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When did you digitize your CDs and LPs? I still haven’t...

I’m a 46 year old guy who came up on LPs and cassettes, got into CDs and then stumbled into the world of online music where I’m still trying to figure out what to do.

20 years or so ago when people started getting excited about digitizing their CD collections, I never bothered. I have maybe 900-1000 CDs and the idea of having to “rip” them never appealed to me. Heck, I never even liked the word “rip” and the action seemed time consuming and boring as heck to me. Same for LPs.

These days, I still have all my obsolete media but I’m a Tidal HiFi subscriber and have come to love streaming. Still, there’s a lot I have on CD and LP that Tidal doesn’t have and 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.

Is it time to step into the present, or will I be fine rocking my Nakamichi CDP-2A until it dies and then just buying another CD player or transport? That certainly seems less expensive these days than a fancy streamer/server/“ripper”.
pip_helix
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,453 posts
 
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.
soix
10,186 posts
 
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...

johnss
610 posts
 
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.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,453 posts
 
+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.

pip_helix OP
30 posts
 
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.
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