[grsimmon]

My wife is tired of looking at the racks of cd's       I guess I don't blame her,  plus I want to expand my collection and am running out of space.

I am a self-imposed dinosaur.  I don't want a computer in my system;  I SUCK with anything computers, and tbh I'm not interested in learning.

I'm looking for a near-idiot proof,  Music Server / hard drive thingy where I can insert a CD, it burns it to memory, and then I can put the CD in storage for ever and ever amen,  or maybe sell. 

Years ago,  McIntosh (Audio, not the computer) made 2 versions of this type of unit;  they are now gone.  NAD currently makes a very nice one with backup memory on-board.   It's transport only,  I would need to feed it to a DAC but I can live with that.

Here's my questions:

     -are there other companies/units/models out there that can perform what I'm describing?  Please, please...... don't respond with "all you need to do is get a $79 hardrive and connect via JRIver FOobar ISo blah blah on your laptop....  yeah, I get it.  I'm not interested.

     -does ANYBODY out there have any experience w/ the current NAD cd ripping/Music Server?  Model is maybe Masters  50.1 or similar.

     -cd storage.   What to do with all the cd's afterwards?  Safe to sell - really? Or put in storage?  I"ve heard that in a hot garage is not ok, due to heat breaking down laminates/glues in manufacturing.   etc. etc.


Sincere thanks for any info. & your experience,  to help me with my audio system moving forward.

[aldcoll]

Here is a option for the little box that does it all for a reasonable price.  https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/products/micro-jukebox

Small Green has bigger fancier units also. 

You might check with HALL or Hollis Audio here on AC.

I might throw out that to have a copy of a CD on a hard drives requires you to  gave a hard copy per some federal license thing yada yada.

Alan

[toocool4]

I think Naim, Astell & Kern do what you need. Check out those companies. If you go that route, personally I would not sell your CD’s.

I have loads of music on my NAS server, guess what? I cannot remember the last time I went anywhere near it. I still prefer to play my records & Cassettes.

[deadhead]

I have 2 Bluesound Vaults that I use in whole house systems.  I'm very happy with the sound and functionality and it sounds like they check most of the boxes you're looking to satisfy.  They rip at 4x speed and store 2TB of data.  I have over 3000 titles on mine and they stream from hundreds of sources. 

[JDoyle]

I don’t know if this is in your budget, but Hans just reviews the Innuous Zenith mk3 and also did the Zen earlier this year. He raves about the Zenith

https://youtu.be/Xm0o6vM8-Vg

JD

[WGH]

How many CD's do you have? Do you have rare music? I ask because in all probability every album you have is available on Tidal.
Keep a very small library and the CD player for the rare and new stuff.
Stream everything else on Tidal for $10 a month.
Box up the CD's and store them in your garage for 10 years then throw them away.

Bluesound NODE 2 for $402.88
https://www.amazon.com/Bluesound-White-Hi-Res-Wireless-Streamer/dp/B014HVETIG/ref=bdl_pop_ttl_B014HVETIG

I have 400 GB of music on one drive and a 500 GB backup drive because all hard drives eventually fail and I never want to rip that much music again.

[richidoo]

Real CDs from a record company are shiny aluminum inside and they can handle moderate heat and are fine for long term storage. Garage shade should be fine, but protect them from humidity or the cardboard inserts will mold. Homemade burned CDs can't handle the heat or moisture and shouldn't be used for long term storage. You probably only get $.25-.50 per CD if you sell them as one collection. If they are important to you then I would keep them just in case.

The kind of automatic, full-service music server devices you are describing were popular a while back, but with the advent of streaming songs from the internet, not so much anymore. Olive was one brand that I listened to a few times. It sounded good and it seemed to work pretty well.

On demand streaming of music from the internet has eclipsed all other ways to consume music. 10 years ago the quality of the streams was not good enough for audiophiles, but now with faster internet uncompressed stream is available if you want to pay for it. If your ear is not spoilt by the hifi obsession then the standard quality (compressed) from Spotify is adequate for general music enjoyment. But if you are ruined by hifi and require treble refinement and bit perfect audio quality then you can get uncompressed stream from Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music for about $20/mo. It's worth it if it precludes buying new music on CDs, and if you want highest SQ in your car or on earphones for exercise, etc. The SQ difference is very noticeable.

I use a Sonos Connect player to stream Tidal, Spotify, Pandora, my favorite radio stations and my own albums from my network storage directly to my DAC via a $100 iFi jitter filter. The Sonos / iFi combo sounds good, it's very simple to use and my Sonos has been dead reliable for over a decade. It's always ready to play music, unlike the many computer-based music servers I've tried.

[Elizabeth]

I am a 70 year old Luddite, and can say without a qualm that what you want is not gonna make you happy in the long run. First off, ALL hard drives break, die, or somehow mess up, eventually. This means backing them up, knowing how to back them up, know how to deal with computer stuff. Files vanish, Plenty of folks swap a drive and OMG! the files are gone. (they really are not gone, but you need to KNOW HOW to find them, or well they just may as well be gone. Also it is illegal to have the music and not the legal CD. So you cannot throw them out.
If you want to be happy, just find a better way to store your collections. Maybe carts you can keep in  spare room or the garage, a cart with swappable bins so all you have in the listening area is one cartload at a time? 
I own 2.500 CDs, mine are in the little hallways, DVDs are behind the speakers, the 2800 LP are in the bedroom on one wall. So ZERO is seen in the living room..

The only sensible 'get rid of CDs" option is to store the CDs without copying them, or whatever and go to a music server like Tidal or Qubuz. One machine for steaming is all you need. The actual reason no machine to do what you want is because of streaming has made ripping totally obsolete.
So actually you skipped the ripping and saving era!!!!!
So get thee a streamer... 

I say store the CDs just in case streaming is a PITA, which it may be, I am sticking to hardware till I die.... but streaming from Qubuz or Tidal is what everyone else is doing....
Not ripping CDS.. tha is SO last decade.. two decades ago...

[jseymour]

The World has been digitizing for a long time. Stream if you have no concern about listening to the best version of whatever it is.  Some people just want a juke box.  And that's fine.  But if you want the best version of the music you love and there is a great difference between releases. streaming is not the answer.  With streaming you don't know what you are getting.  Recent example, I have the 2005 remasters of the Elton John classic CDs.  Best I have ever heard until the recent SHM CDs.  Game over.  Same with Let It Bleed, the 2005 24/176 was the best until the just released 24/192.  Streaming gives you convenience, but what version?  I do streaming to check out new music, but that's it.

No matter what age you are, if you aren't into computers somewhat, call me on your rotary phone. Just joking, but come on, the internet will give you the info you need to get tech savvy enough.

[NickMimi]

edited to just my recommendation  of the Innuos servers. I think my initial post may have not been within forum rules.

http://innuos.com/en/catalog/go/music-servers-mk3

[dB Cooper]

1. Rip the files as AIFF, WAV, or FLAC. Stick them on an appropriate-sized HD. If you don't mind spending the money, use an SSD (although this will cost more than an HD).

2) Buy either another HD or, a Blu-Ray drive and a spindle of dual layer 50gb disks. (My entire lossless library fit on ~5 50gb discs, which have about 45gb usable after formatting.) Either burn the discs or clone the 1st HD (or both!). Put the 2nd drive, or discs, in a safe place (even offsite like a safety deposit box). An offsite archive would protect against things like house fires or asteroid strikes.

3) When drive 1 wears out (which would take years, many in the case of an SSD because it would basically be used read-only), pull the archive drive (or optical discs if you want to be safe in case of Russkie EMP attacks LOL) and create another clone and put one of the drives into service.

As far as what to do with the CDs themselves, my advice is, get rid of them. You can fit a huge collection onto a drive the size of a paperback book. Maybe the ones that have really nice booklets inside, keep.

If you don't want a computer in your system, Vortexbox is another self-conntained server worth considering.

[JLM]

I am so with you grsimmon!!!

Am a computer dunce.  Absolutely hated to be dependent on others to tame the quirks and glitches. And despised folks who spoke in computer lingo and tried to tell me how to "simply plug in a computer (or equilavent)".  Amazing how many here are IT professionals or computer geeks.  Note that I never went hi-res (tried once but couldn't figure out how to download the purchase) and nobody in my small audio club does hi-res either.  Never have been into buying better versions of the same media.

Tried three computer based ripping solutions.  The first (best - most stable) was simply my MacBook Air and a 10ft USB cable using iTunes, but was limited by the 256 GB solid state drive capacity and the cable.  Was a backup maniac (two computers, four external HD's two of which are in a safety deposit box).  Along the way added a Tidal subscription.  Next tried Small Green Computer, which they helped to set up with Roon but it sounded no better, so sent it back.  Next up was a tricked out Mac Mini with RAID, but it had glitches (that the seller was nice enough to help deal with after helping with the setup/file copying).  And it, with hi-res media that it came with, didn't sound any better either on a nice system.

Finally have settled on a NAD M10 "streaming amplifier" which is a thoroughly modern, compact, flexible, and simple one box piece.  It has a USB port for connection to a flash drive (for your library) and of course my Tidal favorites.  It frees me from a computer, but does use large touch screen, Android, iPhone, Windows, or Mac for control.  Accepts two analog, Bluetooth, optical, coax, ethernet, and WiFi sources. Outputs to two subs, preamp outs, and 100 wpc.  And uses BluSound operating system which has been flawless.  And comes with Dirac room correction.  A couple of sonic steps up from the Node family of BluSound devices.  I added all available albums from my library as Tidal favorites and copied the rest to a thumb drive.  It more than replaced the MacBook, $4000 DAC/preamp, and nice mono-blocks.  Done.

[marvda1]

this might be what you are looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydhX71I1dhM

[Samoyed]

I love my Innuous zen mini miii, and a cheap usb mini hard drive for backup!

[mcgsxr]

Been using a PC to serve tunes since the Logitech Media devices came out (2005?).

I used various PC programs to rip music to FLAC.  All my cd's are stored away in boxes in the basement, or in sleeve jacket type books.  I have not spun a cd in over a decade.  I never touch them.

I've continued to use HD's to store the FLAC.  I use 1-2 backups to ensure my tunes don't go away.

Frankly now though, I'm not buying any new music.

I have my collection of FLAC and use that with my big rig.

For ALL other music use, I am an Apple music user.  My kids got me into streaming this way, and for anything but pure sit down and love music I'm there.

I respect that Tidal and other streaming resources have better fidelity, but for any on the go use I'm on an iPhone with iems or in my car bluetoothing it so I don't mind the lower fidelity (and $).

[mitch stl]

Lots of good suggestions for ripping and storing your music. My only comment concerns keeping your CDs versus selling them.

One of the earlier posters briefly mentioned this, but to legally adhere to the copyright laws, you need to keep the CDs. When you bought the CD in the first place, you were given the legal right to play the music as often as you wanted and for as long as you wanted. When you sell or give away the CD, that right goes with the CD to the next user. Whoever possesses the CD gets the right to listen to it.

That's why selling and buying used CDs is perfectly legal -- one CD means only one person gets to play it at a time.

That's also why Napster got in so much trouble many years ago. One music file ended up shared with hundreds or thousands of people or more. That's also why, when a bar, restaurant or nightclub plays copyrighted music, they need a separate license from ASCAP/BMI. Radio stations need a similar deal, as do TVs and movies when they use copyrighted music.

When you get music from a streaming service, they've made all those legal arrangements for you (which is why sometimes you will not find a particular artist or album is available.)

While RIAA did sue individuals in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that was almost all over the peer-to-peer sharing taking place on the internet. I don't ever recall hearing about them suing an individual for keeping a copy of a CD and selling the original. And, on top of it, they generally stopped filing these particular lawsuits against individual consumers about 10 years ago or so.

So, I wouldn't worry too much about the issue if it were me, but then again, I don't know that I'd be announcing my intentions in a public forum.

[grsimmon]

Thank you for all the replies,  with great suggestions and info;  it has given me much to consider, as well a great thread to refer back to as I weigh my options.

[dB Cooper]

That's also why, when a bar, restaurant or nightclub plays copyrighted music, they need a separate license from ASCAP/BMI. Radio stations need a similar deal, as do TVs and movies when they use copyrighted music.

Technically, so would exhibitors at audio shows, but they have thus far escaped the scrutiny of the music police.

[JLM]

So far all my CDs are kept in a 36"w x 18"d x 30"t 3-drawer Techline cabinet.  The drawers are full extension and the perfect height to store the CDs with end labels of the jewel boxes facing up.  Capacity = 750, making it very heavy when filled.  But I may have to come up with a different solution to make room for mother-in-law's china chest that's coming to our house.

With Tidal no longer in the market for new CD's.

[timind]

I can't help you with the easy ripping part of your question as I did it the old fashioned way; ripped to a hard drive with a Mac Mini. Even though I am not at all comfortable with computers, it wasn't so bad once I got started.

As for storage though, I use some simple plastic containers which I bought at WalMart. Each container holds approximately 160 cds. I have 8 of them stacked in a basement closet. The upside of the containers is they're cheap. Downside is once the cds are placed (alphabetically) when I buy a new cd, it's impossible to store it where it belongs.