Ripping CDs

@linnvolk 

Yes, you are correct, I am assuming most all content is available. Most is. However, what happened to me, and I suspect what happens to most folks is that once the sound quality difference disappears and you have access to more than a million albums your focus shifts from playing the really restricted amount of music you have collected… carefully chosen to sound the very best because of it’s high cost, to exploring new music, enjoying thousands of albums you never knew existed.

When my streaming sound quality rose to my other sources, I think I called up the albums I owned for about a week, before I noticed an album I had never heard before from the same group while searching. Then I would remember a band I did not own. Then I started to just look at new albums, then choose genera and listen to new stuff. Very quickly I seldom would listen to the old stuff I owned. And when I did, if it isn’t there, there is a high definition version of one of their other albums or a better band. 
 

High quality streaming changes everything. 

I use Winamp to rip to .WAV files from my portable CD drive ($40) to my laptop. Super easy. WAV files are marginally better than FLAC files. And you may be able to tell a difference with a hi-res playback system.

FLAC is lossless...but lossless is a euphemism for 'virtually' no loss. It's 60% of the original file so it is a compressed format. It's an excellent format for many reasons but memory is cheap these days and a WAV file is the exact copy of the original.

Save to WAV and you won't need to worry about the next version of 'lossless' in a few years. Glad I saved to .WAV during the  MP3 rage.

Like I said, you may not even notice a difference but why not get 100% of the info you paid for.

HP External Portable Slim Design CD/DVD RW Write/Read Drive, USB, Black (F2B56AA) https://a.co/d/1CihS85

This is the drive I recently bought. Works great.

@ghdprentice Indeed true in my experience as well.  You bring up some very good points there.  I could not agree more that high-quality streaming has changed everything.  For instance, I am working my way through all of Haydn's symphonies.  That is something I would never have attempted without HQ streaming.

To continue the counterpoint, however, we do not know what the future will hold in terms of which services will carry which titles.  I can't help feeling that the current cornucopia may be short-lived and that commercial interests will find a way to rain on the parade at some point.  As an analog, consider the ill fate, for instance, of those who wanted to see A Charlie Brown Christmas this year, but could not because they did not have a membership to Apple, who bought up all the rights.  I still am glad to know that everything I owned on CD I still have access to via my storage drive, regardless of what Qobuz decides to do.   Sadly, I have no way to play DVDs any longer and tossed mine (including A Charlie Brown Christmas) recently.  I can, however, listen to the soundtrack regardless of who buys the rights or chooses not to stream it any longer.

@linnvolk you know you can rip DVDs just the way you rip CDs before you throw them out, right? That applies to BluRays as well as DVDs. 4ks are a little more involved.