off-site, and in the cloud as well.

I was expensing ~ $7+ per month for a off site auto backup with intervals of 3x per day. Very reasonable for sure. I realized though after the data loss that all the expense and physical effort was better used by streaming. Yes, some tunes go missing and appear elsewhere.

 

[Doodski]

CD quality streams, often of the worst sounding releases / remasters available.

Like Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland.

 

[axellieb]

The point of buying and ripping CDs is have a copy in case the album is removed from the streaming services and to give a bit of money to the groups you like (if buying new, not used).

The reason for ripping CDs is to have them on a local server accessible from your devices to stream locally whenever you want without having to find the physical CD and put it in a drive. Also to be able to copy them to your phone or DAP to make sure you have your music available with you. I keep about 40GB of my ripped CDs on my phone and also have my full collection on a DAP.

To have several backup copies in case one fails as you mentioned.

Internet outages do happen every now and then. At least in my area.

Thanks. All of those points seem moot to me.

- If an album is ever removed from Tidal, THEN buying the CD seems to make sense.
- Your second point ... I mean, yeah, obviously. But Tidal does the same thing.
- Again, my whole point is: what do I need a back-up for when almost everything is on Tidal? Even if Tidal were to shut down, I could just save my play lists and transfer them to another, similar service. (This scenario is still the strongest argument for CDs in my mind but it's not a very strong one).
- I can also download albums from Tidal to listen to them when on the move
- Never had an Internet outage where I live and my mobile phone plan has no data limit

 

[MCH]

Life changes, you might decide, or need, to cut subscriptions, or you might live in a place with poor connectivity. You still have your rips of your favourite music. I would not go through the work of doing it again, but I would never delete them.
For older people subscriptions are undoubtedly what makes sense from an economic point of view, for a young guy.... not so sure, depends on how much music he/she listens to.

 

[StigErik]

So you own the album and no one can take it off you, you own it... unless the disc gets damaged or disc rot, hence the ripping/backup part.

I encourage more people to buy CD's, as many will end up lost to time.


JSmith

That is also a good point. If you buy it, you own it forever and can play it any time you like. I also buy movies on Blu-ray for the same reason.

 

[axellieb]

^^^THIS.
Major issue I find. Stuff gets deleted and moved to some other source.

I have yet to experience this but then.... this will happen only in rare cases, no? At that point, buying a CD seems to make sense, But why spend the money and the time on ripping pre-emptively?

 

[Doodski]

Even if Tidal were to shut down, I could just save my play lists and transfer them to another, similar service. (This scenario is still the strongest argument for CDs in my mind but it's not a very strong one).

really? WoWzerZs. Major goodness there. Can I transfer my YouTube list?

 

[axellieb]

Multiple backups is a good idea .. I have my ~75k tracks backed up on several disks stored off-site, and in the cloud as well.

My main reason for keeping the ripped CDs is that I have full control over which mastering I'm listening to. A lot of the older stuff (>20 years) has been remastered dozens of times, making it sound worse for every remaster. Classical music is also kind of a nightmare on streaming services, especially finding the right recording when there are hundreds of Beethovens 5th symphony out there, not to mention that many of the records I like can't be found on streaming.

Some good points, especially about classical music. Thanks.

 

[Brian Hall]

Thanks. All of those points seem moot to me.

- If an album is ever removed from Tidal, THEN buying the CD seems to make sense.
- Your second point ... I mean, yeah, obviously. But Tidal does the same thing.
- Again, my whole point is: what do I need a back-up for when almost everything is on Tidal? Even if Tidal were to shut down, I could just save my play lists and transfer them to another, similar service. (This scenario is still the strongest argument for CDs in my mind but it's not a very strong one).
- I can also download albums from Tidal to listen to them when on the move
- Never had an Internet outage where I live and my mobile phone plan has no data limit

Were you never in Boy Scouts? Their motto still makes sense: "Be Prepared".

 

[axellieb]

really? WoWzerZs. Major goodness there. Can I transfer my YouTube list?

Yes, I think so.

 

[MAB]

Because those CD's from back in the day often sound better than the streaming versions. The simple reason is many streamed versions of songs are often victims of the loudness war,

See @Jean.Francois reviews of different versions of songs. For instance Thriller:

Review of the Michael Jackson's album Thriller between 21 versions including Vinyls, CDs, cassettes, SACD, Streaming, MOFI releases, 360RA

Hello, After a first review of the special 40th anniversary editions, it took me some time to realize the review of the Thriller album with 21 versions including Vinyl, CD, cassette, SACD including the new versions produced by MOFI from the analog master tape recorded in DSD256. Thriller is...

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