CDs Ripped To Lossless...Now What?

Curious as to what the options are for playing the music...

Is the idea to keep your music on an independent hard drive that plugs into your laptop (which is connected to your stereo) and played through iTunes?

Or something like this? Sony High-Resolution Audio HDD player

Or am I missing something crucial and not fully understanding the gist?

 

I keep 'em on a few hardrives and play using foobar through my stereo

 

For me, the missing piece ended up being Roon.

 

Now what?

Didn’t you ask this question before you started this work? ;-)

 

Maybe he did it for archiving and is thinking now of other possibilities?

For me the whole idea of ripping the CDs was to make the music available anytime and everywhere. Once ripped and cataloged with a good media library server, which in my case is J River, I can play my collection through plenty of devices across the home network or stream them through the internet to mobile and portable players, such as DAP or mobile phones. Another possible use is the never ending play list, basically you are removing a lot of limitations once you have a media library hosted on an easily accessible storage unit.

I keep my media on a NAS, but in my case it's because I also store a lot of TV shows and movies, which is also why I'm using J River. The modest storage requirement for music doesn't really need anything more than some hard disk space on a shared PC.

 

There are lots and lots of options. One of the most confusing things in computer (or streamer) as source is that there are so many options. So many many options. You'll experience paralysis by analysis if you try to understand them all before making a decision. One person can't be expected to try all the options and pick what is ultimately the best solution for them. There's just too many options and configurations possible.

I like computer as source (rather than streamer) because using a computer allows me to run a variety of different media players and allows me flexibility in also running various DSP (digital signal processing) plugins. The computer as source lets me do that. Streamer devices don't. So for me the computer as source is the solution I like best. But computers have the disadvantage of being complex things that sometimes decide not to work after updates or because some bit of software decides to have a bad day. There are times I turn on the system, hit play, and the damn things are not working. Can't play my music. Have to spend time debugging and figuring out what went wrong instead of playing music. Streamers are less likely to have those sorts of problems (though anything relying on network configurations and a NAS can decide to stop working due to a configuration change or hick-up).

 

I keep my music files on a separate hard drive and use iTunes. Also keep a backup of my music files on a separate hard drive.

 

I save mine to 3 different hard drives and a flash drive. I play them either on my Fiio or on my desktop with Foobar.

 

That's how I do it.

 

I keep mine on a 3 TB hard drive and plug It into the back of my OPPO 103, controling with the media controller app, or remote control.

 

i have a dedicated pc running Jriver with a USB DAC and 2 5TB external Hard drives one mirroring the other as a back up and all connected to my Hi Fi System, the sony seems a nice device although expensive for what it is, there is a good review of it at

 

I have my CD collection ripped to lossless files, on a hard drive connected to my living room mac computer.

With the files on that machine, I listen to them quite a few different ways, using common everyday consumer audio equipment, nothing fancy.

The details below are, I feel, a good example of how once you have your collection ripped, you can easily enjoy it in a lot of different places.

1-The first place I listen to the files i when sitting and doing work or browsing the web when on that computer itself. In that scenario the playback interface is iTunes itself, which is a very fun way to browse a collection since you can get around quickly and see lots of nice cover art. The computer's audio is sent to a pair of high-end B&W desktop speakers that use their own D/A converter and sound great

2-On the living room stereo (that uses floor tower speakers) in the adjacent living room. For this system I still can play back the music from iTunes itself, and it gets sent to the living room Marantz home theater receiver wirelessly, in digital form, using "Airplay" from the mac. The music is sent bit-perfect to the stereo and not converted to analog until it leaves the stereo itself to the speakers.

Once nice feature with that is when you start playing the music from iTunes (and pick "living room stereo" in the iTunes output menu instead of "My Computer", the stereo:

-turns itself on from standby
-switches to the Airplay input

all automatically. It even displays the title of the song on the stereo's front panel display

3-When in other rooms such as the backyard porch, the bedroom, or the dining room, the music collection is also available through the stereo pairs of Sonos speakers I use in those rooms. The Sonos software installed on My mac points to the folder on the mac containing the music, and then you can pick any record to play in any Sonos zone, when picking music with the Sonos app on your phone

4-My car. I own an old iPod classic with 80 gigs of storage, which when you connect to the Mac, it syncs to iTunes and lets you download all or part of the music collection to the iPod. One cool feature is that even though the music collection is in lossless and plays as such for all the rooms in the house, on the attached iPod you can have it automatically make a down-converted copy in the AAC format (at a bitrate of your choosing) as it copes to the iPod. This lets you fit more on the iPod and this have a bigger collection available in the car.

I can't fit my entire 2500+ CD collection on the iPod (I buy a lot of used discs for $1 a disc at flea markets and thrifts shops), even when using 256k AAC files, so Instead I went through and picked my favorite records for the car as well as new ones I have not heard as much yet.

In the Honda minivan the iPod connects to the USB port, stays charged through the same connection, and plays back through the car stereo. You can scroll through a list of artists and albums using the car stereo siren and controls, or shuffle all songs, while the iPod stays permanently in the storage bin out of sight with no wires visible.

5-My wife's car. We didn't have a 2nd iPod, so for her we just copied a lot of her favorite albums to a small thumb drive that sits in the center console out of sight, and she as well picks the records using the car's controls and screen. For her setup we used the "XLD" program on the mac to convert the lossless files to MP3, as we copied them to the thumb drive.

6-My wife's office. We took that same thumb drive and copied the music on it to her work computer, and now she can select and listen to those same records using the Windows Media Player software on her work PC. She has her own office with a door so listening quietly doesn't disturb anyone.

The one area I don't listen to my own collection is when bicycling, since my iPhone is only 16 gigs of storage and does not have any extra room for music. So when I am doing that I just listen to streaming music from Amazon prime Music, they have tons of albums to listen to, and it doesn't cost me anything extra since I always enjoyed having the prime service anyway.

Thanks!

 

I ripped my collection to several hard drives, first mainly for archival reasons. I used to connect the hard drive to my notebook and listen with headphones or connect the notebook to my amp. Then I got a NAS which is connected to my amp via an usb-soundcard. The music app on the NAS turned out to be slow and unstable. Maybe my collection of over 4000 albums is too large. Then I got Spotify. Since then I use the NAS and the harddrives again just for storing safety copies of my CDs.

 

Thanks guys, for the interesting suggestions!

 

I do not know if you are using Mac or Windows machine so i will tell you mine setup, maybe it helps.

After ripping my CD collection, i bought a NAS QNAP TS-421 for storing and backing up my collection. The NAS is connected throught ethernet cat8 cable to my dedicated headless laptop on my equipment rack which runs Win Server OS 2016 and MUSIChi server software for playback. I sit on the couch and control the laptop sitting on the rack through a small 13in laptopn running MUSIChi client software suite.

If i am sitting at the Office, I use MUSIChi desktop version, streaming musing from my NAS through Wi-Fi.

I have no subscriptions on streaming services, their sound quality is simply dreadful and for movies i use netflix.

I like MUSIChi because it is the best library management & playback software for Windows right now. I used JRiver, foobar, Roon and it surpasses them all. If you are on a Windows machine, give it a free trial period.

 

That is something like what I am looking for. I would want it to do what this does AND to have built in Pandora, Spotify and Tidal I can use WITHOU the need for a smartphone! I mean most Bluray machines have Pandora etc that I can stream without having the need for a smartphone. Why cannot the devices like this Sony have this feature? I do not even need a computer to hear Pandora on my blueray player. I just need an internet connection and WIFI.

Is there such a music streamer that can do this without a Smartphone to be required for a controller? The ideal unit would be one that actually has a CD player to rip internally to a hard drive, a network player and built in Pandora, Spotify and Tidal (and the internet radio like this Sony has) that ONLY needs a WIFI connection to the internet and its own controls and remote to access everything. NO SMART PHONE NEEDED! And really, no laptop, tablet or desk top computer needed either. I do not have any music stored on my computer anyway.

 

I've got a server (hard drive) connected to my router. It currently contains ~175,000 songs in 320MP3 which can be streamed in-home, and anywhere in the world where there's internet. I have no issues with 320MP3 (and its sound "quality") - which plays nicely with just about any device (including cars.) In my main HT and family room HT I use Sony UBP-X800s as the streaming devices.

The server also holds ~1.2TB worth of DSD files - stereo and multichannel. I found that the family room X800, which was connected wirelessly (to a very fast router), would occasionally "stutter" while playing 5.1 DSD, so yesterday I ran a 75' length of Ethernet cable to my nearest switch and the problem is solved. (The main HT has always had Ethernet running to it, and its X800 never had a "stutter" issue, so I knew that fishing an Ethernet cable to the family room HT would be worth the effort.)

All files are immediately backed up to three other in-home networked hard drives, and monthly to another hard drive that's stored off-site.

Jeff

 

I just ripped CDs to flac via Media Monkey and they are simply stored on my laptop pc. The Media Server feature of my Denon AVR "sees" the files in Media Monkey wirelessly via my router and plays the flac files beautifully.

 

I have around 8TB of digital albums mostly in FLAC (stereo & 5.1) These include CD rips, hi res downloads, SACD rips, DVD-A rips, Blu-ray audio, vinyl rips etc.... I use a dedicated Mac Mini (an old 2011 model that can output 24-192 via HDMI) and run mainly JRiver Media Center or VLC.

 

After ripping all of my CDs, I imported everything into J River for ease of use. Now, I Airplay everything to the Apple TV connected to my DAC. You can find a used Apple TV for $30-40 easily these days. A very cheap and painless way to enjoy your CD collection.

 

You've got the gist, but as you can see there are many ways to answer this question. It comes down to your preferences and use case. Some people don't want a computer in the same room with their hifi; computers are noisy and distracting. Laptops are far less so, but still can have fan noise. Sometimes, it's difficult to move the computer near enough to the hifi to run a cable. Others don't want to spend a lot of money for another piece of gear to clutter up their equipment rack.

If you have a home network, there are other options. Sounds like you use iTunes. Get an Airport Express and plug its analog audio output into the AUX input on your amp/receiver. Use AirPlay to cast tunes from the PC to the Airport Express. If you have a smartphone or tablet, use Apple's "Remote" app to control it all from your listening chair.

Airport Express: airport express | eBay
Alternative: https://www.amazon.com/ANEWISH-Wireless-Receiver-Airplay-Adapter/dp/B01N5FOVAJ/
Cable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D5H8KO2/ref=asc_df_B01D5H8KO25380115/

P.S. If you are using an AV receiver with an available HDMI input, you can plug in a Chromecast Audio and cast to it from iTunes: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-send-your-computers-audio-to-a-chromecast-1750297581

 

+1 for NAS

 

Laptop > DAC/headphone amp > receiver or headphones.

 

I have my files on an NAS. For playback I'm currently using a Cambridge CXN network player.

I'm actually in the process of ripping (almost) all of my CDs to lossless files. It has been a huge effort but it looks like I may finish in this lifetime - I'm up to the W's now. I love the convenience of having them on the server, and my music room looks so much neater without all those shelves and stacks of physical media.