Are servers the new media?

[kennyt]

bekbob,

I sure hope you have all that data backed up, and if it were me, I'd do it twice! It takes a long time to re-rip 2000 CD's!

When you ripped all that music, what did you rip it as? The first time I put all my discs onto my computer I did it in MP3 and then had to go back and redo it in AIFF (I'm a Mac guy) which I just finished completing recently (I finally put all the wife's discs on the HD)

[bekbob]

Originally Posted by kennyt

bekbob,
When you ripped all that music, what did you rip it as?

When I first ripped them all those years ago, I did it as 193 kb /mp3. That was the best price / quality ratio at the time. Over the last few years though I've still been buying CD / DVD-A / SACDs. I'd like to rip the new remasters I have such as the Elton John SACDs, The Police SACDs, The Talking Heads CD-DVD-A box, R.E.M. CD-DVD-As, Depeche MOde SACD remasters and so on.

I'd really, really, really like to try a lossless format such as wmv or apple lossless. But I take my music in my car and on my iPods all the time. I have a fantastic JVC deck in the car that will take a DVD full of mp3s, or even on a USB key. I don't want to have to downsample every time I take my files to go. It'd be perfect if some ripping program out there would rip to two files at once, a lossless and a lossy.

I wouldn't mind too much going with Apple lossless, then I could still take things on my iPod. And the car deck has an iPod interface. But then I don't think that the Windows Media Center will see the files.

I do have the files backed up a few times on external hard drives that just sit there not plugged in.

But I think sometime this year I'd like to get all the old CD's out of the basement, take out the duplicates that I now have as remasters, and rip the whole lot once more in lossless.

Sounds like a project is brewing.

On an semi-related note. Was downtown at my local stereo boutique earlier this evening. They have a speaker sale on until the end on the month, bring in any old pair for $100 off a new pair (that are $300 or more). I saw a few nice PSBs that I'd love to have in my basement. I have a PSB sub on the third floor right now that I would highly recommend.

[kennyt]

Originally Posted by bekbob

I'd really, really, really like to try a lossless format such as wmv or apple lossless. But I take my music in my car and on my iPods all the time. I have a fantastic JVC deck in the car that will take a DVD full of mp3s, or even on a USB key. I don't want to have to downsample every time I take my files to go. It'd be perfect if some ripping program out there would rip to two files at once, a lossless and a lossy.

While I don't know of any software that rips to two different formats, I have found sometimes my Mac will rip to two logged on users SOMETIMES, but it's not perfect.

I would highly recommend you immediately stop ripping in anything lossy.

Why?

Once you have the lossless files (I used AIFF) you can use iTunes to convert all them to a separate library as any compression scheme you want overnight. Then you'll have the highest quality rips for anything you might want to do with them in the future and can easily make them fit onto MP3 discs or for your iPod.

Once I too ripped all my discs in @ 192k, then once I realized the error of my ways I only rip them once in AIFF and let the computer batch process them to MP3 or AAC periodically.

[kennyt]

BTW I posted this as it's own forum but right now Best Buy is selling Western Digital 1 TB internal SATA HD's for $229.99, it's the best price I could find by a long shot anywhere and no rebate required.... My serve just got a little more room....

[kennyt]

Well, my server is growing by the hour....

It's pouring rain here in Florida so I'm at my desk with three computers running (well, the PC laptop is just for Free Cell as I find PC's so amazingly cumbersome to use) and I am trying to finish getting every single CD of mine and the wife's onto one massive (1TB) HD before I go and back it up....

Once I finish, I will start to re-do my PowerBook G4 laptop to have all my data from ym main rig on it in case I need to travel for any length of time.

The dogs are resting quietly, and I am busy doing nothing much and loving the empty house and rainfall....

[bekbob]

Originally Posted by kennyt

While I don't know of any software that rips to two different formats, I have found sometimes my Mac will rip to two logged on users SOMETIMES, but it's not perfect.

I would highly recommend you immediately stop ripping in anything lossy.

Why?

You're absolutely right. I just ripped an the CD layer of an Elton John SACD/CD remaster. The sound is fantastic. I'm going to rip all my CD's to lossless. It'll take a few months, but it was time anyway. Since my first rip I've bought a few hundred remasters.