What is the point of CD rips?

[axellieb]

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

Haha, no, never was. And indeed, some of the arguments shared here strike me as of the survivalist sort. Not my thing. But of course, to each their own.

 

[Doodski]

Alrighty. I have to meet my very old Chinese neighbor at 12pm and try to get her Sony Smart TV and Shaw Cable ISP Chinese channels in proper order... Gotta go to bedski. Laterz Crazy people! Laterssss. LoL...

Haha, no, never was. And indeed, some of the arguments shared here strike me as of the survivalist sort. Not my thing. But of course, to each their own.

I have the Queens Scout Award. I don't know what the USA version is but it's pretty intense to get that. Very difficult it was.

 

[StigErik]

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

I do agree. If the entire Internet were to be shut down forever in the near future, I would not be surprised, but I am prepared for it.

 

[axellieb]

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...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I have done a listening comparison of a few vinyl rips from a certain well-known archive vs the versions on Tidal recently. My conclusion was: any difference in quality is marginal to my ears. I was never a very serious audiophile though. You may well be right. I'll keep comparing from time to time.

 

[Golf]

What is the point of CD rips?

It may teach you quite nicely to always keep a backup

 

[Brian Hall]

Haha, no, never was. And indeed, some of the arguments shared here strike me as of the survivalist sort. Not my thing. But of course, to each their own.

Not survivalist. Just what used to be common sense (and should still be). Natural disasters can and do happen all over the world. Different kinds depending on where you live. It just makes sense to be prepared for whatever might happen. Severe storms (tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, freezing rain, heavy snow), earthquakes, etc. can and do take out power and/or internet for periods of time.

Cell towers usually have solar or battery backup. Great for relatively short periods of time. Not great for bigger disasters.

 

[MAB]

I have done a listening comparison of a few vinyl rips from a certain well-known archive vs the versions on Tidal recently. My conclusion was: any difference in quality is marginal to my ears. I was never a very serious audiophile though. You may well be right. I'll keep comparing from time to time.

Read the many posts by Jean-François. Some of the tracks that are streamed, and many of the remasters are quite alarmingly altered.
I have convinced myself blind I can hear the difference. I gave the test to a couple people and they can too.

Perhaps I will set up a level-matched test to do a blind study on.

 

[axellieb]

Read the many posts by Jean-François. Some of the tracks that are streamed, and many of the remasters are quite alarmingly altered.
I have convinced myself blind I can hear the difference. I gave the test to a couple people and they can too.

Perhaps I will set up a level-matched test to do a blind study on.

I can see this for older stuff, especially. Like I said, I'll keep comparing but a first, casual comparison of a handful of albums (mostly from 2000 onward) didn't convince me.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

To manage my financial outgoings, I subscribe to as few services as possible. I. Don't pay for streaming. I put up with lower quality and adverts as a result.

BUT without paying a single cent per month, I can listen to thousands of tracks from my existing LP and CD collection built up over decades.

 

[AdrianusG]

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

Exactly that, you own it!,

But of course you should always have back-ups, in my case 2 , for 3 HDdiscs to fail/get damaged within the same day or week chances are astronomically small, still if 1 fails I buy a new one next day and copy everything again.

 

[OldHvyMec]

I started with records and reel to reel and I still have most of the media. Then the Cassette, and CDs. I don't get rid of what I paid
for any more than I rebuy what I already have. What makes NO sense to me, is to NOT own a physical copy of what you did buy.
My kids, kids will be able to listen to what their grandpa, grandma, mother and father did. They don't have to wonder what we
listened to, they can play the 78, 33s and 45s we did.

Streaming might be all things good but you still don't have a copy or better yet, a better rendition or copy from the same artest.

I own it, it's mine and a magnetic hard drive is NOT a backup. You ALWAYS backup a hard drive, it has never ever been considered
a backup even with RAID 1-10. You can restore a failed drive but you should always have a second drive, tape, or CD backup at least.
I'm pretty sure all my music is backed up two and in some cases 3 or 4 times. If you don't have the original, It shouldn't be on a hard
drive to begin with. How did you get the copies on the drive and where did the copies come from, is my question?

If my suspensions are correct you didn't have the right to have the hard drive with the music you had on it, in the first place. Without
originals you have proven one thing. They weren't yours to have.

Streaming is convenient, it NEVER made the copies people have legal though. I legally own the archives I have. Neil Diamond is watching
remember that. LOL

Regards

 

[JSmith]

If my suspensions are correct you didn't have the right to have the hard drive with the music you had on it, in the first place. Without
originals you have proven one thing. They weren't yours to have.

OP asked should he/she re-rip all the CD's... that says to me the OP has the physical discs.

Audio CD's can be backed up for personal use if one owns the original (format shifting)... different story for disc based licensed video media. As long as one doesn't distribute, usually all is fine there too.

Streaming is Big Corp's way of owning everyone for subscription payments on the basis of convenience, with little aside for the actual artists.


JSmith

 

[Overseas]

Or we can buy cds to annoy the vinyl guys, that cannot understand why we buy cds.

 

[Kegemusha]

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

Sometimes there are remastered newer versions, so not sure what they have.
For listening while I working or while we have freinds, cooking, etc, is all ok, even 320kBs, but when I want to really listen quietly, then I put the CD or the good FLACS I have.

 

[recycle]

If you don't have the physical medium or the file on your HDD you don't own the music: you're just borrowing it under the (unacceptable) conditions decided by the distributor. For this reason, when I like a song or an album and plan to listen to it several times, it is essential for me to buy the physical or file format.

 

[Roland68]

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 can only recommend backing up data that you don't want to lose or are not allowed to lose.
- on at least 3 different physical media, in addition to the working medium
- Only use mechanically well-protected media, no memory cards
- Replace media before it reaches MTBF or EOL
- All other additional storage types only serve as additional security

When storing your backup media, you should also consider the various additional possibilities of loss. Burglary/theft/robbery, water damage, fire damage, environmental disasters, human error, human arbitrariness, etc.

There is no absolute certainty, only an approximation.
If you think such an effort is too great, the data is not important enough.
Please take into account both the effort and time involved in creating and re-procuring the data.

 

[Exaybachay]

Sometimes there are remastered newer versions, so not sure what they have.
For listening while I working or while we have freinds, cooking, etc, is all ok, even 320kBs, but when I want to really listen quietly, then I put the CD or the good FLACS I have.

The remastered newer versions are usually the biggest concern. I mostly look for the first or early releases of CDs. Remasters are a downgrade quality-wise in most cases.

 

[TonyJZX]

this entire thread is basicallly...

"I didnt do backups and so thru 100% fault of my own, I lost a whole bunch of data that I could get back but it requires a lot of arduous manual labor"

that's it

:-/

 

[axellieb]

I started with records and reel to reel and I still have most of the media. Then the Cassette, and CDs. I don't get rid of what I paid
for any more than I rebuy what I already have. What makes NO sense to me, is to NOT own a physical copy of what you did buy.
My kids, kids will be able to listen to what their grandpa, grandma, mother and father did. They don't have to wonder what we
listened to, they can play the 78, 33s and 45s we did.

Streaming might be all things good but you still don't have a copy or better yet, a better rendition or copy from the same artest.

I own it, it's mine and a magnetic hard drive is NOT a backup. You ALWAYS backup a hard drive, it has never ever been considered
a backup even with RAID 1-10. You can restore a failed drive but you should always have a second drive, tape, or CD backup at least.
I'm pretty sure all my music is backed up two and in some cases 3 or 4 times. If you don't have the original, It shouldn't be on a hard
drive to begin with. How did you get the copies on the drive and where did the copies come from, is my question?

If my suspensions are correct you didn't have the right to have the hard drive with the music you had on it, in the first place. Without
originals you have proven one thing. They weren't yours to have.

Streaming is convenient, it NEVER made the copies people have legal though. I legally own the archives I have. Neil Diamond is watching
remember that. LOL

Regards

Your "suspensions" are incorrect. You don't seem to have read me very well.

 

[axellieb]

Appreciate everyone's input.

One comment back to the several that talk about "ownership" of the CDs vs borrowing or renting the content from services like Tidal.
What you own is the physical CD, not the music that's on it. If you owned the music itself you would have the right to copy and sell it however many times you liked. But in fact, you only have the right to sell that one CD.

In a way, the CD is a different form of rental. You rent the music for the time you own the CD. The difference between that and renting from Tidal is one of degrees. The CD is more expensive, and so you obtain greater usage rights. That's only fair.

Tidal is a library where you can borrow with greater restrictions.

I'd say both bookstores and libraries have their place.