If I rip all my CD's to flac files do I still need a CD transport?


I'm in the process of ripping all my CDs to .flac files with Exact Audio Copy. If I see a verified rip with no errors, is there any point in considering upgrading my CD player? Would I be better investing is a quality streamer and DAC?

markcasazza

If ripping and streaming is done right, CD player no longer needed.  EAC should be fine (I tried it early on years ago)  but I ended up with dbpoweramp and can only recommend that one accordingly.   It's a waste of time IMHO to spend the time ripping and then streaming if one ends up going back to CD.   Just do it right and welcome to the 21st century!

10,000 cd albums takes the 4 walls of an average room...

Would you add 10,000 more or rip them all ? My house is a smaller one now...

I ripped them all...

I invested more money in music than in the gear anyway ...😊

I prefer my actual very good low cost system, which is audiophile one believe me, 😊 to a higher costlier one with ten times less music...

I own 100 Chet Baker albums...

I kept 15 versions of Bach art of the fugue... 5 versions of his complete keyboard...

I own rare Indian and Persian music....Streaming this is not possible...

I prefer files format of cd or vinyl....

Many music albums are not even on the market anymore....

I am a music lover first and last  not only an audiophile....

Long ago, when storage was expensive, I ripped everything to AAC to save space. I’m now selectively ripping some CDs to FLAC. But only some.

Probably 85%+ of my CD collection is now available as a high-quality stream on Qobuz. For those, I don’t feel the need to rip them. Only albums that I can’t get on one of the major streaming services wind up on my NAS in FLAC format.

The added benefit of this is, using Roon, I’m much more likely to explore related music based on the metadata, leading me to explore more, as well as learn more about those artists I like.

I ripped my entire CD collection (4000+) to uncompressed FLAC using dBpoweramp. Took me 3 years to do it. I still have my CDs and I have upgraded my transport to a Jay's Audio CD3 MK3. Why?

1. I wanted to be able to make play lists and have my recorded music available for streaming over my home network.
2. I still like to listen to the physical CD and read the booklet. I like the ritual of pawing through my CD collection and finding something that I hadn't heard in a while. I also have a pretty extensive LP collection that I feel the same way about.
3. I'm bumping 70 and some day I may live in a situation where I can't have thousands of CDs and records. A bunch of these titles are not available on Qobuz.
4. I collect audiophile versions of my favorite CDs and I have multiple versions of quite a few titles. I like playing these physical CDs. It makes me happy.

If you don't value the task of searching for and playing a physical CD I'm not sure why you would keep a CD player. I readily admit I'm a dinosaur and my kids are going to have to dispose of a lot of probably worthless CDs when I go to the great listening room in the sky.

I have also ripped over one thousand CDs. I have not gotten rid of any of the CDs, I just never play them anymore. They line my walls and help with acoustic dispersion. Also still serve as backups in case ever needed (footnote: be sure to always keep a backup copy of ripped CDs somewhere...ripping is time consuming and once is enough).

As time goes on, there will likely be fewer CDs that I feel I have to still own as opposed to just streaming on qobuz or similar.

I also still have a growing record collection.  I ultrasound clean those and play once to convert to digital and add to my flac format music library.    

if/when in a few years time comes to downsize my home,  I will have to make decisions about what to do with all the stuff I've acculumated over the years.   Lucky to have that problem!