Ripped / Imported My Entire CD Collection... Almost...

I've been sooooo busy ripping / importing my entire CD collection on to my new "Big Gateway" computer. My son showed me how to rip my CD's to my hard drive in an MP3 format. Since he showed me I've been obsessed to get my entire collection transfered to my hard drive. Actually I'm not done yet, as I still have several books on CD to do yet... I've used 20 gig's so far. I think I'll end-up at about 22 - 24 gig's. It's a good thing I have a 160 gig hard drive. Has anyone here transferred their collection to computer? I know Tom has...

So that’s ware you have been.

I was wondering ware Robin was? I knew you were getting a new PC, but thought you should have been back up and running by now?
I have not ripped too many of my CD’s, have been thinking about getting an i-pod. If I do I am sure I will rip my entire CD collection.


Take care.

I have about 300 of my CDs on my laptop. It takes up about 36 gigs of space. I could not put them all on my 20 gig iPod. I did it at 256k sampling rate. So it sounds OK.

I use exclusively iTunes for ripping and organizing music into playlists. Normally I rip at 256 k VBR, but for some CD's - mostly samplers - I choose 320 k. I reached something like 250 GB...periodically I change the contents of the iPods. I mostly listen at mp3's in the office, at home I prefer the originals, but the iPod with specialized playlists is great when having guests.

Robin,

You might see what other formats you can rip to, as MP3's are the more inferior choice. Especially if you plan on using your computer as a transport.

Robin...

Check out this thread where ripping music to HD's was discussed. There is a great site that I listed for FLAC ripping....similar to what Sugarmedia showed for Apple.

http://www.martinloganowners.com/~tdacquis/forum/showthread.php?t=981&highlight=flac

Dan

I second the suggestion to look at LOSSLESS Codecs... FLAC, ALAC, even WMA lossless. MP3's are LOSSY, and while OK for casual listening or iPods, if you ever plan to stream audio thru your ML setup, you'll end up with inferior sound. Unfortunately, you cannot convert MP3's to any of the lossless formats, so you'd need to start ripping all over again.

For me, this very interesting article was quite decisive :

http://www.heise.de/ct/00/06/092/

I recommend it as a must read.

I've found a translation of the entire article in good english, here:

http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusicclassical/mp3test.html

easy for all you computer savy folks, hell about the only thing I can do is "rip" my sweat pants in the gym.

On the serious side it's sounds intertesting and maybe I can figure it out ?????

I started to build a computer for all my media needs. 400 gigs of HD space, all in wonder video card and 5.1 DD sound card. Never did finish it. This has inspired me to finish it.

Thanks


Cherian

Hey Robin,
Yeah, I've ripped my entire collection to MP3 format in VBR using Music Match. I haven't gotten to the point of playing any MP3s thru my Logans (yet) but i'm fully immersed in the world of iPod at home, work, integrated into my car, etc.

Tom.

What we audiophile iPoders need, and need *now*, is a cable which allows to bypass the ipod's built-in dac and route the digital stream directly into our dac of choice. And, please, in 3 flavours: coax, toslink and XLR

lugano said:

What we audiophile iPoders need, and need *now*, is a cable which allows to bypass the ipod's built-in dac and route the digital stream directly into our dac of choice. And, please, in 3 flavours: coax, toslink and XLR

Click to expand...

Isn't that possible with Airport Express?

Robin said:

Has anyone here transferred their collection to computer? I know Tom has...

Click to expand...

I have ! So far, 615 of my CDs have been ripped and are stored on my small LAN !

All the jazz, blues and classical CDs are in the APE (lossless) format. Pop music (rock, prog, electro, ...) is in a mix of APE or OGG compressed files. All in all, it takes a lot of space (148 GB x 3 because of the backups) but it's well worth it since the collection is readily available for playback on either of my ML systems !

Cheers !

iTunes format...

lugano said:

I use exclusively iTunes for ripping and organizing music into playlists. Normally I rip at 256 k VBR, but for some CD's - mostly samplers - I choose 320 k. I reached something like 250 GB...periodically I change the contents of the iPods. I mostly listen at mp3's in the office, at home I prefer the originals, but the iPod with specialized playlists is great when having guests.

Click to expand...

lugano,

I used the iTunes format as well... I think my son wanted me to down load in the MP3 format because he wanted to down load my songs to his iPod. Unfortunately, I really wanted my CD's ripped to higher / better quality sound. What am I going to do with my well intentioned son... I could sell him to the gypies.

FLAC format...

DTB300 said:

Robin...

Check out this thread where ripping music to HD's was discussed. There is a great site that I listed for FLAC ripping....similar to what Sugarmedia showed for Apple.

http://www.martinloganowners.com/~tdacquis/forum/showthread.php?t=981&highlight=flac

Dan

Click to expand...

Dan and SugarMedia,

I wonder if ripping to the FLAC format will use more hard drive space than MP3 used on my hard drive? Dan, the FLAC site you recommended was under repairs / construction so I could not view. But as I understand it, FLAC and / or LOSSLESS codecs are compatible with non-Apple computers, like my Gateway, correct?

Robin said:

I wonder if ripping to the FLAC format will use more hard drive space than MP3 used on my hard drive? Dan, the FLAC site you recommended was under repairs / construction so I could not view.

But as I understand it, FLAC and / or LOSSLESS codecs are compatible with non-Apple computers, like my Gateway, correct?

Click to expand...

Yes, FLAC (and other LOSSLESS) formats will take up more hard disc space, but the $$/GB of hard drives is falling precipitously. With ~30-50% file compression that you get with FLAC (vs. native WAV), you can probably store 900-1000 CD's on a 400 GB hard drive. FLAC is open-source, compatible with PC's and there's also Mac compatible software for FLAC, but most in the Mac camp are using iTunes with AAC (or better yet, ALAC).

For those interested in using a Slimdevices Squeezebox to stream FLAC, ALAC, AAC, MP3, and other music files (non DRM) to your audio rig, check out this starting point... http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?BeginnersGuide

I love this discussion.. I'm currently using an iPod hooked through the system and it's great for background music during dinner or while entertaining. I've been reading and researching for a solution that's more fexible for A/V in general.

While I would love a high end music/dvd manager such as the:
http://www.escient.com/products/dvdm552.html
It's way above my budget line.

I think that I may go for the Olive Musica.. still deciding..
http://www.olive.us/p_bin/?cid=01_06_musica

In the mean time, I'm ripping with itunes AAC format at 160.

Still dreaming..

Robin said:

I wonder if ripping to the FLAC format will use more hard drive space than MP3 used on my hard drive? Dan, the FLAC site you recommended was under repairs / construction so I could not view.

Click to expand...

Even if it is larger, I would want better quality (your call), especially as Sugarmedia noted regarding playing back through your system.

I just tried the site with no problems....try again to see what happens...If problems just go to the main site and search for FLAC

Dan

DTB300 said:

Even if it is larger, I would want better quality (your call)Dan

Click to expand...

I would be inclined to purchase an 80gb + portable hard drive (whatever brand) and have all my music stored on that. They range from $90. to 150.00. Maybe less.

You then wouldn't have the concern of using a good chunk of your computer's disk space, while at the same time still keeping your 'audiophile status.' You don't want to loose that status do you?