Ripping CDs

Bit of a sign of the times when a OP asks about ripping CD’s and much of the talk turns to forget-it-just-stream.
Many albums have been repressed multiple times. With that often comes remasters. By relying solely on a streaming service to the exclusion of your CDs’ contents, you’re throwing knowledge of which album version you can access to the wind, trusting they’ll have the best one, or your favorite one. I realize this detail won’t be a pitfall for everyone, and that’s fine. Many of my favorite album versions to run through the transport come from ripped CD’s, and while tagging them can be mildly troublesome, it beats searching for artists I know in a language I do not know, on a streaming service (for example). There’s no legitimate argument to using streaming to the exclusion of one’s ripped files until streaming services start providing better metadata for their source files or, better still, multiple versions where they exist. Now that would be fun content to surf for discovery!!!
 

Borrow a laptop with USB 3 so it’ll have enough power for any USB disk drive you get, and go to town. If you have a bit of time, it’s nothing. I’ve done it with every disk I ever owned and as @linnvolk pointed out - you never know when something will vanish from a streaming service for reasons of licensing. Folks talked about the whole universe of film access Netflix used to provide and now, ten years later, you want Marvel? Get Disney. You want Charlie Brown Christmas? Apple. You want non-CGI Star Wars? SOL. How long until certain streaming services begin emphasizing their own versions of Netflix Originals artists / remasters, lol?

I use a 10-year-old laptop and Exact Audio Copy. For albums on which metadata search fails, there’s usually another pressing close enough that I can still get it into my system without a meaningful glitch. Don’t give up on albums - they can still matter.

@linnvolk many ways to do this from simple to not... just like playing ripped music. The simplest way would be to copy a few movies onto a USB stick which you would plug into your TV or HT amp and watch on your TV. Of course you can always watch on a computer but that's not my first choice and probably not yours either, altho you could push the content from your PC to your TV via Airplay or Chromecast. 

After that, the most popular choice would be a media server like Plex. Plex will also play your music. There are free alternatives like Jellyfin. If you really want to get crazy you can put the movies and music on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, but that requires both a computer and a NAS and a fair amount of tech savvy. But if you can pull that off you can watch your movies and play your music from anywhere in the world where there's an internet connection. 

@gowanus, no, I did not know that, but it stands to reason.  I have much less interest in movies than in music, and do not miss the ability to watch DVDs. Except I wish I could view the original versions of the three first Star Wars movies (without the CG additions).

Out of curiosity, what would I do with the ripped DVD content?  What would I play that on/through?

@sandthemall yes, the .wav standard, established a very long time ago, made no provision for holding any metadata. I guess CDs have the metadata (when they do have it) in an index file, called a "schema" in computer-speak. Streamer/rippers might do the same. iTunes does that too. It creates an encrypted database of cover art and cross references that with your music file database, it doesn’t embed the cover art in the files themselves.

I would just wonder about say after a few years you decide to get a different streamer or a true NAS and wanted to move your files to it. Would you lose all the cover art and perhaps some of the more granular metadata? I’m not sure. Thanks.

At least when I rip to lossless FLAC or ALAC I know I can embed the cover art and other information inside the files themselves, so they are never lost. For those purists who think the processing of expanding these files adds some type of sonic artifact (most tests say there isn't on decent hardware), you can rip to FLAC level 0 I think it is, where there is no lossless compression at all, and of course, no reduction in file size. At that point the FLAC is merely a "container" hosting more metadata for the full-blown .wav file.   Good luck to the OP. 

Just wish they would have updated .wav file standards 20 years ago to enable hosting metadata, then there'd be no reason to discuss it. 

While I don't have one, it looks like one of the simplest and easiest to use one-box solutions is a Brennan CD ripper. It includes a hard drive for file storage and looks up the CDs metadata for tag info. While intended as its own player, you could copy the ripped files to whatever other device you are using for local streaming.

mlsstl

1,330 posts

01-10-2024 at 11:05pm 

While I don't have one, it looks like one of the simplest and easiest to use one-box solutions is a Brennan CD ripper. It includes a hard drive for file storage and looks up the CDs metadata for tag info. While intended as its own player, you could copy the ripped files to whatever other device you are using for local streaming.
 

There are a number of these devices now from Chinese manufacturers, too. For the OP’s purpose (ripping CD’s), they’re dreadfully over-priced, over-spec’ed (most features redundant for his system), and generally come with an HDD standard, an SSD being a considerable further hike in price despite price points of SSD’s being lower these days.

IME @audphile1 is accurate in his comment about SSD’s being a more reliable format to use when ripping CD’s [and I’d add: from which to playback files if using a slower processor spec’ed transport]. HHD’s for music-ripping/playback only advantage now is if you need truly massive amounts of storage in an array. As in over 15 TB. For ripped CD’s, I suspect that’s not most people. 😅