Ripping CDs

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. 

@sandthemall the reason I suggested FLAC or ALAC is to better natively contain any metadata instead of relying on some 3rd party database.  If your streamer/ripper or his Vault has that then more power to you, but I just don't trust such solutions and would rather have all that metadata and cover art embedded in the files themselves. YMMV.