Burning CDs of downloaded music

Qobuz is the place I use and you can buy them as well to download. I don't stream and just use them for playback on the car or media server. They don't have MQA either, the 44.1khz 16 bit FLAC is perfect. There's other hi-res versions but I don't bother anymore. The original SMSL M500 has two optical inputs, as well as headphone amplifier with the 9038Pro DAC it's got. Really useful if you need to expand with another optical.It has a remote control for switching.

If I download a FLAC file and burn that file to CD, will a CD player play the song?  I thought CDs stored music as .cda files.  

@sealegs you need to convert it to .wav first.

With your goal being to have a demo set of songs for auditioning at stereo shops, do you have a PC with a disk drive?  Then download DBPoweramp free version, or full version trial free for 21 days, and rip your CD tracks to Flac lossless files on your hard drive.  Then upload the song files of your choice (still digital) to a thumb drive.  Every Stereo shop worth considering will be able to upload and play your lossless Flac files for a demo.

For a very good, inexpensive intro into digital playback and streaming, Download Audirvana Studio Origin for $119 to stream all of your local digitized library from pc to your DAC.  Or, subscribe to Audirvana Studio Classic for $6.99/ mo. to play not only your local files, but possibly add a high resolution streaming service, such as Qobuzz.  ( a subscription to Qobuz is 13.99 - 20.00/ month). All subscriptions have a trial period.  

Only thing else you will need is a cable from a digital out port on your PC with an SPDIF connection to your DAC.

Then, you can compare this basic streaming setup to your current  CD system and decide next steps.  I think you may be positively surprised.  Good Luck!

@sandstone I recently switched to MacBook.  I’m not sure I can even get the old PC running and it does not have virus protection any longer.  I decided against adding streaming to my system because I already own a lot of music between 600 records and 1200 CDs.  

@dunring007 ​@ketchup   I did a test run.  I downloaded a song from Qobuz in .wav format to my MacBook.  I burned a copy of the song onto a fresh CD.  I can see the track and it plays on the CD drive of the MacBook.  I have two stereo systems and neither CD player will play the song.  One player indicates that it is using playing time with nothing coming out.  The other player indicates that this is a data file.  Any thoughts on what I am not doing correctly?

@sealegs 

You’ll need to do a little more than copy and paste. There may be CD ripping functionality within ITunes but you’d have to research that. There are also other Cd Ripping software programs available on the web- some are free to download and use. Proper ripping sets up the file structure prior to so that it can be recognized by the player. 

@sealegs I am not familiar with Macs, but I have burned thousands of CDRs on PCs. You need to burn them as audio CDs. It sounds like you burned the .wav files as data. Data CDRs won't play in a regular CD player.

Look for audio burning software. Any good computer should come with this capability these days, but you may have to download an audio burning program. There should be lots of free ones. It’s been probably two decades since I’ve burned an audio CDR, so I’m not sure what’s good these days. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, though.

@ketchup  @designsfx ​@sandstone  You guys were spot on.  While Apple doesn’t support iTunes any longer on the MacOS platform, they provide similar capabilities in Apple Music.  I burned the .wav file as a playlist in Apple Music and the transferred music file plays on both of my stereos’ CD players.  The song sounds great as I was hoping using CD as my medium.  Thanks for your help.  

In case someone else has a similar interest, these steps worked for me on my MacBook.  

1. Insert blank CD-R into the attached CD drive
2. A pop-up menu asks what action to take. The default is Open Finder.  Change that default to Music.  
3. Music will open its own pop-up with instructions telling what to do next.  
4. If you haven’t already included the music file into a playlist, do that first. There is a pull-down to create a new playlist.  After that, File > Burn Playlist.  
5. After burning is complete, go play your CD.  If the CD doesn’t play, maybe your player doesn’t play .wav files.   Not all players do.  

Get one of these and record onto CD as the music is being played. Record on CDs that say, "CD-R for music" (rewriteable or not) and it will play on any standard CD player once the CD is finalized by the unit. I have 2 of these. I also have couple of older models that have both balanced XLR inputs and outputs, if that's something you want, and if you can find one. Here’s a link to the burner and for the CDs I use. I hope this helps you:

CD-RW900SX | CD Recorder/Player | TASCAM - United States

Amazon.com: Maxell 625156 - CDR80MU50PK 80-Minute Music CD-Rs (50-ct Spindle) Red : Electronics

@ellajeanelle  Thanks for responding.  I have already solved my problem.  
 

I own a CD recorder and they are nice to have.  Years ago, I recorded about 200 of my vinyl albums to digital so I could load the music onto my iPod.  It worked really well.  

@sealegs, Nice job of posting and responding to everyone.  Glad you have your issue resolved.

My dealer has Qobuz and Roon in the shop.  No need to bring your own music 

@mahler123 Yes, I was sure that the dealer would be able to access music I wanted to to hear.  My problem was that I wasn’t sure what deep bass should sound like on my current set-up.  So, I downloaded songs mentioned by reviewers who were testing subwoofers.  It worked out pretty well.  I downloaded and burned about 15 songs and they sounded good on my stereo.  I may have talked myself out of the need for the subwoofer upgrade.  

Well that a good  outcome 

I would highly recommend that you don’t cheap out/end up buying a barrel bottom drive unit.

Get this Pioneer unit...very affordable by audiophile standards (approx. 300 bucks).

Some of the features on this unit are very useful and Pioneer continues to produce the best quality PC drives.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Computer/Computer+Drives/BDR-S13U-X