What are My Options for Ripping My CD Collection ?


I'm not a tech person and I'm looking for options to rip my 1,300 CD collection.  I've been looking at a used Innuos Zen Mk 3 with internal CD ripper because it would also be a considerable streamer upgrade.  However this is $1500 or more on the used market.  I can live with my current streamer if there are less expensive options for ripping with comparable sound quality (FLAC or better).  We are MAC based. Thanks.  

 

 

 

foamcutter

I use dBPowerAmp, ripped onto a Baetis Music Server. I run JRiver on that hardware, which organizes, gets the artwork, and lets me make playlists a variety of ways.  Playlists by taste, genre, capture what was recently played, played randomly, etc.  Jriver is stable and inexpensive, and even lets you play around with DSP if you want.  Have been using this setup for many years, and Jriver was originally on my PC, so Jriver was over 10 years.

+1 dbPowerAmp with inexpensive USB CD drive on Mac. Works great. I rip to FLAC, goes to MacMini Roon/Audirvana server. 

With streaming you don't know which version/master you get, most likely more recent ones, so older CDs may sound better than current re-mastered streams. And the cost for streaming subscription quickly rises above dbPowerAmp and cheap CD drive.

my 2c.

@foamcutter DAP stands for Digital Audio Player. I use a FIIO M15 which accepts a large SD card for music storage. I can store my entire ripped music library without compression on a 4TB card. It's really a luxury to have all of my music ready to play any time I want. I'll mention a few other things.

  • I have an Eversolo DMP A10 and it accepts an NVMe card. I installed a 4TB card which allows me to store my ripped music on my streamer. That way I don't need an external drive. Even though I have 250 gig internet, once in a while it glitches and I just feel more relaxed if I'm using the stored files if I'm too lazy to fish out the CD and put it on the transport.
  • Spending hundreds of hours ripping my music has made me totally paranoid of losing all the data. I have backed it up to 4 different Hard Drives, one of which I keep in a large fireproof gun safe. If I lost those files I would have to call the suicide prevention hotline.

@foamcutter 

I can live with my current streamer if there are less expensive options for ripping with comparable sound quality (FLAC or better).

Ripping does not affect sound quality.  It is akin to copying files from here to there.  You can copy files to an ancient floppy disk, and the original and the one on the floppy will be identical.

So you can use a cheap, external, USB CD reader, and you will not lose anything.

(FLAC or better).  We are MAC based.

CDs store music using PCM (pulse code modulation).  Nearly every option for storing ripped files will also be PCM based.

flac is as good as you can get.  The wav format and the alac format are flac's equal, in terms of sound quality.

flac, wav, and alac will all store the exact same bits that make up the song.

Since you are Mac based, then alac would probably be your best bet (because Apple created the alac format).  But Macs will play the other formats.

So since any of the above mentioned formats are each other's equal in sound qualty, then the next item is metadata.

If storing each song's metadata matters, the steer clear of the wav format.  It is very limited when it comes to metadata.

The next item is the ripping software.  If metadata matters to you, then the ripping software is important.

A good ripping program will detect the CD that you have in the drive, and will try to match it up with an on-line database.  When it finds a match, it will grab the metadata from the on-line database, and it will associate that metadata with all of the ripped files from the CD.

Then, when you use a good music player, it will see the metadata in the files, and it will allow you to search and filter your ripped files by all sorts of criteria.

I use JRiver's Media Center.  It is amazing, and it is available for the Mac.  It is not free.

There are free music apps, but I have no suggestions.  They might have ads, or be difficult to navigate, or not offer all of the features that you want, etc.  JRiver's Media Center does everything right, but it is not free.

I am sure that there are very good free offerings, too.  An open source app might be best.  Open source apps usually do not have nags or ads or hidden agendas.