What are My Options for Ripping My CD Collection ?

@mahler123 

For those who are so quick to respond to queries such as this by saying just stream, keep in mind that many CDs are reissued in big box sets and then deleted when the run is over, with the CDs then being unavailable to stream 

Agreed.

Streaming is a great option.  But t leaves you at the mercy of the streaming service and your internet service.  If either one has an outage, then no digital music.  And streaming services might come and go, just as many huge chain stores have come and gone.  And there goes your playlists.

When you own CDs, and rip them, the songs are yours, forever.  You rely on no one and no service (other than the power company, which is unavoidable in any scenario).

And some songs on some CDs will likely sound better than what is streamed.

Two high-end store owners and their staff have told me that if you purchase the song from the streaming service, and play it from your local storage, it will sound better than coming from the streaming service.  I have not confirmed that for myself, because I subscribe to no streaming services.  But different personnel from stores, thousands of miles apart (New Jersey and Navada), told me the same thing.

I do not stream, because I do not want to rent my music.  But I am considering it, to discover more music, and to land better sounding versions of the songs that I love.

I have purchased a couple of thousand songs, and many of them have vanished from the seller’s site.  In one case, it was ponomusic, which went belly-up.  Numerous other songs I have purchased from 7digital, and many of my purchased songs are gone from that site.

But I downloaded all of my purchased music, so I lost nothing.  If I was purely renting, things would have turned out differently.

I stream but my primary medium is CDs or CDs that have been burned to my NAS.

  Currently I’m debating with myself about buying the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto 50 CD reissue.  These are completely unknown or forgotten works.  They were full priced CDs now being issued for about $4 a disc.  They generally were never available to stream because Hyperion didn’t do streaming.  Now some of them are available, I’m not sure how many, since Hyperion got taken over by a major company, and I’ve enjoyed to few that I’ve streamed, but I suspect that once the box sells out it’s limited run then they will disappear from streaming services 

@seymour-krelborn 

WAV files have the most compatibility because the format is the oldest, and for me, supported by virtually all USB-enabled car stereos. Because WAV files are not compressed- like all the others you mentioned- they have less latency, meaning they load faster and respond better.

The zip file analogy you used is similar but not exact. A zip file is fully accessed and ready to go whereas a compressed music file is uncompressed as it plays. This stresses the CPU and many car stereos become burdened with latency with some just perpetually loading with compressed files.

@cleeds 

I was referring to the fact that those programs cost money or they don't. If they are "free", you will have to read the fine print to understand why, but there is nothing in life for free.

Sales fluff refers to the persuasion to the prospective customer that you need the product when, in reality, you do not. Kind of like a pop-up blocker or virus protection- the fear is worse than the product and they know that so they lead with the fallacy that you have a problem, when they are the ones who are creating the problem. Similar to children.

Metadata album/thumbnails photos change the most. If your local database does not include a photo of the artist playing, an online database will download one. I put my music on a portable device, the rest is done for me. It's what metadata was meant to do, fill in the blanks.

I was referring to the fact that those programs cost money or they don't. If they are "free", you will have to read the fine print to understand why, but there is nothing in life for free.

Nonsense.