I sent my collection of about 800 CDs off to be ripped about two years ago. I had them send the CDs back to me, but after hearing the flac files, I threw most of the CDs away, keeping about 100 SACDs and higher quality CDs. Much better listening experience o with the flac files.
Now here’s the thing: a year ago I switched from Spotify to Qobuz. At a minimum, Qobuz is as good as a CD or flac file. Most of the things I listen to are higher res in Qobuz, the difference is easily heard. Bottom line, if I had had Qobuz three years ago, I probably would have just put my CDs in the attic and called it a day.
And, I used to buy on average 3 to 5 CDs per month. In the last year I’ve purchased a total of 3: Ron Carter—The Golden Striker (mine was scratch as was the ripped file); Pittsburgh S.O.—Tchaikovsky/Leshnoff; Cleveland S.O.—A New Century.
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It is not such burden when you rip CDs when you want to listen to them. Instead of placing CD in CDP tray and pushing play button I place it in computer tray click on the "Rip" and after first song is ripped I play whole album in Itunes (ripping program places files in Itunes directory). Next song is ready when first one stopped playing (ripping is much faster than playback). That way whole library will eventually get ripped without a lot of work.
According to RIAA ripping is legal as long as you keep original CD. Even copying friend's CDs to CD-R is legal as long as it is Audio CD-R. They want you have to have media that pays royalties to performer. I like music on the server. It is much easier to find and play. It also can be protected by the backup. Streaming is growing on me, but for now I still prefer to own the music - to be able to play without internet connection. |
What are you using to listen to streamed music now? I’m wondering if it’s time to step into the present and get something like an Innuos Zen Mk III so I can stream, rip, and store at least all of my CDs. I’d give a big thumbs up to that idea. The Zen makes it child’s play to, um, transfer your CDs to its internal storage, and then you’ll have access to all your music at the push of a button in any order you want, make playlists, etc. Disc drives are fast becoming today’s buggy whip, and since you already have discovered the considerable benefits of streaming you’re already mostly there anyway so might as well just, er, rip the bandaid the rest of the way off. BTW, I’d consider giving Qobuz a try — I found the interface better than Tidal, sound quality comparable, and I believe it may even still be cheaper — and none of that ridiculous MQA nonsense to worry about or deal with. Anyway, FWIW... |
if you embark on this task, what ever you do, make a daily back up copy of the files you have ripped, or copied. I did this with my 2k CD collection a number of years ago. Got half way through and the HD crashed. Had to start all over from the beginning. also don't try to sit down and do it all at once. Pace yourself, go for 45 min then quit and do something else. otherwise you will get fatigued and make mistakes. and a break is a nice change.
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+1 johnss I use two backups. Every time I add more than 5 CDs I copy to one of backups (altering between them). Using two backups protects me from loss of everything in case when one backup goes wrong, like controller failure (voltage spike, virus etc) that can damage both HDs. It is extremely rare, but I don’t want to rip 2000 CDs again. Recently I bought CarbonCopyCloner on sale and it is fantastic.
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I’m using a Bluesound Node 2i right now. It gets the streaming job done yet I can’t help but wonder why I had to pay $550 just to get a box that’ll let me stream Tidal from my phone to my amplifier. Seems like there should be something even simpler..
Streaming.....sometimes it’s just overwhelming having access to millions of albums all at once. The nice thing about a CD collection is you have to get up and look around at it and then you rediscover things. Then, I look at some of my shelves and feel like I’m in my college apartment with CDs everywhere. Yikes.
Is it a drag to have to back up the back up of the stored CDs? I guess it’s a quiet procedure but then with the cost of, say, an Innuous Zen Mini Mk III, the upgraded power supply and then two external drives, I’m creeping up on $3k just so I don’t have to change the CD when it’s done?
I guess I’m stuck between thinking “yeah, just jump all the way into streaming” and “bah, why bother.” Maybe I can be the last man standing with a buggy whip. |
but then with the cost of, say, an Innuous Zen Mini Mk III, the upgraded power supply You’re better off just getting the Zen than the Mini and upgraded power supply IMO unless you need the DAC in the Mini, but you’ll want to upgrade that anyway. I’m creeping up on $3k just so I don’t have to change the CD when it’s done? No. Your streamed music will sound better through the Zen than the Node with the added ability to access all your CD music from your chair in any order you wish or even listen to it randomly. Then again, if you prefer to just listen to one familiar CD at a time then perhaps a CD player is just fine. Personally, since I started streaming I’ve found so much incredible new music I rarely play my CDs anymore, but that’s me. |
I ripped my 1K plus collection of CD’s 4 years ago when I bought Vault 2 and then sold most of it for pennies on the dollar. My collection is now reduced to about 200 discs that are mostly SACD, K2HD and XRCD. I wasn’t going to give away those for pennies :-)
As others have pointed out, streaming offers equal or better SQ than redbook CD’s. I use Qobuz which IMO is better than Tidal. |
OP
there is no reason why you “have” to rip your physical media and play it from a streamer. It isn’t obsolete. I’m not a vinyl guy, but it’s making a comeback, the turntables and amps out there are a huge step better than what you had growing up. As far as CDs,the difference between playing digits from a spinning disc vs a hard drive isn’t much. This being an audiophile forum, you will get people arguing to the death that one sounds better than the other, but it boils down to ?which CDP vs which streamer?
It is more of a Lifestyle issue. With streaming you don’t have to leave the couch, and you can save space if you discard the physical stuff. Otoh, you get all the IT issues with streaming, with streamers not being recognized by home systems, ISP throttling bandwidth, dropouts, etc. if you are comfortable dealing with networking issues, you might think no biggie. I am older than you, and IT issues are my biggest hassle at work. I hate coming home and finding that all the boxes in my music system which played so nicely the day before now are in a snit and not talking with each other. Re: Your comments about the Node2 . You didn’t need to buy it.
You can stream direct from a computer to a DAC that accepts USB
(you do have a DAC, right? Check for inputs on your CDP if you don’t). |
Re: Your comments about the Node2 . You didn’t need to buy it.
You can stream direct from a computer to a DAC that accepts USB
(you do have a DAC, right? Check for inputs on your CDP if you don’t).
Well, I don’t have a desktop but I have a MacBook from 2011 and a new iPad. I guess I could repurpose the seldom used MacBook as a streamer for it’s end of life phase. I have a DAC coming in the next week or 2, my first standalone one and it has USB input. My CDP only has analog outs, no inputs. At least the Node is cheaper than a new laptop. The IT issues are what made me strongly reconsider something like the Allo USBridge or any other component that requires any degree of computer networking competence. It’s been almost three weeks and the Node just sits there and does its thing without issue so far. |
I think you are done. I use a 2011 MacAir in one on my systems as a streamer, it’s a great use of an aged PC. I would burn the files to hard drive with the PC and play them with the Node2, since you already have it, but if you sour on the Node the Mac&DAC will do the job |
I just completed ripping all of my CD's to my newly acquired Aurender ACS10. I can't explain it but I get more detail than from my CD transport. I could hypothesize why but that would be a different thread. I used a high end transport btw.
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I can’t explain it but I get more detail than from my CD transport Impossible, it can’t make extra bits that are not there. Probably hearing some form of hf colouration/distortion or maybe even even jitter or more error correction if that’s possible. Cheers George |
I can’t explain it but I get more detail than from my CD transport Transport connection to DAC can add more jitter (noise) and also scratches on CD can force CDP to interpolate data since CDPs, working in real time, cannot re-read each questionable sector again, like ripping programs do (often hundreds of times). Ripping program can effectively renew old scratched CD making it sound better - like new. Even CD-R made from such rip will likely sound better than original CD. |
Ripping program can effectively renew old scratched CD making it sound better - like new. Even CD-R made from such rip will likely sound better than original CD.
Not correct sorry, I can hear the difference between the original and the burnt copy I make for the car. Also if you search there is a lab test disc you can buy I think it was the
Pierre Varney
double disc test disc suit, that has all the usual cd bench test tracks, but it also has a piece of music on it and then the same piece but 10 x generation copy. And you can clearly hear the degradation on the 10th copy. Cheers George |
If each CD has exactly the same checksum there will be no degradation since exactly the same data is copied each time. Checksum of the whole CD can be verified. I'm not sure how they copied CD - perhaps using Itunes or device that doesn't look for proper checksum of each sector or whole CD. Either way - by using good ripping program created CD-R will always sound better than badly scratched CD since CDP will always interpolate for scratches longer than about 4mm along the track - no matter how tiny. In extreme case CD might not even play but ripping program can still extract data (but often goes for hours). |
Either way - by using good ripping program created CD-R will always sound better than badly scratched CD Sorry no they don’t Also here, are the micron photos of the original stamped retail CD left, middle is a burnt gold CDR copy, and right is the burnt aluminium CDR copy. As you can see there will be far more error correction going on for the laser to read middle and right. https://ibb.co/qjYQFycEven to a HD there are added jitter and errors. Pierre Varney proved this, get it and have a listen, as it not even burnt, but hd copied, then one single stamp CD. Cheers George |
They stopped recording CD-R by burning aluminum long time ago, (burning speeds were around 2x). Today they laser-write to photosensitive dye. |
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I don't use CDP at all. All my music comes from HD (where it is just data) and I also tend to buy CDs used, mostly from Amazon. Audio CD-Rs create easy legal way of copying CDs from friends. I copy such CDs to HD, but have to keep Audio CD-R copy (media that pays royalties).
Yes, compression is very bad but often necessary. Without compression most of the people with smaller systems or boomboxes wouldn't be able to listen. It almost looks like we need two different media - one for mass marked and another one uncompressed for audiophiles. Unfortunately we don't represent any buying power and things are getting worse (going toward MP3).
Why not to sell uncompressed CDs and compressed MP3s? |
I don't use CDP at all.
That's obvious |
I’m surprised that people can hear any media induced jitter from CD or CD-R. I can understand that on the receiving end (DAC) D/A conversion clock has to be recreated from incoming S/Pdif stream, but in CDP constant linear speed is created by comparison between 44.1kHz crystal based clock and the data stream from CD. Since 44.1kHz clock is used to control linear speed (data rate) the same clock can be used for re-clocking without over or underflow errors. AFAIK modern CDPs have large FIFO buffers that clock out data at precise 44.1kHz crystal based clock. Of course there is still connection jitter, DAC own jitter etc., but CD (or CD-R) bit to bit time differences should not matter. Perhaps there are older CDPs without buffers?
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