Ripping CD cd collection for listening

I'd like to rip my cd collection consisting of close to 1000 cds. I'd like to be able to have everything easily accessible so that I can randomly go through albums and songs and play them in any order I like. I have no idea how to go about doing this. My setup is a solid state integrated amp, turntable, cd player and speakers. I'm old school so I know nothing about how people are listening to digital music these days. Can anyone suggest how I could go about doing this?

 

I ripped all my CDs to a portable hard drive using my laptop. I purchased CD Ripper online. Then I connected the hard drive to my Oppo player.

 

Also wanted to add; Would be nice to have an Itunes setup with a screen so that I can have the artwork, artist and title on a screen, would it be possible to have this show on my LCD TV screen?

 

Phono, once the files are in the digital domain, most anything PC/Mac can catalog and provide you with a library. I personally use JRiver, but there are many options for this. I have my PC connected to my TV with a plain-jane HDMI cable. IMO your best bet here is to use something like EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip to FLAC format so you have a lossless copy of the CD tracks. What I cannot answer for you, but is of paramount importance, is to have a solution that can "tag" the files you rip. Tags include artist name, album title, track number, duration, and all sorts of information (aka "metadata") about that which you rip. If you have FLAC copies of your music, you can then convert those to other formats while keeping the original, lossless copy, and use those other versions on personal players like phones and iPod-like devices. Again, the biggest thing is being able to automate the tagging process. Otherwise, you have not experienced tedium on the level of individually tagging 1000 ripped CD's worth of tracks...

 

There are many many ways to go about this. Too many.

Are you Windows or Mac? How well do you know your way around computers and managing files? How well do you know your way around networking and shared files?

There are solutions that will let you use your LCD TV screen as a display to show what is playing and as a display to select what to play.
There are also solutions that will let you use a tablet computer (Android, iOS iPad, or a Windows tablet) to select what to play and to show what is currently playing. I find the tablet based interface and display to be better than trying to use a TV screen. You can keep the tablet right where you are sitting to easily select new music and to see what is being played. You can even use it from another room in the house.

 

I started a decade ago. First I ripped everything to an external harddrive. For safety you have to have at least two harddrives in different places. My first setup was just the notebook connected to my amp via the headphone output. I also used an external soundcard later.

A few years ago I bought a NAS (network attached storage). It's more or less just two big harddisks that mirror each other and a small linux computer in a small box, connected to your wifi router. So you can stream the music wireless to every computer, tablet or smartphone in reach.

A little later I replaced the amp with a network receiver (onkyo tx8050). It's connected to the wifi router too, so it can stream the music via the network cable. But i also connected the NAS via it's USB output to that above mentioned old external soundcard which has an optical output, and i connected that with the optical input of the receiver. (Don't know what the audiophiles think about that workaround).

With my setup i can control everything with a smartphone or tablet while sitting on the couch. The NAS comes with an app called Synology Music Station that I use.

But I also have to admit, i have used Spotify more often recently. But it could never replace my NAS completely, I need that for archiving and saving my CDs. And there are no Beatles on Spotify.

I started to rip with the Windows Media Player to 320kbit/s MP3 a decade ago. Then I switched to EAC and the LAME codec, because EAC detects ripping errors and LAME is considered superior to Fraunhofers original MP3 codec. These days as storage space got cheap enough you should really rip to a lossless format. Sometimes i feel the urge to do that too.

I argue that you won't hear the difference between LAME and the Fraunhofer codec at 320kbit/s. And you won't hear a difference between lossless and 320kbit/s MP3 unless you have those audiophile bat ears, that I don't have. So I put off that big re-rip for now.

In my opinion the best thing about lossless is, that you can convert it to any other (future) format without sound-quality problems. The problem with lossless is, that some devices like a portable mp3 player or car-radio might not play it, and that storage space is of course limited on those portable devices.

I also would advice to use ripping software that supports AccurateRip. AccurateRip checks your ripping results with an online database. That way you can rip in the fastest mode (burst mode) and be sure you have no errors. If you don't have to rip in "secure mode", you can save so much lifetime! (And lifetime of the disc-drive too.) So, i use EAC on Windows now and XLD on Mac, they are free and support AccurateRip. (If a CD is not in AccurateRip's database, i use "secure mode", and brew a cup of coffee while i wait)

 

I use JRemote with my smartphone to control my JRiver playback on my PC via Wifi modem. No need for a NAS. Although I only listen to music from my main system. The JRemote works nicely on the smartphone to work as my preamp control since I don't use any preamp or have a remote. Although if you get the IP address setup correct you can playback with other devices. I just have no need for this at the moment. Not much of a mobile listener.

 

Literally, in that case, the easiest solution would be this:

Get external hard drive (4 TB are $130 bucks now)
Rip in iTunes to ALAC format
Get an Apple TV device and hook it to your TV or monitor + stereo system
Download the Apple TV remote for your smartphone (or your Apple TV may come with physical remote)
Control the music through the remote

There are other options but I'm giving you the easiest, fastest, most common way of doing this.

 

Whatever you do use a lossless format.

 

1000 CDs will take about 250GB of storage space so a 1TB drive should be fine for today and the foreseeable future. Your biggest commitment will be the time you'll devote to ripping. (Don't worry, you can start listening on Day 1.) Figure you can do 8-10 CDs/hour if you use iTunes to rip to Apple Lossless. Easy to see it's going to take a few months. With that kind of investment of effort you'll want to have a backup and store it offsite. A USB portable drive is great for this.

For simplicity sake, you might like a "one-step" solution like the BlueSound Vault ($1000). It and wired internet access are about all you need. Enjoy streaming services and internet radio immediately and feed it CDs as you have the time. Later you can choose to add other BlueSound components in other rooms.

Speaking of streaming services, you can avoid a lot of ripping by subscribing to one. Most are around $10/month and provide access to a lot more than 1000 CDs including new releases. Great thing to try for a while to see what you think. You'll need to so some research to find out which service best matches the genres of music you like.

 

Thanks for the tips, I have a spare 1tb external drive that i'll use. I'm thinking of ripping everything to FLAC, will itunes let me do this?

 

No; nor will OSX play FLAC files natively. Apple won't subscribe to the format! As has been said, you will need XLD or similar to rip directly to FLAC.

 

Rip to lossless, use an app that supports error checking like EAC (not iTunes). It's slower, but much better than having to re-rip because of dropouts or jitter errors. Ask me how I know.

If you are on a Mac, there is no reason not to rip to ALAC.

 

Here's my two cents.

Buy dBpoweramp for $38. It is professional level software that runs on Windows, Mac and under WINE in Linux/Ubuntu.

It is very easy to set up. It uses AccurateRip which will tell you if it hits a ripping error and attempt to correct it (if you have it set up in Secure Mode). It has all the encoders built in, no annoying command-line pipes like EAC. It is also significantly faster than EAC - which is a benefit if you have 1,000 CDs to rip.

Get yourself a couple of external hard drives so that you have a redundant backup in case one fails. I would recommend WD 1TB 3.0 USB drives. This will give you plenty of space to store your rips.

Get an external CD/DVD drive. I have the LG GE24NU40 which I bought at Best Buy I think around $35. I used it to rip around 500 CDs and it's still going strong.

Since you said you would want to play back with iTunes, I would rip to Apple Lossless in dBpoweramp.

Bookmark Ben Dodson iTunes Artwork Finder and albumartexchange to put artwork into your files.

It's a time-consuming process that you won't want to do again. Do it right, one time.

That's how I would approach it anyway.

 

iTunes doesn't use flac but alac which is basically the same thing. As a lossless format you can easily change it to something else without compromising sound quality. I just use iTunes and rip my CDs to alac. I have used other methods - like xld to flac - but I didn't notice any difference in sound.

 

Get an iPod and rip songs at 256 VBR (variable bit rate) into Apple .m4a files using itunes.

 

I agree with others that dbpoweramp is the best software to use. Gives you all sorts of tagging and track naming options. Accuraterip, and you can rip to multiple codecs at once. So if you want to create a FLAC and maybe an mp3 library for portable use, you can have dbpoweramp save to both codecs into two separate folders or drives at the same time. You can also invest in a Nimbie, along with dbpoweramp's batch ripper will allow you to load 100 cd's at a time and automate the process.

 

I don't understand why anyone would go to the effort of ripping a CD properly and then not store the results in a lossless format, at least for archival use. Storage is mind-bogglingly cheap.

There are a bunch of ways to get the music to your stereo.

1) Squeezebox. This is what I use, because it was one of the very first high quality network audio systems available, and it's what got me to transfer my CDs to the hard drive. It has a pretty fully-featured user interface, and integrates services like Pandora, Spotify, and internet radio into the same interface. The database server runs on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Logitech bought the company that made the Squeezebox players, and has since discontinued making them. However, they can still be found on eBay. Squeezebox 2 and 3 have a built in monochrome (green or blue) text display and infrared remote. Squeezebox Duet has no display on the player, but the remote has a color LCD display. Squeezebox Touch has a color LCD touch screen built in, and supports 24/96k playback on both its analog and digital outputs, plus you can get a plugin which allows you to connect a USB capable external DAC and send 24/192k audio. There are also emulators for many platforms: Softsqueeze is a java app that will run on Windows, Mac, Linux, and will behave just like a physical Squeezebox. There are multiple apps to allow you to receive audio from the Logitech Media Server (aka Slimserver aka Squeezebox Server) on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. And there is an emulator for Linux that you can run on any Linux computer with a sound card and supports playback up to 24/192k depending on the capabilities of the sound card. I think the coolest player is PiCorePlayer, which uses a Raspberry Pi miniature computer ($35) and runs the Linux emulator, allowing you to play back on the built in analog audio output or connect a USB sound card or USB DAC. No display. You can control and see what's playing from a web browser interface, or using one of dozens of remote control apps written in iOS and Android.

My current setup is a PiCorePlayer, with a 1st generation iPad as the now-playing display and remote control. Extra-cool? You can set the PiCorePlayer to always upsample to 88.2k / 96k (or 176.4k / 192k if your DAC is that spiffy). I also have a Squeezebox 3 in the bedroom.

2) DLNA. This is a protocol that is supported by just about every kind of media player being sold. TVs, Blu-Ray players, game systems, phones, networked audio players. There are multiple options for server software to run on Windows, Mac, Linux. You put your music on a computer with a DLNA server running, and any device you own that can make sounds is likely to automatically discover the server and be able to browse and play back the music files on it. DLNA also supports video and photo files. I have no experience with it.

3) Play back directly from a PC. There's plenty of software to do this. foobar2000 (free) and JRiver (paid) seem to be the most popular. dBpowerAmp was mentioned earlier. And of course, iTunes. You can use the PC's sound card or connect an external DAC using USB.

4) Use the iPad "camera kit" to connect a USB DAC to an iPad and use the iPad for playback. I have a friend who has done this, and it works.

 

Not recommended. With storage space so cheap, and the amount of effort to rip 1000 CDs there is no excuse to not use a lossless format.

Rip to Apple Lossless for full-quality playback via iTunes, and then if you have an iPod or iPhone let iTunes convert to 256AAC on the fly when you transfer to your device.

 

To the OP: don't forget to buy (at least) two drives, one for your digital music library and one to backup the first drive. And if you really want to be secure, get a third drive to act as a second backup and keep it off-site somewhere (mine is @ work, so I can listen to my entire collection while I'm working!).

Hard drive failure is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

 

Jumping in to suggest dbpoweramp as well. There really isn't a faster workflow especially with the tagging. You'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble.

I have ripped nearly 2,500 CDs and am slowly working on the second wave.

 

I haven't encountered any ripping software that did not look up the tags online. I like CUEripper because it allows inclusion of the catalog number and barcode so you can keep track of which version of an album the rip came from. CUEripper and EAC also use the CTDB, which is a more advanced database for checking rip integrity. It's more powerful than AccurateRip, because it can tell you how many samples are wrong and which audio frames they occur in. It can also be used to reconstruct an error-free rip if there are not too many errors.

Unfortunately EAC is Windows-only, and CUEripper and CUEtools use the Microsoft .NET framework which if it's implemented at all in Linux or MacOS is probably not trivial to set up.

 

dbPoweramp for the win. Makes ripping easy. When you buy reference you check 4 different databases for tag info. It will also grab artwork from the 'net. Make sure you check the tags as metadata is very important no matter what player you use. Also make sure that you use secure settings to rip so that if a CD doesn't have accurate rip data or your pressing is different you know you have an accurate rip. There is a great set up tutorial on the dbpoweramp web page and they have a very good forum for your questions. There are versions of the software for Mac and PC.

 

If the OP is on a PC then I would concur with dbPowerAmp and foobar2000. Great combination.