that's what I did (ripped them all), it's easy to keep up now
― Taylor Slift (sleeve), Monday, 5 February 2024 21:40 (eight months ago) link
went to Half-Price this past weekend and someone unloaded their entire REM CD collection so I filled in all my gaps (Reckoning, Monster, New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 5 February 2024 22:32 (eight months ago) link
If I had some painless way to convert all my CDs to FLAC, I would probably go that route.
Can you tell me what's good about FLACs relative to other formats? I download them when there's nothing else available, but I immediately convert them to my preferred everyday-listening format, which is 256 AACs. (Sonically indistinguishable from 320 MP3s.) FLACs are so inconvenient (iTunes won't play them) that I can't understand them being anyone's format of choice, but obviously they are.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Monday, 5 February 2024 22:41 (eight months ago) link
what mac are you using that you're still on itunes?
― 龜, Monday, 5 February 2024 22:47 (eight months ago) link
unperson you can use ALAC which is interconvertible with FLAC and also lossless. I just kept a Mac sitting on a side table set to rip-and-eject each time a CD was inserted, I would swap the CD each time I walked past and one had ejected. Took a couple of months for ~2000 discs but that was it, now I just add Bandcamp purchases and rip new discs as they come in.
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 5 February 2024 22:58 (eight months ago) link
I refer to Music as iTunes the same way I refer to X as Twitter.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Monday, 5 February 2024 22:59 (eight months ago) link
Many xp's to UMS - my simple back up plan is a cheap DVD player with a coax out. I saw one for £20 in the supermarket before Christmas and was tempted to buy it so the back up was there.
― hamicle, Monday, 5 February 2024 23:02 (eight months ago) link
There's a kind of archival/psychological comfort with FLACs that nothing's been lost and you can reconstruct a bit-for-bit perfect copy of the original .wavs ripped from the CD or even better if it came from a higher resolution transfer rather than a CD, but for my ears, yeah I can't tell the difference.
It would be cool to have a hybrid listening format (I think FLACs do support more multitracks) for stems though -- could selectively listen to just the bass track on and justice for all...
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 5 February 2024 23:04 (eight months ago) link
I am team FLAC for life, yes I can still hear the difference even though I am an old punk with tinnitus, and you can always convert back to WAV if you wanna burn a CDR for the car or a friend or something
― Taylor Slift (sleeve), Monday, 5 February 2024 23:06 (eight months ago) link
I use Vox as my music player these days, so I just rip every new CD to FLAC and play through that
I thought FLAC’s was primarily about saving space. Like when I traded bootleg CD-R’s in the ‘00s, it was preferred for trees in order to fit multidisc sets into less discs - also to protect the data since it would have to be a CD-ROM and the data correction built into that format was more reliable than a music CD.
Also saves time for downloading music for those with slower connections.
But otherwise no advantage in terms of sound quality.
― birdistheword, Monday, 5 February 2024 23:07 (eight months ago) link
originally, yes, but you can also tag them and add images, which you can't do with WAV/AIFF
― Taylor Slift (sleeve), Monday, 5 February 2024 23:27 (eight months ago) link
i.e. metadata sorry
― Taylor Slift (sleeve), Monday, 5 February 2024 23:28 (eight months ago) link
FLACs aren't that much smaller than WAVs are they? like 10-20% smaller?
storage is pretty cheap nowadays, 2000 CDs at ~500 megabytes a FLAC rip is about 1 terabyte... you can get a >14TB hard drive for 2-300 bucks these days. that's like a billion CDs!
― 龜, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 00:52 (eight months ago) link
Depending on the setting and even the music, especially something like a spare spoken word recording, they can be a lot smaller. If it's a mono recording ripped from a CD, right off the bat you know you'll save at least half the data since it's two duplicate channels.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 01:05 (eight months ago) link
Actually 10-20 is more for zip compression. For FLAC, it can be as much as 70%: https://hbfs.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/looking-at-flac-compression-ratios/
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 01:07 (eight months ago) link
> Someone should make a CD player that looks and acts like a regular CD player but in the background it rips every CD you play in it to FLAC, tags it, and stores it in an internal HD
https://blog.richersounds.com/product-review-bluesound-vault-2i-cd-ripper-and-network-streamer/
there used to be adverts in the papers for such a thing for years. this isn't it, but does the same job. from 2018...
― koogs, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 01:15 (eight months ago) link
https://luxe.digital/lifestyle/technology/brennan-b2-review/
this is the one from the adverts
― koogs, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 01:22 (eight months ago) link
I've not so scientifically noticed that ripping to FLAC seems to take way longer than just ripping to wav/aiff, which makes a lot of sense. The last "ripping project" I did I used FLAC and it took forever. Nowadays I only rip here and there, and just do it to aiff.
― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 04:00 (eight months ago) link
oh yeah I just rip them to WAV in itunes and then convert to Flac, much faster
― Taylor Slift (sleeve), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 04:20 (eight months ago) link
I've been using a £30 DVD player into DAC for the last couple of years and it's fine sound-wise, but it takes a while to start actually playing a CD and there's no display (so no track number or time). I thought it wouldn't bother me but it's just annoying enough that I'll probably pick up a dedicated transport (refurb Cambridge Audio cxc seems to be about half price) or basic CD player separate at some point soon.
Maybe the right very cheap DVD player wouldn't have these issues but there are comfort pitfalls on it's-just-bits route.
― woof, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 17:55 (eight months ago) link
what do read errors sound like? Is that just skipping?
― brimstead, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 18:48 (eight months ago) link
So my player’s issue usually seems to start towards the middle of the disc, it will start making a faint skipping noise about once a second. If I stop the disc and restart the same track it will play fine. I contacted Yamaha and they said I should update the firmware, which requires downloading a file and putting it on a USB flash drive. So I guess that’s the next step in my adventure.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 7 February 2024 03:17 (seven months ago) link
Fingers crossed, but seems like updating the firmware actually helped. Haven't had the skipping issue since I updated. Seems crazy they would ship a CD player with an issue like that, but I guess at least they can offer a DIY fix.
― o. nate, Monday, 12 February 2024 18:29 (seven months ago) link
there's no display (so no track number or time). I thought it wouldn't bother me but it's just annoying enough that I'll probably pick up a dedicated transport (refurb Cambridge Audio cxc seems to be about half price) or basic CD player separate at some point soon.
this would seriously drive me insane
― Paul Ponzi, Monday, 12 February 2024 20:33 (seven months ago) link
I have ~2400 CDs, many of which I ripped a *long* time ago. I'd love to have them as FLAC or even just higher bitrate MP3s. I must overcome my laziness and just get ripping.
― Duke, Monday, 12 February 2024 21:05 (seven months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiREEdjDX20
― The SoyBoy West Coast (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 12 February 2024 21:11 (seven months ago) link
One solution for ripping a large number of CDs (or Blu-Rays) is to connect up 4-6 drives via USB and rip simultaneously. I use three at once for ripping Blu-Rays and my computer doesn't break a sweat. Mass FLAC conversion shouldn't be too taxing for a modern multicore/multithreaded CPU.
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 12 February 2024 21:17 (seven months ago) link
damn fancy
you can do it Duke! I am so happy that I did, now I can just keep up by ripping new-to-me items
― Surfin' burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (sleeve), Monday, 12 February 2024 21:25 (seven months ago) link
Yeah what sleeve said. I did my massive initial rip back in the late 2000s at 320k mp3s and stayed with that standard for a while for anything new, but as I was able to upgrade my main hard drive over time it got to the point where I could switch to ALAC for both CD rips and Bandcamp downloads and did so, and have in bursts gone back to rerip things as available. Never hurts.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 February 2024 21:33 (seven months ago) link
A couple of months ago I started using Soulseek for downloading files of stuff I have on vinyl. It’s been a dream, and it’s fast. Is there any reason to rip your own cds when Soulseek is faster?
― Cow_Art, Monday, 12 February 2024 21:39 (seven months ago) link
if you are anal about ripping things to your own personal specifications, rip your own
otherwise yeah soulseek is faster
― 龜, Monday, 12 February 2024 21:41 (seven months ago) link
I've never thought to rip from multiple drives at once!
Semi-offtopic, but ok, so one sets an external USB drive to a specific DVD region and we have a few chances to switch it before its locked. If I have more than one external drive, can I set one to region 1, another to region 2? or is that locked in the OS for all external drives? I've never owned more than one at a time to try.
― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Monday, 12 February 2024 23:51 (seven months ago) link
Last weekend I got a CD boombox for the bedroom! I'm having so much fun! I can listen to my "Sounds Of The Planets" Voyager recordings CDs on a loop when I go to bed! There's a lot of great 90's free jazz that only came out on CD! What a delightful format. I don't have to flip the record. If I'm asleep when it ends, it will either turn itself off or play again - i don't have to get up and manually turn it off.
I DO wish the car speakers didn't rattle -- it's a problem for a lot of CDs i own, that i have to burn the bass down to prevent the rattle.
― ian, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 00:59 (seven months ago) link
I had time to kill before a movie recently so I went into the kinda punk rock record store near washington square park. i got some cheap CDs by Lucinda Williams, a gamelan ensemble, Masaki Batoh, and Charley Patton. $2-3. What a bargain!
― ian, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:04 (seven months ago) link
ian I relate to this so hard. cd boombox and cheap cds....bliss
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:07 (seven months ago) link
The amount of CDs by great-and-popular artists I find at thrift stores is astounding. Classics everywhere. Stacks of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Byrds et al. And you know, i'll happily pay $10 for that Michael Hurley CD too, or for that Ocora CD, cuz they are cool, and maybe they are not available in any other physical format.
― ian, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:11 (seven months ago) link
I blew out the stock speakers in my Saturn station wagon with a Belle and Sebastian CD.
― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:14 (seven months ago) link
Even rare, collectible CDs that are $15-20 at saavy stores are a good deal compared to reissue vinyl anyway.
― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:18 (seven months ago) link
CDs! Who could’ve imagined?
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 01:53 (seven months ago) link
Kind of sad that a good "collectible" CD price these days is essentially the original retail price, but great for buyers!
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 03:31 (seven months ago) link
That sort of locking usually happens in the firmware of the drive (five changes are usually the limit) so you should be able to set different drives to different regions. Alternately, MakeMKV (what most people use to rip video discs) doesn't care about region coding, nor does VLC (what many people use to view DVDs in their computers). Also, flashing the firmware of your drive with a LibreDrive or other version can either reset your region change count or disable it altogether. So you have options, depending on how tech-saavy you are.
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 05:16 (seven months ago) link
― Duke, Monday, February 12, 2024 9:05 PM bookmarkflaglink
the fastest way to rip your CDs is to download someone else's, just torrent or soulseek what you can
― chihuahuau, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:27 (seven months ago) link
Yr station wagon is trying to tell you something
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:29 (seven months ago) link
Is there any reason to rip your own cds when Soulseek is faster?
only if you care about a specific CD edition you can't find anywhere else
― chihuahuau, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:29 (seven months ago) link
I DO wish the car speakers didn't rattle -- it's a problem for a lot of CDs i own, that i have to burn the bass down to prevent the rattle.― ian, Monday, February 12, 2024 7:59 PM (yesterday)
― ian, Monday, February 12, 2024 7:59 PM (yesterday)
how old's yr car? speakers could be due for a replacement
― 龜, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 15:30 (seven months ago) link
I don't want some rando's unsecure rip of a CD that I own, how do I know they aren't sharing some FLAC transcoded from some coked-out WMA files originally optimized for their Zune player? I'll save that embrace of the unknown for stuff I can't otherwise find or afford to buy.
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 15:51 (seven months ago) link
yes, i've seen the wacky ideas of metadata that some people have from the suggestions that come back from freedb.
anyway, can't remember where i saw this first, maybe it was here:
Mom refuses to throw out her CDs. I'm on the mom's side. pic.twitter.com/XaSRBG6G7B— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) February 9, 2024
― koogs, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 16:08 (seven months ago) link
xxp sounds like the woofer might be ripped. or screws need to be tightenedGoogle how to replace on your car. if it's not a complete ordeal to do, even the cheapest car speakers tend to sound totally fine.
― maf you one two (maffew12), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 16:22 (seven months ago) link
or i mean just adjust balance for now to basically disable the bad one(s) for the moment
― maf you one two (maffew12), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 16:25 (seven months ago) link