Several times in the past I have gone down the path to rip all of my CDs to a hard drive. I have never finished the task, or even gotten very far. Now after collecting CDs for 35+ years, I have a few. I also have a few computers, so I got a NAS box with 20+ TB of storage, so here I go again.
My earlier attempts used EAC which can take some time to rip, so this time I am using the older version of Windows Media Player which can rip a CD in 2 to 7 minutes. Why the difference in time on unblemished CDs with roughly the same amount of music, I don't know, but I'm guessing Windows background tasks slow it down. I am ripping directly to the NAS box with all the other connected computers turned off or disconnected. Unplugging the ethernet switch from the internet modem does not seem to make a difference and it blocks the Media Player from downloading the song titles and musicians' data.
If I get through the 1200 to 1400 CD's there are 600+ Vinyl records on the bottom two rows of that cabinet and they must be ripped in real time! The DVD movies below the CDs will not get ripped.
My earlier attempts used EAC which can take some time to rip, so this time I am using the older version of Windows Media Player which can rip a CD in 2 to 7 minutes. Why the difference in time on unblemished CDs with roughly the same amount of music, I don't know, but I'm guessing Windows background tasks slow it down. I am ripping directly to the NAS box with all the other connected computers turned off or disconnected. Unplugging the ethernet switch from the internet modem does not seem to make a difference and it blocks the Media Player from downloading the song titles and musicians' data.
If I get through the 1200 to 1400 CD's there are 600+ Vinyl records on the bottom two rows of that cabinet and they must be ripped in real time! The DVD movies below the CDs will not get ripped.
Attachments
You do not need to rip dvd's, just copy paste to hard drive. You can play with vlc player later.
I started ripping cd's but never finished. Decided to just throw away the bulky plastic cd cases and keep cd's in folders.
Vinyl...well, that will take lots of time, i will not even attempt that. Besides, which turnable, which cartridge, which riaa preamp, so many options.
I started ripping cd's but never finished. Decided to just throw away the bulky plastic cd cases and keep cd's in folders.
Vinyl...well, that will take lots of time, i will not even attempt that. Besides, which turnable, which cartridge, which riaa preamp, so many options.
Don't need to copy the DVDs since both TVs have DVD players, and I rarely watch TV or movies that are longer than my attention span. I'll try to work my way through the CD's little by little. My 71 year old ears aren't what they used to be, so I doubt that I will ever rip the records that I also have on CD. I have a bunch of obscure rock records that never got released on CD. Some were promos from a radio station. Most of them were sourced from their trash dumpster.
TT and cartridges? No problem there I still have an old direct drive Technics that I bought in the mid 80's at one of those catalog showrooms, either Luria's or Service Merchandise. It still has the original ADC cart in it, but I do have a new in the box Shure M97xE if I decide to try it. I still play a record on the TT every once in a while, so I know that the setup still works. The phono stage is a chip amp thingie that I built from the TI chip data sheet. It lives inside the TT base, so the outputs plug right into a tube amp or the Focusrite interface for recording to the PC.
TT and cartridges? No problem there I still have an old direct drive Technics that I bought in the mid 80's at one of those catalog showrooms, either Luria's or Service Merchandise. It still has the original ADC cart in it, but I do have a new in the box Shure M97xE if I decide to try it. I still play a record on the TT every once in a while, so I know that the setup still works. The phono stage is a chip amp thingie that I built from the TI chip data sheet. It lives inside the TT base, so the outputs plug right into a tube amp or the Focusrite interface for recording to the PC.
Speaking of 'this might take a while' I dedicated a lot of time in the past to digitize few dozen reel to reel tapes. Long time ago, i had nice top of the line technics nine gang tuner and rt707 pioneer rtr with external type II dolby and made lots of live jazz recordings. That time every saturday night there was live broadcast from kenedy center here in dc called Billy Taylor's Jazz. Lots of great jazz artists were invited over the years. While i could not record all, i did record many in pretty good quality. Recordings have something only live stage has. Anyway, i digitized all tapes into flacks or wav files. Took me a while but its done. Now i can enjoy live jazz anytime.
adason,
Are you pleased with the tape transfers? I guess that would depend on how good the transmission was.
I have thought about copying LPs to HDD but I think I enjoy having a good excuse to use the turntable.
If I could not longer have or operate a turntable I would be motivated to make transfers of the favorites.
Are you pleased with the tape transfers? I guess that would depend on how good the transmission was.
I have thought about copying LPs to HDD but I think I enjoy having a good excuse to use the turntable.
If I could not longer have or operate a turntable I would be motivated to make transfers of the favorites.
Yes, i did my best to digitize rtr tapes. Well, occasionally towards the end of the tape there was some issue, but for most of the time it sounds like live concert on the radio.
I have lots of this nice jazz from kennedy center, and are willing to send copy on usb to anyone interested, for free. I believe i shared it with Mr. Nelson and he liked it. There is someting very special about live on stage stuff. You can not edit it later. I already shared this with most of my friends, and i think its ok to share it with friends. I certainly do not want to infringe on any musicians rights by illegaly distributing something bootlegged. But between friends for free, i see no issue.
When it comes to lp's, there were many i digitized for friends who no longer wanted to deal with turntable, just wanted files on computer.
I had precious lp once, which i played a lot, and when i got to buy new one, i immediately digitized it. Later my friend purchased flac files. We played my wav files against his flac files, almost no difference except slight surface noise between songs from lp.
I have lots of this nice jazz from kennedy center, and are willing to send copy on usb to anyone interested, for free. I believe i shared it with Mr. Nelson and he liked it. There is someting very special about live on stage stuff. You can not edit it later. I already shared this with most of my friends, and i think its ok to share it with friends. I certainly do not want to infringe on any musicians rights by illegaly distributing something bootlegged. But between friends for free, i see no issue.
When it comes to lp's, there were many i digitized for friends who no longer wanted to deal with turntable, just wanted files on computer.
I had precious lp once, which i played a lot, and when i got to buy new one, i immediately digitized it. Later my friend purchased flac files. We played my wav files against his flac files, almost no difference except slight surface noise between songs from lp.
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for your report.
I can understand LP frustration. One never knows when it might ensue! For the time being I can still enjoy the fiddling. Which makes me think of Clark Johnsen's observation that digital audio was supposed to make everything easier but leave it to us audio kooks to have made it as tweaky and fiddly as analog. And to read of some streaming set-ups ... I ask myself if they are serious? I have not been impressed with the sound of streaming but then I have not purchased the ten thousand dollars network cables and I feel sure that is the missing link. (yeah, sure ...)
Take care, adason
I can understand LP frustration. One never knows when it might ensue! For the time being I can still enjoy the fiddling. Which makes me think of Clark Johnsen's observation that digital audio was supposed to make everything easier but leave it to us audio kooks to have made it as tweaky and fiddly as analog. And to read of some streaming set-ups ... I ask myself if they are serious? I have not been impressed with the sound of streaming but then I have not purchased the ten thousand dollars network cables and I feel sure that is the missing link. (yeah, sure ...)
Take care, adason
Tried EAC couldn't get on with it. Eventually I paid for a copy of dbpoweramp. Which I've found to be decent, with a good interface to various metadata sources.
Ultrasonically cleaned and then ripped LPs with Vinyl Studio. The main reason for ripping LPs was portability to play on other devices. Slow, slow, slow job. Still not there 🙁
Ultrasonically cleaned and then ripped LPs with Vinyl Studio. The main reason for ripping LPs was portability to play on other devices. Slow, slow, slow job. Still not there 🙁
