Storing a CD collection

[giocap]

I have a collection of around 1500 CDs. They're taking up a great deal of space and I'm under pressure from the missus to "do something about it". A friend who is very techie minded suggested I buy a network hard drive and a streamer and put all the CDs on to there but this is very new to me and I don't really understand what's involved. Firstly, how would I transfer the CDs to the hard drive? Even after I sort through them all and forget a few that I haven't played for years, I'm still going to be left with a 1000+ to transfer across. I have a nice Yamaha A-S500 amp so does the hard drive connect to the streamer and then the streamer to the amp? I appreciate this is very basic stuff for you guys but it's all new to me and if I do go out and buy what's needed to do this, I want to ensure I get the right kit. I have a budget of about £1,000 but could stretch that a little if required. Thank you for any help that can be given.

Btw, i suggested as a computer a rasberry pi or an *underpowered* slim computer, because you want a silent computer. Ideally fanless.
Nobody wants to hear a computer whirring when enjoying music.
Reproducing a flac or a mp3 is ridiculously easy for a modern pc, therefore dont get a powerful one.
The rasberry pi consumes 5w at peak load and has no fans. Just silent. It costs 50$ and in standby consumes close to 0w
You also may want a ssd , so you wont hear spinning drives. None of that!

 

[giocap]

dBpoweramp does it all and easy to setup. It needs to be purchased but not expensive.
Ripped 1400 cd's myself. You can setup autorip put the disc in walk away and it spits the drive out at the end.

You syill have to tak'em out and put the new one in. Do that every 10minutes for 1400 times . There you go , ripping cds in a nutshell.

 

[vinod_david]

Information overload for OP.

 

[singularity6]

I ripped all 900 of mine with Windows Media Player at 320kbps some time ago. Kinda kicking myself, as I kinda want all of them to be lossless now.

 

[Gray]

I ripped all 900 of mine with Windows Media Player at 320kbps some time ago. Kinda kicking myself, as I kinda want all of them to be lossless now.

...but tell us that you didn't go on to get rid of all your CDs.....so you haven't permanently lost anything.

 

[giocap]

I started ripping my 250 CDs to FLAC using Windows 10 Media player and the first one took 10 minutes, due to the slow Dell laptop drive. I'm not going to bother. I'm just going to save the few CDs I can't find on Spotify and sell the rest. I'm not sentimental about old CDs. The future is streaming, not physical media.

You dont own, you rent with streaming.
And if tidal decides to raise prices, if you want music, you must comply.
If you get fired and have to cut expenses, you can't even enjoy music in hard times.
If your favorite artist gets in a fight with spotify, no more music (example niel young).
If new streaming competition enters the market and artists split up around platforms you may have to do 5 subscriptions.
If spotify changes and starts serving ads to paying customers, or gets a wierd interface change you hate. Still out of luck.
If there's an interruption of service. No music.

Think about it.
A HD with FLAC is yours. A bunch of cds are yours.

 

[Gray]

The future is streaming

It is for me too - streaming (my own music) from a solid state drive.

Cant forsee a time when I would ever need or want to pay for any streaming service.

 

[podknocker]

Most of the music I listen to now, is stuff I have never owned on CD, or couldn't find on CD. There are 80 million tunes and podcasts on Spotify. I'd never have the funds to buy all this stuff and would have nowhere to keep it anyway. Competition and demand will ensure the streaming services will always be there and be affordable. I listen to Spotify for 12 or 13 hours a day and I think it's a bargain at £9.99 a month.

 

[Gray]

You dont own, you rent with streaming.
And if tidal decides to raise prices, if you want music, you must comply.
If you get fired and have to cut expenses, you can't even enjoy music in hard times.
If your favorite artist gets in a fight with spotify, no more music (example niel young).
If new streaming competition enters the market and artists split up around platforms you may have to do 5 subscriptions.
If spotify changes and starts serving ads to paying customers, or gets a wierd interface change you hate. Still out of luck.
If there's an interruption of service. No music.

Think about it.
A HD with FLAC is yours. A bunch of cds are yours.

Same as when people rely on streamed 'radio' stations.....shocked and surprised when the provider their streamer uses decides on a whim to stop the stream

 

[Gray]

Most of the music I listen to now, is stuff I have never owned on CD, or couldn't find on CD. There are 80 million tunes and podcasts on Spotify. I'd never have the funds to buy all this stuff and would have nowhere to keep it anyway.

You probably won't listen to 80 million though Pod 😉 but I suppose it's nice to know it's there 🤔
(Like the 99% of stuff in the supermarket that we'll never buy).

 

[podknocker]

You probably won't listen to 80 million though Pod 😉 but I suppose it's nice to know it's there 🤔
(Like the 99% of stuff in the supermarket that we'll never buy).

Indeed. I can't get through all this music, but I'm going to have a good try! It's great just clicking on a new tune and experiencing a new artist, or genre. I'm quite eclectic in my listening and there are some great tunes out there. I just wish this had been around when I was about 18 and I would have saved a fortune on CDs, at £13 a go. I just want Spotify at CD quality now, but that's another rant, for another thread!

 

[podknocker]

Same as when people rely on streamed 'radio' stations.....shocked and surprised when the provider their streamer uses decides on a whim to stop the stream 😵‍💫

I've been listening to am online radio station, for over 2 years and they've just been hacked. Been down for 3 days and I really miss the music.

 

[michael hoy]

I've been listening to am online radio station, for over 2 years and they've just been hacked. Been down for 3 days and I really miss the music.

CD's don't get hacked

 

[Gray]

CD's don't get hacked

But there were some that rotted beyond usefulness weren't there?
Wonder if anyone here had that problem.
(Quite a limited problem I believe).

 

[Al ears]

But there were some that rotted beyond usefulness weren't there?
Wonder if anyone here had that problem.
(Quite a limited problem I believe).

never seen it myself and nor has anyone that I know.

 

[nads]

Had a Roxy music one that was unplayable.
the ones you may have problems archiving is the one with copy protection.

 

[GBDevizes]

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. I ended up taking my techie friend with me and went to Richer Sounds in Bath where I bought a Cambridge Audio CXNv2 streamer. I've gone down the Spotify route and for a dual subscription for the wife and I, it's costing £13.99 per month. A friend wants to buy all of the CDs from me so that issue has been solved, The Cambridge Audio streamer comes with a 2 year guarantee, which I've extended to six years for an extra £79.95. If I never have to use the guarantee, then Richers refund the £79.95 after the six years are up, you can't get any fairer than that. The streamer is all set up through my Yamaha amp but just one last question please.

Before I bought the streamer, all I had connected through the amp was my turntable and the Yamaha CD player. There are still five available inputs on the amp, tuner, dock, line 1, line 2 and line 3. Is there a preferred input for the streamer please?

Thank you

 

[Al ears]

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. I ended up taking my techie friend with me and went to Richer Sounds in Bath where I bought a Cambridge Audio CXNv2 streamer. I've gone down the Spotify route and for a dual subscription for the wife and I, it's costing £13.99 per month. A friend wants to buy all of the CDs from me so that issue has been solved, The Cambridge Audio streamer comes with a 2 year guarantee, which I've extended to six years for an extra £79.95. If I never have to use the guarantee, then Richers refund the £79.95 after the six years are up, you can't get any fairer than that. The streamer is all set up through my Yamaha amp but just one last question please.

Before I bought the streamer, all I had connected through the amp was my turntable and the Yamaha CD player. There are still five available inputs on the amp, tuner, dock, line 1, line 2 and line 3. Is there a preferred input for the streamer please?

Thank you

You can use any, will make no difference although I would use tuner.....

 

[GBDevizes]

Thank you Al ears

 

[Gray]

....If I never have to use the guarantee, then Richers refund the £79.95 after the six years are up

Make sure you don't forget - like my brother did 😕

 

[podknocker]

RS are great. The 6 year warranty is usually 10% of the purchase price and I've had the money refunded. They are brilliant. They have a better warranty option than many, if not all other retailers, even John Lewis.

 

[singularity6]

...but tell us that you didn't go on to get rid of all your CDs.....so you haven't permanently lost anything.

Much to my wife's dismay, I still have ALL of them. No... I just lost time. Besides, Amazon Unlimited has most of my music. It sounds fine.

 

[GBDevizes]

Is anyone here up to speed with Spotify at all please? I would like to back up some of my favourite CDs to a HDD. I have downloaded the Spotify Note Burner app but when I try to drag and drop into it on my laptop, it tells me that I need to upgrade to the latest version of Spotify. I only downloaded the app to my mobile a few days ago so I assume it's the latest version? I also downloaded Spotify to my laptop at the same time. Thanks for any help, this is all new territory to me.

 

[nads]

Look at the bell top right.

 

[nopiano]

RS are great. The 6 year warranty is usually 10% of the purchase price and I've had the money refunded. They are brilliant. They have a better warranty option than many, if not all other retailers, even John Lewis.

Indeed they do. I once was organised enough to get my money back. (These days I’m sure I’d forget, as I imagine the majority do!).

Another time we had a DVD 5.1 system repaired.

Sometimes it’s nice to have the reassurance.