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I used DBPowerAmp to rip to FLAC (has lots of error checking, auto-naming, etc) but not sure if it's available on Mac.
FLACs are stored on a NAS so they're always available and I generally use Plex for playback (at home and on mobile) and downloading to my phone.
I've got various devices that I use for playback. As well as working with Plex frontends Plex also serves up music via DLNA/UPNP so stuff likes amps and TVs can see it. In addition I use a raspberry pi and fire stick for frontends.
In terms of cloud storage the cheapest I've found is actually buying MS Office, which you can get for about £40 a year, and that gives you 1TB of storage (and you get Office as a bonus).
aggi
Hi all, I am after some advice on ripping CDs, storage and playback. This is probably the equivalent of a sweet baby blue fixeh first post, but bear with me, I’m a late adopter here but was in no rush to bin off my cDs to MP3 and regret it later. Now with kids and middle age my priorities have changed a bit, i’d prefer something neater and more convenient than CD and with cheap storage I don’t think audio quality need be compromised much. I only want to do this once, and I wanna do it rite. With any luck one day my Beard Valve Pre-Power combo will come back out the loft and my digital archive will be a serious source in a high end system. I recall seeing some good stuff on this thread but haven’t the stamina to re-read the whole thing!
So yeah i want to rip a few hundred CDs, and the occasional one I might pick up from charity shops. I listen in three ways:
I have an iMac with a CD drive and have trialled ripping a few as ALAC files to iTunes. It’s slick. From what I read, this format is top-tier quality (any opinions welcome) and I like iTunes because i can set it up to sync compressed versions to my iPhone automatically. It seems to find all the metadata and artwork every time.
I’m currently storing on the imac’s Drive but this won’t do ... I have a 5TB HDD I can use as l storage. I am toying with a cloud subscription too but not convinced yet. More on this later.
So far so good, BUT I can’t use my iMac as the source for my two-channel hifi because it’s in a different room with no possibility of a physical connection. So I was thinking of a streaming device that can access the library via WiFi and effectively replace my CD player. Ideally controllable from an app. This is where I get a bit lost. I reckon I need something like the Yamaha WXAD10. But if my hi-res library is stored on an external HDD sitting behind an iMac, will I be able to access it in this manner? Do I need to configure it as a Network Attached Storage (NAS)? Obviously I could stream from directly from my iPhone but that would be lo-res. I imagine cloud storage would make this whole part easier, but we’re probably looking at around 1TB so one pays for the privilege.
The other consideration is about adding rooms. I know people on here like Sonos, in fact I am fully expecting a ‘just get a Sonos’ answer, but would it fulfill the first part of the brief? I.e. to act as a source without the active speaker bit.
DAB radio would be a bonus too - don’t some media streamers have this built in...
Maybe I am overthinking this... ?
Sorry if I missed something.