What is the point of CD rips?

[Bruce Morgen]

Many of them are in my basement.

I have a stack of 5-6 spare SATA DVD drives "in stock" so, in case the one in that old HP tower fails, I can simply swap in another drive and keep ripping.

 

[Overseas]

A good argument, though a fringe one.

And as I've pointed out, you can also download a bunch of albums or playlists from Tidal and listen to them offline.

Download in the phone app.
Then what, if you have a separate streamer?!

 

[Dialectic]

Physical CDs for sale, seen today at a newly opened Barnes & Noble outside NYC.

 

[coonmanx]

View attachment 359691

Physical CDs for sale, seen today at a newly opened Barnes & Noble outside NYC.

There is a guy locally who sells used vinyl and CDs. I have traded in a few of my old ones to him. But frankly, it's a bit easier to buy my CDs off of Ebay. Then I can get exactly what I want and it shows up to my mailbox. Usually at a very good price.

 

[Dialectic]

There is a guy locally who sells used vinyl and CDs. I have traded in a few of my old ones to him. But frankly, it's a bit easier to buy my CDs off of Ebay. Then I can get exactly what I want and it shows up to my mailbox. Usually at a very good price.

Yep, I also buy them used on Amazon and eBay now. I cannot find anything I want and do not already have at Academy Records & CDs, which is the only decent place to buy them left in the NYC area.

 

[recycle]

Regarding buying music today: The 96/24 and DSD flac catalog is now quite well stocked and thinking of spending my money on an outdated 44/16 format makes no sense. It's true: some more underground albums are not released in hi-res and it is obvious that I am forced to buy this music in standard flac or on vinyl (sometimes when buying vinyl, the flac download is included in the price)
Speaking of percentages, my spending budget for music is currently 90% hi-res files, 9% vinyl (used & new), 1% used CD
In short, when I have a choice, I find it much more logical to buy vinyl instead of CDs as a physical media

 

[EJ3]

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?

Because you may not be able to find the mastering that you prefer.
In my case a lot of storied audio gear travels with me.
(& I tend to to places that don't get a cellphone signal)

 

[MAB]

Regarding buying music today: The 96/24 and DSD flac catalog is now quite well stocked and thinking of spending my money on an outdated 44/16 format makes no sense. It's true: some more underground albums are not released in hi-res and it is obvious that I am forced to buy this music in standard flac or on vinyl (sometimes when buying vinyl, the flac download is included in the price)
Speaking of percentages, my spending budget for music is currently 90% hi-res files, 9% vinyl (used & new), 1% used CD
In short, when I have a choice, I find it much more logical to buy vinyl instead of CDs as a physical media

What if the 96/24 version is brickwalled, and a properly mastered copy (i.e. not a victim of loudness war) is available on CD?
In many cases, every version of the 96/24 copy is brickwalled and the only copy that doesn't derate the dynamic range is an old CD.
What do you perceive is the benefit of super high sampling frequency and depth?

 

[restorer-john]

Regarding buying music today: The 96/24 and DSD flac catalog is now quite well stocked and thinking of spending my money on an outdated 44/16 format makes no sense. It's true: some more underground albums are not released in hi-res and it is obvious that I am forced to buy this music in standard flac or on vinyl (sometimes when buying vinyl, the flac download is included in the price)
Speaking of percentages, my spending budget for music is currently 90% hi-res files, 9% vinyl (used & new), 1% used CD
In short, when I have a choice, I find it much more logical to buy vinyl instead of CDs as a physical media

If that works for you, then that's great.

To me, it seems probably the most illogical way to go I've ever heard.

Everybody is different.

 

[axellieb]

Regarding buying music today: The 96/24 and DSD flac catalog is now quite well stocked and thinking of spending my money on an outdated 44/16 format makes no sense. It's true: some more underground albums are not released in hi-res and it is obvious that I am forced to buy this music in standard flac or on vinyl (sometimes when buying vinyl, the flac download is included in the price)
Speaking of percentages, my spending budget for music is currently 90% hi-res files, 9% vinyl (used & new), 1% used CD
In short, when I have a choice, I find it much more logical to buy vinyl instead of CDs as a physical media

What are your preferred sources for those 96/24 and DSD flac files?
And you prefer vinyl because typically, the audio is less juiced up than on CD?

 

[recycle]

... In many cases, every version of the 96/24 copy is brickwalled...

Yes, it happens that sometimes in reissues those MF do irreparable damage with the compressors/limiters in the search for loudness, but it's not the norm: many reissues from the past sound as they should.
Regarding hi-res files: I have no desire now to hold a seminar on why they sound better compared to CD, just google for it. It's obvious that if you listen to music from a smartphone you won't notice this difference as you won't even notice the difference between a CD and a 128k mp3: the real truth comes out on an important sound system. A second reason why I use hi-res files is for professional reasons: when processing audio files with plugins, it is inevitable to generate a certain amount of aliasing, also add that the result will have to be converted into lossy format: a lot of the original signal will be lost along the way. For this reason it is crucial to have the best possible source.

 

[MAB]

A second reason why I use hi-res files is for professional reasons: when processing audio files with plugins, it is inevitable to generate a certain amount of aliasing, also add that the result will have to be converted into lossy format: a lot of the original signal will be lost along the way.

Agree, this is a good point.

Regarding hi-res files: I have no desire now to hold a seminar on why they sound better compared to CD, just google for it.

We both share a desire for you to not hold that seminar!

 

[recycle]

What are your preferred sources for those 96/24 and DSD flac files?
And you prefer vinyl because typically, the audio is less juiced up than on CD?

I buy used vinyl for sentimental reasons: I love records. My only purchases of new music on vinyl are on Bandcamp: there are a lot of great underground artists in there and I'm happy to support them. The bonus of buying vinyl on Bandcamp is also having the flac files download included

Here’s a couple of websites to download files:

https://www.hdtracks.com/
Great library, all Flac formats up to 192/24

https://www.nativedsd.com/
Any type of DSD 64/128/256/512, Full DSD. They do sell Dolby Atmos also

 

[Chrispy]

For me rips are to make that content readily available in a variety of ways in various systems without carrying the disc to each system let alone mobile use; while each one does have a disc player, don't have my Discman anymore . The disc players are usually more used for harder to rip discs like dvd, sacd, bluray).

 

[axellieb]

I buy used vinyl for sentimental reasons: I love records. My only purchases of new music on vinyl are on Bandcamp: there are a lot of great underground artists in there and I'm happy to support them. The bonus of buying vinyl on Bandcamp is also having the flac files download included

Here’s a couple of websites to download files:

https://www.hdtracks.com/
Great library, all Flac formats up to 192/24

https://www.nativedsd.com/
Any type of DSD 64/128/256/512, Full DSD. They do sell Dolby Atmos also

Great, thank you!

 

[Bruce Morgen]

There is a guy locally who sells used vinyl and CDs. I have traded in a few of my old ones to him. But frankly, it's a bit easier to buy my CDs off of Ebay. Then I can get exactly what I want and it shows up to my mailbox. Usually at a very good price.

Yup -- that's my go-to source for discontinued (or otherwise hard-to-find) CDs at sensible prices. I've never received a single disc purchased via eBay that didn't rip flawlessly.

 

[Chrispy]

Yup -- that's my go-to source for discontinued (or otherwise hard-to-find) CDs at sensible prices. I've never received a single disc purchased via eBay that didn't rip flawlessly.

Still a great way to collect music, lots of discs out there altho some of the more unique ones can be priced fairly excessively except for the most determined collector....

 

[dualazmak]

Many of the wonderful and stunning CDs on early classical music which have been released in Japan and then discontinued are no more available, and they have never appeared (and will never appear) on any of streaming services and/or YouTube. Also it is really difficult or impossible to find the used physical CDs even within Japan.

In case if you would be interested, please refer to my niche thread entitled "Lute Music and Other Early Music: Stunning Recordings We Love", especially here #72, here #73, and #140.

 

[pablolie]

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.

...

If you value data, you should have a backup strategy. For me it is Dropbox. 2TB for less than $10 a month. I also keep a local backup server in a safe location at my place (but things can happen, so Dropbox is good - takes a long time to upload at first if you have a large library, though - updates are fast).

For me it is very important to keep my music collection. No one can ever take that away from me. Streaming companies are subject to change or could even go out of business.

PS: My music library is large, but by no means the largest I have seen...

Total Tracks: 43,651
Total Albums: 4,142
Total Artists: 1,652

 

[Bleib]

Some CD's started to deteriorate after 20-25 years.

I had a few DVDs start to rot within a year. Contained DTS surround mixes of the album.