Ripping your CDs aka masochism: how did you do yours?
Now I always said I would never do this. Feel free to point your finger and snigger 'I told you so'.
What kickstarted it was my purchase of an HRT Strearmer II+ in March after receiving a £250 Long Service Award from my employer. Initially, I used the Streamer just to enjoy my Spotify Premium. Then I made the mistake of test-ripping a couple of my favourite CDs to ALAC in iTunes, and I discovered that iTunes + ALAC rips + BitPerfect sounds better than my CD player. Oh dear. What have I done.
I don't know how other people have approached this, but to save both my sanity and hard-drive space on my Mac Mini I decided to only rip the CDs I thought I was ever likely to sit down and listen to 'properly', as opposed to CDs bought primarily by Mrs Fubar as background music to chat to and 'girly party music'. It's amazing how that criteria expurgated my collection: from 500+ CDs, I narrowed down just over 120 to rip, and during this last weekend, while it seemed like the rest of the country got steaming drunk in blind-adulation for the nation's richest octogenarian whom they've never met and probably never will, I set-to and ripped the lot.
Only trouble is, after ripping all 120+ CDs and tracking-down missing art for quite a considerable number of CDs which I wouldn't exactly class as obscure, just about the very last thing I want to do now is sit down and listen to the damn things. In fact at this point I'd happily torch the lot.
Anyhow I celebrated my new digital freedom last night by hooking-up my iPhone to my Mac Mini and leaving iTunes running overnight to transfer my 'top 75' albums to my iPhone as 128K AACs, so that when I can actually face listening to my music again I've got most of what I like in both glorious HiFi quality on my Mac Mini and in perfectly-listenable quality on my iPhone.
Hi MajorFubar
I feel your pain. I initially ripped all 1200 albums as 256 or 128 depending on how I rated them. Then when I got a NAS I started again in ALAC!
That's the issue. I know full well if I hadn't ripped them losslessly at this point, I'd never be fully happy that I've not ripped them at the best possible quality, irrespective of whether I can hear the difference or not, such is my OCD!
I found it so tedious that if (God forbid) I had to do them all again for some reason, they'd probably be sent off to someone to do it for me.
DbPoweramp rips to 2 formats at a time if you want. So you can rip losslessly and to MP3 in one go. I did that. Discovered since that a bit more time scanning the tag and art info wouldn't have gone amiss, but that applies to some download services too. Hello itunes.
The (albeit expensive) RipNas makes life quick, easy and painless.
I do understand why it gets to people. I did consider getting someone else to do it, and I wouldn't rule it out if it ever needs to be done again. And I have a relatively small collection.
DbPoweramp rips to 2 formats at a time if you want. So you can rip losslessly and to MP3 in one go. I did that. Discovered since that a bit more time scanning the tag and art info wouldn't have gone amiss, but that applies to some download services too. Hello itunes.
+1 for Dbpoweramp, I rip my CD to Flac, Apple lossless and Mp3 all at the same time. I mainly use Flac for my listening and the Mp3 is for my wife's iPod Touch.
Why didn't you give Mrs Fubar a break from the ironing, and get her to rip all the CDs? 
Why didn't you give Mrs Fubar a break from the ironing, and get her to rip all the CDs?
I think she'd fight me for the ironing-board if I told her the alternative was a couple of hours ripping CDs.
EAC. does art work. Does lyrics. To FLAC.
Then open iTunes and rip to 256AAC
Dors not take long as long as th ODD ones not buffer. BD drives are poor.
No pain ... no gain!
At least now you only have to rip CDs as and when you acquire a new one (about 5 mins) ... unless you want to rip the other 380 in your collection 
And think yourself lucky you don't have to rip vinyl where you can only record at x1 speed and have to declick and dehiss using software afterwards!
DbPoweramp rips to 2 formats at a time if you want. So you can rip losslessly and to MP3 in one go. I did that. Discovered since that a bit more time scanning the tag and art info wouldn't have gone amiss, but that applies to some download services too. Hello itunes.
+1 for Dbpoweramp, I rip my CD to Flac, Apple lossless and Mp3 all at the same time. I mainly use Flac for my listening and the Mp3 is for my wife's iPod Touch.
So it can do THREE formats at a time?
dBpoweramp became my friend/enemy for almost 3 months before everything I had was ripped to FLAC and my brain (and that of my OH) was shredded. I've now backed up in two different places as I never want to go through that again. It was worth it though; the Squeezebox Touch is a mighty piece of hi-fi equipment.
I am in the middle of the ripping-process. I use dBpoweramp CD Ripper ripping to FLAC. It really is a big project, and I need to rip about 70 CD's more before I'm done (that's my parents CD's).
I am really looking forward to sitting with my iPod Touch running the Sonos App, browsing through all (150) the albums 
And think yourself lucky you don't have to rip vinyl where you can only record at x1 speed and have to declick and dehiss using software afterwards!
There's an awful lot of stuff out there which never made it to digital, neither CDs nor downloads, and the only way to get it onto CD or your computer is to record your LPs. I've even come across one or two commercial CDs over the years which have very clearly been produced from a vinyl master. Presumably in these cases even the mastertape cannot be sourced/has been lost/damaged/erased.
Hi MajorFubar
I feel your pain. I initially ripped all 1200 albums as 256 or 128 depending on how I rated them. Then when I got a NAS I started again in ALAC!
The first time I did it the hard way and tried to plough through 20-30 albums a day - it was a real chore.
For the ALAC I started with my favourites and with any I wanted to listen to. I also ripped any new ones as soon as they arrived. Now slowly wading through the rest although not bothered to rerip any I don't like (i.e. the kids etc).
To make it even worse I kept a 2nd copy at 256kpbs VBR for my iPhone but now iTunes will allow that automatically for any I transfer to my iPhone. That's allowed me to delete all my 256 versions and free up more space on the NAS for new music
Haven't used my CD player for 6 months and really loving my Squeezebox Touch.
Home Cinema - Sky HD, Panasonic DMP-BDT210, Denon AVR 2808 (Pre amp into MF A3.2 Amp), Monitor Audio Silver S8, MA RS Silver LCR, 4x Q Acoustics 1010 + sub, Mitsubishi HC7000 HD Projector
Stereo - PC/NAS (Synology DS212J), Squeezebox Touch via CAT6, MF A3.2 Amp, Monitor Audio Silver S8