# Just burned my music collection. Did I do the right thing?



## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

So, I just finished putting about 300 CD's onto my HD. I used WMP11 and ripped them as MP3's with the best quality (320 Kbps). I don't have an MP3 player and have never listened to music other than CD's and the occasional XM radio.

I want to get prepared for a couple of things, however (like streaming my music from my computer to my HR20's).

I'm not an audiophile, but I have a nice audio set up in my home theater and a decent 5.1 system in the living room. I used the best quality MP3 so that I could have the best quality (duh) in the most user friendly format. 

I'll probably be giving the majority of the CD's to my relatives (don't tell the gov'ment), so I might not have access to them anymore.

My question is:

Will I find in the future that I shouldn't have used MP3? Will I get an audio distribution system at some point (Sonos, for example) and realize that it doesn't play nice with MP3's? Should I rip them all in a second format to be safe?

Or, am I good to go?


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## Sackchamp56 (Nov 10, 2006)

spartanstew said:


> So, I just finished putting about 300 CD's onto my HD. I used WMP11 and ripped them as MP3's with the best quality (320 Kbps). I don't have an MP3 player and have never listened to music other than CD's and the occasional XM radio.
> 
> I want to get prepared for a couple of things, however (like streaming my music from my computer to my HR20's).
> 
> ...


I wouldnt get rid of them all. Its good to have a backup. What if your hard drive bites the big one?


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

Plus even the best mp3 doesn't sound as good as the original CD.

Just because you like the convenience of a fast food burger doesn't mean that's all you'll ever eat, unless you want to be condemned to a life sentence at Burger King.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Keep the cd's. If you have a hard drive crash you will need them. Besides, since you posted here that you were giving away the cd's the RIAA is going to come knock down your front door.  Seriously though, I would keep the cd's as backup.


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## bhelton71 (Mar 8, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> So, I just finished putting about 300 CD's onto my HD. I used WMP11 and ripped them as MP3's with the best quality (320 Kbps). I don't have an MP3 player and have never listened to music other than CD's and the occasional XM radio.
> 
> I want to get prepared for a couple of things, however (like streaming my music from my computer to my HR20's).
> 
> ...


If you have the storage space I would suggest FLAC - it is lossless and most of the higher end streamers including the Sonos support it directly. And you still get the benefit of metadata for management.

Here is the hardware list:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware


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## chris0 (Jun 25, 2007)

Plus you won't know if there were any errors in any of the rips until you listen to all the songs. I've ripped CDs before only to hear pops and cracks in a song.


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## bhelton71 (Mar 8, 2007)

chris0 said:


> Plus you won't know if there were any errors in any of the rips until you listen to all the songs. I've ripped CDs before only to hear pops and cracks in a song.


Exact Audio Copy uses AccurateRip which is pretty good at detecting errors. Also it looks up the offsets for your CD-Rom reader which helps eliminate some errors also.

If anyone is interested - AccurateRip Cliff notes : basically each time someone rips a cd a checksum for each song and the entire album is submitted to a server. The server maintains a database - so if you rip Song X from Album Y - accuraterip gets a confidence level - out of 400 rips in the database yours matches x percent. It handles remasters and originals equally well and does distinguish between them.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Sackchamp56 said:


> I wouldnt get rid of them all. Its good to have a backup. What if your hard drive bites the big one?


Well, that's a valid point, but I will have them on 2 different hard drives, so I'm good as far as back-ups.

There's really 2 reasons I want to get rid of them:

1. They take up space. Not much, but they do. I've been carting most of them around for 20 years and just a bit sick of it.
2. My sister and law and her husband are fairly poor (he's always getting laid off from his electrical job) and they have a 12 year old son (ny Nephew). They live in a different state, but my nephew comes to visit a couple of times per year and when he does, he always wants to listen to my CD's. He really likes music, but doesn't own any. His birtday is next month and I was going to ship my whole collection to him. It would make his year.



bhelton71 said:


> If you have the storage space I would suggest FLAC - it is lossless and most of the higher end streamers including the Sonos support it directly. And you still get the benefit of metadata for management.
> 
> Here is the hardware list:
> http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware


I thought about FLAC, but I read on another forum that it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the lossles format and MP3's when they're ripped at the greatest quality. Also that it's easier to use MP3's (for example, if my wife gets and ipod next week, she can't use FLAC with it). I also wanted to use WMP11 since I already had it and it's very simple to use. If it takes more than one button press, it might be over my head.



chris0 said:


> Plus you won't know if there were any errors in any of the rips until you listen to all the songs. I've ripped CDs before only to hear pops and cracks in a song.


OK, now that would really suck. I thought WMP11 checked some of that stuff.



bhelton71 said:


> Exact Audio Copy uses AccurateRip which is pretty good at detecting errors.


Is that a free download? Is it easy to use?


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## Pinion413 (Oct 21, 2007)

spartanstew, if you're not an audiophile, then 320Kbps MP3's should do you just fine. I have my entire (600+) CD collection ripped at 128-320 VBR settings, and they sound plenty good. At 320 CBR, unless you had both good ears and an expensive set of headphones/speakers, you would be hard pressed to hear the differences between a 320 MP3 and the original disc.

Lossless encoders like FLAC and WMA Lossless do retain the original wave-form, but to have 2 disadvantages. They use more disk space, and the vast majority of stand alone players don't support them.

As for ripping software, Exact Audio Copy is supposed to be one of (if not) the best out there, but WMP 11 should still have had some sort of error checking built in as well. I wouldn't worry too much about having to re-rip stuff. If you're that concerned, then try EAC. Yes, it's free, and seems pretty straight-forward.


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## bhelton71 (Mar 8, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> <Clip>
> 
> I thought about FLAC, but I read on another forum that it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the lossles format and MP3's when they're ripped at the greatest quality. Also that it's easier to use MP3's (for example, if my wife gets and ipod next week, she can't use FLAC with it). I also wanted to use WMP11 since I already had it and it's very simple to use. If it takes more than one button press, it might be over my head.
> 
> ...


Well I'll be honest I can't hear a difference - but I can see it in Audacity - so I know its there - but I don't have a 'golden' ear. The only time I can tell is on Jaco Pastorius or Charles Mingus - when I am specifically listening for the bass - maybe its a little soft. I just don't know if I hear that or I know that though ???

I prefer flac for archive quality more than listening. And for feeding my HR20 I am mostly using MP3 320kbps CBR - although I have been playing with AAC (the Nero encoder) at much lower bitrates and been surprised.

Yes - exact audio copy is free for private use and very easy to use. I have used it to create flac, mp3, aac, and even did APE a couple times - but it will convert to almost any format.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/


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## 4DThinker (Dec 17, 2006)

You did "a" right thing. MP3 is a fine format, and will be good enough. Using WMP11 was a good idea, since it probably found all the cover art and track names, as well as other info when you ripped them, and stored that in each mp3 and folder. That info will be great to have once you get an iPod or Zune or any other media player. 

The HR20s will also play MP3 files. I'm not sure what other formats they play, if any. So MP3s were a good choice here too. 

I would certainly make a backup of all those MP3s and keep it isolated from your current system. External USB drives are great for this. Just consider that is a lightning bolt takes out your PC, anything connected to it will also (likely) be fried. So keep that external drive, once it has your music on it, unplugged/seperated from your PC.


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## smiddy (Apr 5, 2006)

spartanstew said:


> So, I just finished putting about 300 CD's onto my HD. I used WMP11 and ripped them as MP3's with the best quality (320 Kbps). I don't have an MP3 player and have never listened to music other than CD's and the occasional XM radio.
> 
> I want to get prepared for a couple of things, however (like streaming my music from my computer to my HR20's).
> 
> ...


You've gotten some fine advice thus far. Here's my tar pence: It is important to presreve the original formating as best as possible in order to have a good copy. Since you are planning on loaning your CDs to your relatives, you would serve yourself well to rip in the WAV format that is on the CD and then copy to a converted format on your hard drive. 300 CD is a lot of work, I know, before Christmas I did about 500 CDs in the lossless WMA format but I intend to keep my CDs in their cases and not touch them again.

I have a Zune, and my entire collection doesn't fit onto it, so I have to figure out if I want to degrade the lossless format versus capacity on my Zune, I am leaning towards not, and manage the content somewhat closely, since I may get a set of headphones that will be representative of the quality of audio I can get from it. This is a tradeoff based on personal wants/needs. I lean towards lossless because I consider myself a somewhat audiophile, not as much as Carl Spock, but maybe a few steps back from that.

I recommend you re-evaluate your goals and decide from there.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Well, since I first posted my question, I've done a bit of playing.

I spent most of yesterday, listening to the MP3's in my home theater via the streaming music feature of the HR20. 

Wow.

On a couple of occasions, I actually toggled back and forth between the MP3 and the actual CD. While my HT is mainly built for movies, it also does a great job with music. It's a dedicated room, with 7.1 sound and quality components. I could not tell the difference between the MP3's and the CD. Brought my wife in and had her listen as well via a blind study. She thought each sounded identical.

It's been awhile since I actually listened to music in the HT and boy was it nice to sit there and listen to some things I hadn't heard in quite awhile at reference level.

I also burned on of my wife's CD's onto a CD-R and took that into the HT. Placed it along with the original into my Sony 5 disc player and she couldn't tell which was which (nor could I).

I already have all the files on our external drive. I'm in the process of copying them over to another portable external drive that I take with me when I travel. That will give me 2 copies of all my music. I think that'll be good for now.

Thanks guys.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

4DThinker said:


> You did "a" right thing. MP3 is a fine format, and will be good enough. Using WMP11 was a good idea, since it probably found all the cover art and track names, as well as other info when you ripped them, and stored that in each mp3 and folder. That info will be great to have once you get an iPod or Zune or any other media player.


The info is great already. It's pretty impressive to open up my music collection on the computer and see a seperate folder for each artist and inside is a folder for each cover with cover art. It's also pretty cool, pulling up my music collection on the HR20 and seeing a list of artists. Then clicking on an artist brings up all their albums. I think I'll be listening to music more than I have been.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I think you're cool, but I'd pick up a couple of those 200-CD wallets and just keep your CDs there. Takes up very little space and it's a great backup.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I think you're cool, but I'd pick up a couple of those 200-CD wallets and just keep your CDs there. Takes up very little space and it's a great backup.


That is exactly what my wife and I have done. We chucked all the jewel cases (which I wanted to save, but now, I am glad we did) and got some of the large binders with 4 CD slots per page. Put the CD in one and the liner notes beside it. Takers very littel sapce at all on a shelf somewhere.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I think you're cool, but I'd pick up a couple of those 200-CD wallets and just keep your CDs there. Takes up very little space and it's a great backup.


Already have 2 of those. The CD artwork has been in them for the last 5 years or so (while the CD's were all in the mega changer).

But, they're probably going to the nephew too. I guess as long as he doesn't ruin the CD's, he'll just be holding onto my backups.


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