What is the point of CD rips?

[MaxwellsEq]

I was reading an article in the guardian about the growing market for counterfeit records and vinyl. Article spoke about bootlegging and counterfeiting through the years and had this paragraph on CD. I didn’t know this:

“But the advent of the CD caused a much bigger problem: the new format proved to be so easy to duplicate and manufacture that counterfeit CDs of huge-selling albums amounted to a massive industry, with the involvement of organised crime. In 2001, in fact, two out of every five music recordings sold worldwide were reckoned to be illegal copies.”

Wow - that's something I wasn't aware of. I suppose it's not surprising. I only ever bought from legitimate high street stores, though. I wonder whether summer of the 2nd hand CDs on eBay and discogs are counterfeit.

 

[EJ3]

Because they offer different characteristics from streaming that many have found to be valuable.

Some people discovered that “convenience “ isn’t the last word in what they value.

Convenience has almost nothing to do with most stuff I do. If I pull the head(s) off of my vehicle to do a timing chain, I figure, now that I have the head(s) off, it's time to port the head(s) for better power, fuel economy & emissions than the factory had (unless it was a very expensive "high performance" vehicle.
A little extra time & effort for a much better than original result.
This is the way that I approach most things: If I can make it better, most likely: I will.

 

[Sal1950]

Because they offer different characteristics from streaming that many have found to be valuable.

Yep, surface noise, rice krispies, inner groove distortion, etc, etc, etc.
Not to mention a ridiculous cost of ownership for a third rate Hi Fi medium.

“But the advent of the CD caused a much bigger problem: the new format proved to be so easy to duplicate and manufacture that counterfeit CDs of huge-selling albums amounted to a massive industry, with the involvement of organised crime. In 2001, in fact, two out of every five music recordings sold worldwide were reckoned to be illegal copies.”

Much more prevalent outside of US. Truck-stop counterfeit were big here, but not that big.
In Europe and Asia they were huge.

 

[Mart68]

Counterfeit cassette tapes were common here until late 1990s, you could buy them down the market. Sold out of a suitcase. Videotapes, too.

I never saw any counterfeit CDs though. Wouldn't you need a machine to make them? They cost about £1 million a piece back then.

Plenty of copies on CD-R but they look obviously different to a CD.

 

[mhardy6647]

Sure is. Growing up I always thought of shellac as a type of varnish you used on woodwork.
Now I just did a Gaagle search and found out shellac is really bug crap!
Learning sumpin new every day.

Yup, more or less. And soluble in alcohol. Really interesting biomaterial.

 

[Doodski]

Sure is. Growing up I always thought of shellac as a type of varnish you used on woodwork.
Now I just did a Gaagle search and found out shellac is really bug crap!
Learning sumpin new every day.

LoL... The alcohol we drink is a microorganisms' excrement. Feed them sugar and they excrete alcohol for us to drink.

 

[EJ3]

Counterfeit cassette tapes were common here until late 1990s, you could buy them down the market. Sold out of a suitcase. Videotapes, too.

I never saw any counterfeit CDs though. Wouldn't you need a machine to make them? They cost about £1 million a piece back then.

Plenty of copies on CD-R but they look obviously different to a CD.

I have a machine (actually 2) to make them. One at a time. Sony Compact Disk Recorder (RCD-W500C/100). And also a new one still in the box.
Finding archival media to record onto is difficult, though.
It can duplicate a CD with restrictions-you may make only a single copy of a digitally recorded source (yep, a digital rights copy system), curtailing the ability to make mix CD's like the old mix tapes that you might have given to your significant other.
Or make a CD out of any incoming source.
Or just play 5 CD's in a carrousel type manner.

 

[Mart68]

I have a machine (actually 2) to make them. One at a time. Sony Compact Disk Recorder (RCD-W500C/100). And also a new one still in the box.
Finding archival media to record onto is difficult, though.
It can duplicate a CD with restrictions-you may make only a single copy of a digitally recorded source (yep, a digital rights copy system), curtailing the ability to make mix CD's like the old mix tapes that you might have given to your significant other.
Or make a CD out of any incoming source.
Or just play 5 CD's in a carrousel type manner.

I was talking about a machine that makes the discs - you put plastic in one end and CDs come out the other. Not the same as recordable CD.

 

[EJ3]

I was talking about a machine that makes the discs - you put plastic in one end and CDs come out the other. Not the same as recordable CD.

Well, that would be a lot more than I would have ever had a purpose for.
But I was mainly hoping that I could make "mix CD's" when I got it.
I will always make an analog CD, though, so I can/could (and did) do that.
And sometimes still do.
It's a great way to convert my old days in radio & family things to disk.
So, there is that.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

I was reading an article in the guardian about the growing market for counterfeit records and vinyl. Article spoke about bootlegging and counterfeiting through the years and had this paragraph on CD. I didn’t know this:

“But the advent of the CD caused a much bigger problem: the new format proved to be so easy to duplicate and manufacture that counterfeit CDs of huge-selling albums amounted to a massive industry, with the involvement of organised crime. In 2001, in fact, two out of every five music recordings sold worldwide were reckoned to be illegal copies.”

Not like cassette tapes weren't easy to duplicate, counterfeits overflowed at every swap meet or flea market when I was a kid.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

I recently put together a new [to me] dedicated stereo listening system and picked up an Oppo BDP-105D universal player as an integral component of my stereo setup for SACD, HDCD, DVD, BluRay, etc. audio (it also goes to my HT AVR via a HDMI fiber connection). I have found that I stream about 75% of the time and use the Oppo to play various disc formats the other 25% of the time. I have a diverse collection of discs that you won't find on a streaming service, but honestly the streaming service can cover most of your needs and more with Dolby Atmos mixes, higher resolution recordings, and other audio formats.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Not like cassette tapes weren't easy to duplicate, counterfeits overflowed at every swap meet or flea market when I was a kid.

Yup, cassette decks (and even boomboxes) with dual cassette transports were popular back in the day. I had a JVC cassette deck with that feature -- one transport was read-only and the other could read and record, either internally or from external input. I bought it because it cost only $15 more than a single-transport model.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Yup, cassette decks (and even boomboxes) with dual cassette transports were popular back in the day. I had a JVC cassette deck with that feature -- one transport was read-only and the other could read and record, either internally or from external input. I bought it because it cost only $15 more than a single-transport model.

The birth of "mix lists"

 

[pablolie]

I ripped my entire CD collection (about 4,000 of them) from 2005 to 2007, right after I acquired my first Slimdevices Squeezebox (which became Logitech and is now an amazing open source project). All my fav jazz and classical into FLACs, popular music into 320k CBR MP3s (back then the 256k VBR wasn't as good as it is now, so it was the "high end" MP3 format). When you put that much effort into that, backups are a major consideration. Back then it was making copies on a drive, and storing them elsewhere in a safe place. Now it's easy, with fast internet it's child's play to store in the cloud.

Right away, the convenience turned my CD player into the first DAC I owned. I never touched those CDs again. It was basically a home-hosted streaming private service.

Having my fav tracks on my own infrastructure also makes sure that (a) I keep supporting my fav artists, something that is important to me; and (b) that I don't lose access to those given the whimsical nature of streaming services' agreements with artists. I have observed tracks being grayed out of my online playlists often enough. And even in the tech-crazy Silicon Valley area, internet outages do happen from time to time... and to not have access to my music is unimaginable.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

What's the easiest to use CD ripper (preferably free ) ?

 

[pablolie]

What's the easiest to use CD ripper (preferably free ) ?

Personally I use dbPoweramp, but even Windows has a free ripper built into it, and many free music apps do too.

I wouldn't worry much about the bit conversion part these days, the key is to have access to the latest and greatest repositories of album information as to avoid having to enter it all manually (which back in the early Y2K years was the rule, thank us early adopters for the work we did back then :-D).

The other aspect is album art. Many CD covers have nearly unreadable album art, but scanning it at high quality into a PDF is awesome - you can then look at it on a tablet while you're listening to an album. it's a very important aspect to me, even though it is quite work intensive, especially with the 8+ pages of CD album art you often get.

 

[Sal1950]

Right away, the convenience turned my CD player into the first DAC I owned. I never touched those CDs again. It was basically a home-hosted streaming private service.

Yep, same thing happened here and to oh so many of us.
The ultimate convenience and security of the home based computer audio server is a close as you can get to the perfect
solution IMHO.

When you put that much effort into that, backups are a major consideration. Back then it was making copies on a drive, and storing them elsewhere in a safe place. Now it's easy, with fast internet it's child's play to store in the cloud.

Totally agree with the exception of a Cloud based backup, personally I just don't trust it not to disappear on the day I really need it. Your call on that.

What's the easiest to use CD ripper (preferably free ) ?

I'm a Linux desktop guy for decades now and have always found "k3b" to be the best ripping option available.
If you run Linux.

 

[pablolie]

Totally agree with the exception of a Cloud based backup, personally I just don't trust it not to disappear on the day I really need it. Your call on that.

Their liability is quite high if you read the SLA in some services. It may take them time to restore stuff, but they do have the availability zones and such and backups galore. If something happens to all of that, we'd probably have bigger catastrophic events to worry about...

(and I'd still have a secretly buried drive in a remote area)

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I have a stack of DVD drives that I can put into any desktop PeeCee with a suitable slot and a spare SATA connector. I've tried several CD ripping applications and found the results from any of several simple freeware packages just as good as the fancy ones that give you a detailed summary of the rip. So far, every one of the hundreds of rips I've done has been perfect AFAICT.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

What's the easiest to use CD ripper (preferably free ) ?

It's not necessarily the easiest to originally setup, but once you've used it a couple of times, Exact Audio Copy (EAC), is brilliant for Windows.