Ripping CD's to hard drive

As far as I know DSD 512 is the highest and be warned that one song takes up more space than a whole album at 44.1 kHz

I used JRiver on my Windows 10 PC, ripped entire collection to a NAS drive. I play my collection using JRiver software through a Parasound Zdac connected to Krell Preamp and Krell Amp, and Harbeth 40.2 speakers. Inexpensive, sounds great but slow ripping process.

@8th-note 

4000 discs?  Ulp!

I can't have ripped more than 400 of my discs and that was enough.

They're now in a bag in the attic along with the rest due to lack of space. I've probably only got around 100 still left downstairs.

It's hard to get the notion that the original CDs sound the best out of your head, even if there isn't the slightest bit of evidence to support it.

Besides some of them took a lot of getting hold of, eg 2003 Blonde on Blonde, Born to Run super bit mapping gold disc, Get Happy!! (Demon) and some are perennial favourites like Astral Weeks, Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper (87) etc

2) It compares your rip to a database to insure that it is completely accurate. 3) It fetches the metadata from the internet so you have the album info and the artwork all together in one folder.

Sounds like good features to have.

Ever since the Creevity Cover downloader software stopped working on my W7 PC I've had to add the art manually when I can be bothered.

CDBurnerXP is what I used to use to burn compilations after normalising levels with MP3 Gain.

These days it's easier to put the music on my phone and stream via my Ifi Zen Air Bluetooth streamer.

Of course it's even easier to use something like Amazon's Alexa but somehow for me that seems to cheapen the entire experience of listening.

And then there's the feeling that it's always listening to you...

if I may throw in a mini digression for my own situation: 

1. Ripped most of my small collection with a 2008 imac and itunes, mostly into lossless as offered by itunes of the early 2010s. They show as m4a, called AAC @ 256kbps bit rate, 44kHz sample, about 4mb for a two minute song.  I assume this is decent enough not to bother re-ripping, but what about going forward (I just downloaded fre:arc which looks promising and offers all relevant formats)?

2. been on Sonos for 2+decades so unllikely to use iTunes for any management but wondering if keeping similar formats in the library has any reason or consequence (i.e. mixing flac/m4a/wav in a single library). I don't remember (and paid little attention) to error issues (rarely streamed from my collection, used Rhapsody for access to much larger catalog, at pretty high and easily detectable compression). I guess I am still figuring out which management software I will use, but SONOS to lossless library on NAS or HD of the sweet little old iMac who is still kicking (but maybe ready for sale or retirement) is plan for now.

ps I don't think I have ever used that many parentheses in one post. apologies!

Just a comment to put this ripping thing in perspective.

I had 2,000 CDs. I could have spent… hundreds of hours converting them to computer files. Or, I could pay $12.99 / month to get access to the exact same files (sometimes the files are of higher resolution), and several million more, instantly. Qubuz (or Tidal).

Difficult question?

In reality, I had ripped my CDs starting about 20 years ago… many as I acquired them. Then stopped buying them five years ago I got rid of them last year.. But my point is technology has moved on. Ripping is a waste of time. It is just getting files off of a CD… which you can get access to elsewhere for virtually free. CDs are a sunk cost… streaming is mainstream now.

Sure someone can come up with a CD that is not available streamed. For me, for three years (at audiophile sound quality levels), I have run into an album not available every few months… but also several hundred albums that I like and do not have on CD. So, this is a real non-issue.
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FLAC. It's lossless. What goes in, comes out and it doesn't waste space like uncompressed lossless formats, like WAV. Any ripping software will work because the compression algorithm is a standard.

As a former software engineer who has written compression algorithms, once you understand how compression, decompression and bits work, you don't worry about this kind of stuff. You just do what's most efficient.

Absolutely do NOT rip your CDs into MP3 or any other lossy format.  That is a complete waste of your time relative to the cost of storage, unless you get paid at 1950s minimum wage.  

This is not a knock on anyone would listens to MP3s.  But as a decision for storage starting from square one it's a ridiculously bad suggestion.  

You don't need an overly expensive specialty device like Innuous.  All you need is pretty much any computer from the last 25 years (more recent would be better!) and an internal or external CD-Rom, albeit newer and faster is better.  

Then, my votes are Foobar, Exact Audio Copy, DBPowerAmp.  Roughly the same other than EAC is the most sophisticated and hardest to configure. 

Rip into FLAC.  It's the lossless standard that includes reliable metadata handling. \

While there are other viable options for sure, this is the standard way to do things.  Don't follow someone else's off-the-trail opinion until you know what you are doing.  If you are a newbie, do the standard.  This is that thing. 

@kidcreole123   (off topic)

hey kid, how are the coconuts doing? I was a big fan of August and the ladies in the eighties. Still listening to their unique style of music.

Best, eagledriver

+1 FLAC 

+1 dbPoweramp 

I tried all sorts of formats and ripping tools before I finally settled on these and they made the entire process so much better and faster.  For someone like me that placed a lot of emphasis on accuracy when ripping, dbPoweramp worked extremely well and aided my ability to edit metadata and select artwork. These are things that may seem unimportant early on but reveal themselves to be valuable later.  
Full disclosure: I finished ripping my roughly 3,000 CDs a few years ago, so I’m not up to speed on the latest tech. 

I would also recommend that you keep at least one additional drive as a backup for all your music files, so that your investment in time and effort is protected.