During a recent apartment move, I became aware of how much stuff I had that was redundant.It was with great pleasure that I was able to dump a lot of it rather than paying guys tomove it all across town — again.
Books and CDs were the principal weighty items I got rid of, along with asvelte cherry laminate IKEA CD rack that my girlfriend told me made my pad look old-fashioned. Horrified, I threw it out too.
I no longer needed my books, due to a tablet-based Web — and I could ditch my CDs with the availability of streaming services, software downloads, hard drives and cloud-based storage.
Here’s how you too can get rid of your CDs and thus avoid scorn.
Step 1: Choosing Your Storage
Choose network-attached storage (NAS) or cloud-based storage.
NAS
NAS devices are physical media solutions that contain one or more hard drives. Theyhard-wire to the router and are dedicated to media playback streaming, so are a morerobust solution than just using your laptop or PC.
NAS devices also provide the processing for streaming audio to connected devices, sodon’t tie up your laptop chips.
NAS options to consider are primarily capacity- and interface-related. More specifiedterabytes allow for greater capacity. A Gigabit Internet port allows for the higheststreaming speeds.
Base NAS devices cost a little more than a hundred dollars, but there are no further runningcosts.
Cloud
Cloud solutions can run a hundred dollars per year for 200 GB of music files, or from freeto US$25 a year for imported songs.
Some music-specific cloud services like Amazon Cloud Player and iTunes Match scanyour hard drive and match your hard-drive containing songs with what they have on file.
They then only store your files if they don’t have existing matches. This results in cost savings,which they pass on to you.
Cloud Player allows Web streaming, whereas iTunes Match doesn’t. Both support 10devices, although Amazon Cloud supports non-iOS devices.
Small amounts of storage, usually 5 GB or less, are free from multiple vendors.
Tip: Your rights to ownership of music differ depending on technology. Forexample, under the Apple iTunes purchasing license, your ownership expires on death. Ifyou hold the actual CD, you can assign ownership to someone else on death.
Step 2: Playing the Music
Select an audio system.
Sonos andLinn DS are stream- and network-friendly add-ons or substitutes for your stereo. Sonos lets you use your existing speakers andsubwoofer.
Be aware that storage (hard drive) included within a music system can introduce noise, soread up on reviews before buying.
Music system options to look for include on-board Internet radio; streaming services like Spotify and Napster; and custom radio stations like Pandora’s jukebox-like service. Look for included iTunes if you use it.
Look for DLNA certification. DLNA, or Digital Living Network Alliance, is a commoncertification used to ensure compatibility standards.
Tip: Streaming services can also be a substitute for CD ownership, cloud or NAS storage.Streaming services like Spotify charge a monthly fee that allows you to download orstream music. You are effectively renting the music.
Step 3: Ripping the CDs
Digitizing CDs into files that can be streamed or played via hard drive is called”ripping.”
Choose between sending your CDs out to be ripped or doing it yourself. Ripping is time-consuming, so unless you are expecting to be snowed in, send them out.
Professional ripping services will mail you the box and spindles for loading the CDs.They will then arrange collection and perform the conversion. They’ll deliver the files onhard drive and return the CDs.
If you’re hunkered down for the winter with nothing to do — or broke — you can downloadfree and paid software to rip CDs yourself. Look for “Free CD Rippers” in aweb-based search.
Step 4: Lossless or Compressed?
Choose lossless for highest quality and compressed for smaller file size. The price ofhard-drive storage is low enough now that there’s no reason you should skimp on qualityin a hard-drive based system.
Technically there’s nothing to stop you ripping two versions — a fat uncompressedversion to use at home, and a stripped-down, thinner-sounding version for smartphone ortablet.
Lossless formats include open source FLAC. Lossy formats include Vorbis, MP3 andApple-championed AAC.
According to ripping service Ripcaster, a hundred CDs in lossless FLAC uses 43.3 GB. Ahundred CDs in commonly used, lossy 128 bitrate MP3 uses 7.3 GB.
Audiophiles can argue about file formats until the cows come home, but generally thehigher the bitrate, the better the sound quality. Bitrates range from 64 to 320.
Tip: Copyright statutes come into play when ripping music and are different throughoutthe world. Many jurisdictions do not allow making any copies of copyrighted media atall, even if it’s solely for your own use.
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I don’t think people realize how much data information they loose from a downloaded musical track vs a CD. The CD contains far more data then a downloaded album of the same. So it stands to reason the CD contains more music. Its really quite sad how people have actually taken a medium such as digital and reduced the quality of the music. Not to a point many people will notice because many use inferior reproduction of that sound. So it would be hard for them to tell if it is good or bad. Even Steve Jobs commented that he preferred vinyl albums to digital because of the smoother response.
One thing is for certain the CD introduced us to more accurate music storage over vinyl and magnetic tape. But now we seem accepting of reducing that digital quality for the sake of space?