Reasons NOT to rip all your CDs

When paired with an Android device, those Sony's support the high end LDAC bluetooth codec, that sounds amazing. But sadly with an iphone they're limited to plain-jane bluetooth, which doesn't offer fidelity above what the streaming services can provide. You might have other reasons to prefer your own rips to one of these services, but there isn't any sound quality benefit with your current setup. I use an iPhone/Sony BT headphone pairing as well, but with Tidal.

 

It's all relative. I was previously using a non-noise cancelling Sony headphone and the jump up to the WH-1000XM3 was a phenomenal upgrade in every way. Plus it basically shields me from all the annoying noise I encounter on my commute. One can only hope Apple will offer this at some point.

I forgot to address this in my previous reply. You're right that it's important to be aware of surroundings as a pedestrian in a busy city, and there are many fatalities each year. This morning my coworker said someone was killed a couple days ago in the crosswalk right in front of our building. I wonder if it was an Uber driver.

I find that wireless headphones allow me to keep my head up and looking around at all times. For most of my life, bicycle was my primary mode of transportation and I developed important habits of looking in all directions whenever approaching an intersection or moving into a traffic lane. On my current walk across town from the train station to the office, I am always conscious of the dangers of the road (and sidewalk what with all these communal motorized scooters that present a hazard to everyone). The homeless guy who assaulted me got the worst of that encounter, and it only happened because he stepped out of nowhere at a corner and attacked me with his fists and verbally. I'm usually able to keep my distance. Anyway, much better to deal with all these potential hazards with iTunes, my ripped library and the WH-1000XM3 than without.

 

Yeah, they definitely still sound great with the iPhone. In my case I'd had the XM2's for a year or so before moving from Android to iPhone and the difference was noticeable.

 

[QUOTE="GregM, post: 21488049, member: 68"Anyway, much better to deal with all these potential hazards with iTunes, my ripped library and the WH-1000XM3 than without.[/QUOTE]

Just stay safe, my friend. I'm sure you know what's right. Safety first, music second. It's easy to forget that some people have things a lot different from my normal.

 

I feel the same pain. Before I moved, I had two rooms dedicated to my media collection. Now I live in a 3 room apartment and most of my media is in climate controlled storage 6 miles away. My RAID NAS box is starting to build a decent library while awaiting the completion of the renovations here in a month or so when I can finish setting up my ripping bench - 4 linear feet that will have to suffice for cycling material through so I can CONVENIENTLY enjoy it all again. Do I WANT to rip it all? Heck NO. But if I hope to ever have access to more than a sliver of my collection, it is my only option. Could I stream it all? - doubtful. My tastes lean to exclusively instrumental, classical and jazz. I, like others on this thread, have very specific favorites - specific conductors, orchestras or sessions where the rendition speaks to me far more than the other 8 recordings I acquired before finding the "right" version of the same piece. For me, ripping is both a form of access and a way of editing down my collection to the best of the best and fitting it all into my post-retirement circumstances. Whenever I find a moment to enjoy a CD, DVD, LP, cassette (yes, some of these can be amazing when recorded on my old Nakamichi) and R-to-R tapes, I make it a point to make a FLAC copy. A bit off-topic, but this process is most valuable for the LP's and the live tapes that never even made it to CD. If I am going to do this for some, why not for all? I may even get to see my walls again some day!

 

While I have a good portion of my cd's ripped to an external HD, I've found I enjoy the process of going through my somewhat organized collection and playing individual cd's these days. That said, ripping them allows me quick access to most of the inventory(most of which is in the garage) so I can avoid ordering duplicates, find out if I have something that I read about, etc.

Haven't gotten around for doing this for my lp's, and doubt I ever will.

 

I can have a music listening session with a friend over, and I can speak my introductions while having eye contact, and start the music. Rather than finding the music and putting it on and cuing it up while trying to talk and making no eye contact.

It's much more fun to keep the music going nearly non-stop while shifting through dozens of genres and millions of tunes and playing really outstanding tracks selected. It's a fast more economical session. Wonderful; thing once you get it done.

 

I ripped about 300 CDs to iTunes in ALAC. Experimenting, I discovered those tunes sounded identical to the same music I downloaded from Apple Music. Later I realized all of that music could be accessed from iCloud and enjoyed with no apparent quality loss. This finding made me think not only is there no point to ripping CDs but the space consumed could be better used to host RAW photo images.

 

I ripped all my CDs to FLAC with dBpoweramp. I think it uses a "burst mode" and then repasses any bad frames if the rip isn't secure or doesn't match the AccurateRip database. I'm at the point now where a CD costs so much used through Amazon after shipping that it isn't even worth it anymore. I'd rather just use Spotify or something to listen to some music once in awhile. I will probably start downloading from iTunes or Google Play again once they come out with CD-quality lossless downloads. I cannot understand why some companies in this game offer lossless streaming but not just standard 16/44.1 lossless purchases. Don't even get me started on hi-rez and paying for sound that you can't hear. That's just my opinion btw, others are free to disagree with it as they probably have better gear than I do.

 

With well over 2,000 CD's, I finally broke down and ripped them to an external hard drive. I ripped them as .wav files at 44.1/16 as the CD's themselves. Most of my CD's are on dedicated shelving units standing 8 feet tall and in alphabetical order by artist. With not having an 8 foot reach, I have to use a ladder if I want to listen to a Beatles CD. Now, I can access any CD within seconds. I have some boxed sets which wouldn't fit on the shelves due to dimensions of packaging, so, after ripping, they are now in a closet. I have a drawer yet to do of Classical CD's. All will soon be accessible within seconds. Now, when I go on a road trip, I could hold my entire CD collection in one hand and play them in my vehicle.
Ripping all those CD's wasn't very hard to do, outside of having to climb a ladder once more to get them and to put back the previous batch I had ripped. Just loading each in the computer's optical drive, it only took a few minutes to rip each, while I was doing something else. So far, I have only used less than 1.6TB of space.

 

Got enough time consuming problems already.

 

Finding that EAC will NOT under any circumstances rip any of the first 4 Bunnymen albums, the New Order Substance 87 set, Warren Zevon's Genius collection, nor Magazine's Second Hand Daylight. Mebbe it's got something agin post-punk bands from North West England...And Warren Zevon...

All of these play perfectly well on that there CD player over there.

Ripped CDs for putting on a USB stick for in-car use on holiday.

Also found EAC and WinLame (used for conversion to MP3 for the car) randomly re-assigning file and folder names, ie changing album and song titles, and then changing file, ie song, order.

Happy days.

 

For impossible to rip CDs like those one can always perform real-time digital dubs by sending a SP/DIF cable from your player into your PC. The biggest trick is having a sound card which features a SP/DIF input to capture the output with.

 

Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD

 

RME Digiface USB

 

This has nothing to do with EAC. Just try a different drive.

 

I've ripped some of those albums you mentioned, several of them in fact, using EAC and dBPoweramp. Likely a drive or computer issue and not a software problem.

 

If a particular drive won't rip a CD I try a different CD drive. I have three different CD drives that I use for ripping because of situations like this. If one drive won't rip a CD then one of the other two probably will.

You can also try using a different ripping program. If EAC won't rip it then try dBpoweramp or some other ripper. dBpoweramp uses different routines to read the CD and can sometimes get a clean rip of a CD that EAC can't. And vice versa.

Another thing to try is configuring your ripping program to rip at a slower speed for those problem discs. Sometimes slowing the maximum ripping speed to 8x or 4x can get a drive to read a CD that it has problems with at the fastest speed. EAC has options to set maximum ripping speed and slow it down.

 

I bet I could find a post of mine from 12-13 years ago stating how I need to handle the physical media. Or go back 7-8 years and find a post where I am loving listening to my ripped cds and love not having to find which cd to play. So now that all of my 1500+ cds are ripped, I find myself loving streaming music and am not sure I'd start ripping now if not already done. Although I did receive a cd in the mail today which I'll rip.

All rips are AIFFs ripped via XLD.

 

I’m loaded down so heavily with audiophile pressings, rare tracks, needle drops, bootlegs, and things never issued on CD, that streaming could never replace my music server library and setup.

But maybe it would surprise me a little if I looked and did searches on Spotify etc. There was a Deep Purple (import only) album titled “Last Concert in Japan” which I own. Then there was a remix of the tapes which is said to improve the quality quite a bit. Now I do not own that remixed version. Is that something I’d likely find on a streaming service? I just don’t think so.

 

My collection sounds a bit like yours.
If we had a race to digitise all our music would it be termed a Rip Off?

 

As I expected when I began my ripping and transfer project more than 2 years ago, not every CD has copied perfectly. There were various reasons for this. I sold or gave away most of the CDs and other media. So now, when I encounter the occasional bad track, I have to either replace, delete, or mark it to not play. For me, this wasn't reason enough to not rip, but it might be for someone else—not to mention the serious time put in for ripping and organization. And...I had to spend $$ on a larger internal SSD (replacing HDD) on my MBP.

 

I’m trying to find all your reasons to not rip your CDs in your post.

 

If I did it over again, I'd run everything I ripped through something like Checkmate or Bliss.

 

You have to use "secure" mode for error correction. Burst mode makes one pass, and it either matches AR or it doesn't. Good news is, if it's clean and undamaged, and it's in the AR database, it usually comes out matched.