Advice about CD Players

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Fri May 01, 2009 6:16 pm

I have a 400 disc Sony CD/DVD player, but it tends to scratch my discs. Not to where they won't play or skip or something, but just little surface scratches.

Are there any jukeboxes that don't do this?

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Fri May 01, 2009 7:14 pm

My wife and I have at least 300 CDs, all told. Just the same, I've passed up a couple jukes for ~$20 recently.

Why aren't you ripping each CD to a single lossless file? Or something (I know foobar2000 is kind of a bitch). Winamp might suffice.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Fri May 01, 2009 10:02 pm

How much memory would hundreds (thousand?) of FLAC (or some other format) files take up? It's an interesting idea, as I just use my ipod on random, but that's at 190 kb/s, and I don't consider it a replacement for listening to the discs. They don't yet make a portable player big enough to store my music collection (or any serious music collection for that matter) with no compression, or some lossless compression. So, what's the alternative? Use and old computer with a terabyte external drive for storage?

Post by **nZero** » Fri May 01, 2009 10:19 pm

I have 860 albums (including multi-disc sets) backed up in FLAC taking up 345GB on an external drive. I usually transcode to VBR MP3 or AAC (200kbp/s range) for listening on portables or the car though. For 95% of material I don't think I could tell which was which in a blind test.

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Fri May 01, 2009 11:55 pm

nZero wrote:I have 860 albums (including multi-disc sets) backed up in FLAC taking up 345GB on an external drive. I usually transcode to VBR MP3 or AAC (200kbp/s range) for listening on portables or the car though. For 95% of material I don't think I could tell which was which in a blind test.

Yeah, my experience is about the same, anything 200kbps and up (I usually do 256) is pretty much indistinguishable. I don't care enough to rip to FLAC or any other lossless format, MP3 is good enough for me.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sat May 02, 2009 2:05 pm

This is also my same experience. I have a sound engineer friend who says he can tell easily, but that's why he's a sound engineer. At least while in the car, 200 kb/s sounds pretty damn good, and is a fair trade for portability.

The problem I have is I'm in the over 2000 albums category (not actually as fun as it might sound); but that still might work on a terabyte drive; but certainly not with an ipod (no portability.)

On the other hand, I've been learning over the last couple years--there's plenty of music I own that doesn't need to be in shuffle. Too much classical sounds the same. Do I need every album by Coltrane in there, etc? I've been weeding down what I keep on my Ipod and less is starting to equal more where I'm getting a better mix by removing stuff.

I suppose this is getting pretty far from the original post; but the deal is, when I'm home I still listen to albums as they are. I want to see the artwork and not put the whole thing on shuffle. So my single disc player is still fantastic.

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Sun May 03, 2009 4:03 am

if i rip a cd its FLAC at over 1000kbps......ripping to MP3 is pointless cuz i would rather the larger file size than the compromised quality, for at home or portable.....especially on headphones you can really hear the difference

if i am simply 'procuring' MP3's, no less than 320kbps

just grab EAC and then autoFLAC....once its all configured its a matter of like 2 clicks to rip a cd to flac.....

and if you cant tell the difference between MP3's and stuff that is 3-4X the bit rate you are probably deaf

just get a big HDD and you are rolling......