Time to rip my CD's to a harddrive.

[costellom5]

I don't understand why you don't want to use your laptop to rip cds.You don't want to use your cd/dvd drive?You can always replace it.You can get an external disc drive,but you'll still have to rip every cd,using your laptop or another pc.
I just use Windows Media Player.It already fills in the name of the tracks and everything.Rip it as wav,then I copy it to WD My Book 2TB via USB 3.0.It is faster in tranfering the files.
Don't use a flash drive.It's not that it doesn't last long enough,it's just that,it there's a problem the data can no longer be recovered by anybody.
I don't use a server,I just have the external hdd connected to my laptop,playing the files with Foobar,and into my DAC.

 

[eljr]

I don't understand why you don't want to use your laptop to rip cds.You don't want to use your cd/dvd drive?You can always replace it.You can get an external disc drive,but you'll still have to rip every cd,using your laptop or another pc..

you are exactly correct, I do not want to use the cd/dvd drive, I don't want to replace the cD/DVD drive.

I found a this but there have to be more targeted options

 

[N8Nagel]

I guess I just don't see the point... although if you want a dedicated machine you could pick up a cheap PC and slap a RAID array on it and then use that as both your ripper and music server. But there's no reason not to get started using what you already have unless you just need to buy more toys. I've been getting by with laptops and my NAS for a while now, I just want to get my collection whipped into shape so I can enjoy all the music I have.

 

[Yamaki]

I am confused about not using the laptop to rip the CD's. Specifically, why not?

You don't have to replace the drive, just get ripping software.

Based on your statements, I assume you are looking for a rip/store/retrieve solution all in one box?

Here are a few that are available. You can easily do what these boxes do much more cheaply by getting some ripping software, use your laptop to rip the CD's and a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box to be your media server.

http://www.amazon.com/VortexBox-1TB-Automatic-ripping-NAS/dp/B001VSY66O

http://www.antipodesaudio.com/antipodes_music_servers.html

http://www.ava-media.com/ripnplay.html

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/naim-audio-unitiserve-cd-ripper-and-hard-disc-music-player/

 

[eljr]

I am confused about not using the laptop to rip the CD's. Specifically, why not?

You don't have to replace the drive, just get ripping software.

Based on your statements, I assume you are looking for a rip/store/retrieve solution all in one box?

Here are a few that are available. You can easily do what these boxes do much more cheaply by getting some ripping software, use your laptop to rip the CD's and a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box to be your media server.

http://www.amazon.com/VortexBox-1TB-Automatic-ripping-NAS/dp/B001VSY66O

http://www.antipodesaudio.com/antipodes_music_servers.html

http://www.ava-media.com/ripnplay.html

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/naim-audio-unitiserve-cd-ripper-and-hard-disc-music-player/

Thanks for the links, perfect. I had fund this too.

Now, the Nas streams to a DAC and the DAC sends the analogue to a preamp, correct?

 

[BillyBatts]

Eljr:

I understand completely. Personally, I ripped all of my CD's to the CLOUD rather than local storage. I Ripped them to iTunes AAC, and my computer auto'd them to Amazon and Google Play CLOUDS simultaneously. You can set this up with apps form Google Play (thin client using your Web Browser) and Amazon (The Amazon Music App). I know, you don't want to do this. Just putting it out there. Someone may. I went with AAC 256 vs ALAC lossless . AAC 256k is plenty if you are using Cloud from Google Play or Amazon Music to playback because they are not going to stream or download you anything more than that anyway. If you are simply going with standard cloud storage, then by all means, go lossless, IF you don't mind paying the yearly rental fee for the large storage that lossless file storage may incur. 256 AAC is fairly high resolution for my ears anyway.

For home storage, I do have a NAS that I got from a friend in the industry. Yet, it is already being tasked for thousands of files for other things rather than music, and for critical business and personal backups. If you are Ripping lossless, you are going to need huge storage for thousands of CD's as you probably know. I was not sure I had enough left in the NAS even with 256 AAC files. So I went CLOUD storage.

There is a service that is available to RIP your CD's for you. You send them your CD's, they store them for you, RIP them and send you and/or store your audio files. Heck there are a few of them as you know, but that's an option. The most popular is probably Murfie. They generate a quote that allows you to send in your collection after they send you the shipping supplies base don quote, they Rip it, send you the files and/or store the files and CD's for you. It may be an option rather than storing them locally;

https://www.murfie.com/send_collection

This may be worth checking out for some people that are tired of thousands of CD's hanging around that are deteriorating day by day. If I had it to do over again, I may have used Murfie.

Looking forward to what you do and how you do it. Keep us posted. Luckily, I had a Laptop DVD drive that worked well and time over a few weeks to get the job done. It's very tedious.

Good luck!

 

[eljr]

Eljr:

I understand completely. Personally, I ripped all of my CD's to the CLOUD rather than local storage. I Ripped them to iTunes AAC, and my computer auto'd them to Amazon and Google Play CLOUDS simultaneously. You can set this up with apps form Google Play (thin client using your Web Browser) and Amazon (The Amazon Music App). I know, you don't want to do this. Just putting it out there. Someone may. I went with AAC 256 vs ALAC lossless . AAC 256k is plenty if you are using Cloud from Google Play or Amazon Music to playback because they are not going to stream or download you anything more than that anyway. If you are simply going with standard cloud storage, then by all means, go lossless, IF you don't mind paying the yearly rental fee for the large storage that lossless file storage may incur. 256 AAC is fairly high resolution for my ears anyway.

For home storage, I do have a NAS that I got from a friend in the industry. Yet, it is already being tasked for thousands of files for other things rather than music, and for critical business and personal backups. If you are Ripping lossless, you are going to need huge storage for thousands of CD's as you probably know. I was not sure I had enough left in the NAS even with 256 AAC files. So I went CLOUD storage.

There is a service that is available to RIP your CD's for you. You send them your CD's, they store them for you, RIP them and send you and/or store your audio files. Heck there are a few of them as you know, but that's an option. The most popular is probably Murfie. They generate a quote that allows you to send in your collection after they send you the shipping supplies base don quote, they Rip it, send you the files and/or store the files and CD's for you. It may be an option rather than storing them locally;

https://www.murfie.com/send_collection

This may be worth checking out for some people that are tired of thousands of CD's hanging around that are deteriorating day by day. If I had it to do over again, I may have used Murfie.

Looking forward to what you do and how you do it. Keep us posted. Luckily, I had a Laptop DVD drive that worked well and time over a few weeks to get the job done. It's very tedious.

Good luck!

Tell me about Amazon Music App. (please ) I can place Flac and teh like in there? I can access my files on the Roku amazon music app then? With all the art?

How about cost? If I rip say 1000 CD's to start, about 10,000 songs, to Flac.. what is teh Cloud cost? Any idea?

This is a very interesting idea. No up front cost either. I already have Amazon Music App all over, I just never put any music in it. I do get auto rips in MP3 when I buy a CD that I sometimes stream. If I can stream all my music that easy??? I would not even need JRiver or a Lap Top.

 

[JP]

I thought the supreme court long ago ruled that it was perfectly legal to make a copy of an album for a friend.

From RIAAs site:


Copying CDs

It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.

It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.

Beyond that, there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:

- The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own

- The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.

Remember, it’s never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

 

[eljr]

- The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

.

kind of common sense but I guess it needs to be said

 

[N8Nagel]

I am confused about not using the laptop to rip the CD's. Specifically, why not?

You don't have to replace the drive, just get ripping software.

Based on your statements, I assume you are looking for a rip/store/retrieve solution all in one box?

Here are a few that are available. You can easily do what these boxes do much more cheaply by getting some ripping software, use your laptop to rip the CD's and a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box to be your media server.

Agreed, and also I like EAC for ripping because it uses several different checks to make sure that I have a bit-perfect copy of the original recording - it uses both the AccurateRip and CueTools databases to make sure that what I'm ripping matches exactly what others who've ripped the same CD previously have got; and if the CD I'm ripping isn't present in either one, I can still run a "test and copy" in secure mode, and if the test CRC and copy CRC for each track match, I'm still pretty damn sure that I have an accurate rip.

What's the point of all of this? Well, theoretically, I'm using my NAS (and in a larger sense, my PC and the EAC software) to ensure that every time I play a track, my DAC is getting EXACTLY the same stream that it would if I were playing a pristine copy of the CD through the best CD transport mechanism available.

Can I tell the difference between an average CDP using the digital output and my NAS? Not really, not with my system. But I hope to go bigger and better someday, so why not just Do It Right.

Also, for playback, I don't need anything special; there's actually several devices around the house that will stream off the NAS and output digital audio (Blu-Ray players, game consoles, etc.), and the couple year old Denon AVR will do it natively.

 

[ducati_EL34]

From RIAAs site:


Copying CDs

It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.

It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.

Beyond that, there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:

- The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own

- The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.

Remember, it’s never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

I would expect nothing less from the RIAA. They however, are not the law. They just think they are...

 

[JP]

It was the most concise I could find with a quick search, and it absolutely is the law.

 

[ducati_EL34]

It was the most concise I could find with a quick search, and it absolutely is the law.

Fair use doctrine is law as well, and very muddy at that.

 

[JP]

Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, that isn't the discussion. Fair use isn't copying CDs for friends.

 

[MWalt]

I rip to FLAC using EAC, and store on a WD NAS (WD My Cloud) that is hard wired to my server. I also copy the same ripped file on to a separate external hard drive as another additional back up. The external is always put away so that my digital files are always safely tucked away. I also do the same for pictures and video's of the family, etc.

 

[N8Nagel]

If you're using an external as a backup for a MyCloud I would recommend putting it in a small waterproof fire safe. I have one that I use for that, as well as things like car titles, passport, etc.

 

[estreeter]

If all I wanted was MP3s I wouldnt even bother ripping CDs - just download entire albums from Youtube and extract the audio - but I thought that was the whole point of ripping the physical media : to get a lossless copy of your music ? I encode everything in AIFF - lossless, tagged and playable on any iDevice.

 

[trhee]

My thoughts exactly. I ripped my entire CD library of over 10k CDs to AIFF using XLD for Mac. It took quite a bit of time but in the end it was well worth it.

When I moved to Korea, I was able to put my CDs into storage and bring all my music with me in the form of all my Macs and hard drives.

If you're going thru the trouble of ripping that many CDs, go with a lossless format and remember to always have a backup solution.

If all I wanted was MP3s I wouldnt even bother ripping CDs - just download entire albums from Youtube and extract the audio - but I thought that was the whole point of ripping the physical media : to get a lossless copy of your music ? I encode everything in AIFF - lossless, tagged and playable on any iDevice.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RichPA]

I rip CDs to flac using dBpoweramp, to a Vortexbox Applicance from Small Green Computer (http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/). Vortexbox will rip automatically, but I prefer the opportunity to get the tags right - I've found that automatic ripping doesn't work well for multi-disc sets and for much classical music. I use my laptop, but the ripped files never live there; I set dBpoweramp to send them directly to the Vortexbox. The Vortexbox appliance has playback capability, but I use it as a NAS with a Sonos system. I've been quite happy with this solution.

 

[BillyBatts]

Tell me about Amazon Music App. (please ) I can place Flac and teh like in there? I can access my files on the Roku amazon music app then? With all the art?

How about cost? If I rip say 1000 CD's to start, about 10,000 songs, to Flac.. what is teh Cloud cost? Any idea?

This is a very interesting idea. No up front cost either. I already have Amazon Music App all over, I just never put any music in it. I do get auto rips in MP3 when I buy a CD that I sometimes stream. If I can stream all my music that easy??? I would not even need JRiver or a Lap Top.

I happen to like the Amazon App and I like having my music in Amazon. YES, you can RIP and place FLAC into Amazon. Most files you can think of are supported. Take a gander at this;

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201377280

Storage is not an issue, and you can stream it to just about anything that has a web browser or runs an Amazon Music App. I do it all the time. Gives me access to my music everywhere, and if it is YOUR music that you imported or have purchased from Amazon, you can DOWNLOAD it at any time to play offline on your devices that support local storage. Yes, you get artwork included.

Space is as follows;

You get 5 GB free of REGULAR Cloud, but they parse out Music a bit differently. You can buy extra Cloud storage fairly inexpensively You can check it all out via the link below. But for MUSIC, up to 250 songs ( music files) is FREE. Additionally, you can purchase space on the Cloud Music Server for an additional 250,000 songs (250,000 separate music files) for $24.99 a year. Yes, that's $0.0001 cents per song/file. I think that's a bargain.

Yearly cost for extra Cloud storage is as follows and notice they separate generic Cloud and Music Storage:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201634570 Click on the "Manage your cloud subscriptions" to see the options.

I'm not sure that most of us will bust through a 250,000 song limit. Perhaps, but I'll cross that bridge and extra cost if I ever have to cross it. Doubtful.

The music app runs on most devices, including laptops and computers where you are ripping your files to, thereby it loads to the Amazon Music Cloud seamlessly.

Heck, it's Amazon. They aren't going to make it hard for you to use them. They want to be your company for anything in your home that you consume. And they have excellent customer service as you may know. If you get stuck on an issue, they will help.

I guess I should post, I do NOT (unfortunately) own Amazon Stock and have no vested interest in their financial success, nor do I work for them. I just use them extensively and I am a Prime member. I love their PRIME Music offerings. Amazing music included FREE with your Prime Membership.