[wildman]

My Wife's ancient old 100 CD changer is on it's last legs.
Was thinking of ripping all her old CDs over to mp3.

Any mp3 player would need to replace her current CD player which plays off house current and is capable of outputting the audio signal to her component stereo amp and then to her good speakers.

The big problem is the interface. She would end up with hundreds of files which she could organize and access simply and quickly rather like running VLC player on the computer.

It's been years since I fussed with this kind of stuff so I'm way out of date as to what's available now. A look on Amazon search for "mp3 players" only came up with specialized little portable players so far.

Any ideas of where and what to look for?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Wildman

[reeftool]

Why not just output your PC to the stereo? Creative's Sound Blaster audio cards have stereo outputs for standard RCA plugs. Newer stereo amps have an input for mp3 players, iPods, smart phones etc. Most people just plug in their phones to the stereo's aux input and manage their collection with the music app they are using. Keep in mind that mp3's and other compressed formats don't have the same quality as a CD although depending on your tastes in music, you may not notice. A lot of people today also just use their PC as their music library as they are more than capable of playing music without any performance issues while you use it for other things.

[wildman]

Why not just output your PC to the stereo?

Yep. I think overall that's the most practical. The cable might be a bit long but it should work.
Just as a test I'll run a cable from the headphone jack on her computer to Aux on the amp to see what happens - might be good enough. At least it's worth a try.
Having the computer as an interface will be a big plus for her. She already uses VLC player and there might be other software that's even better.

Thanks much,
Wildman..

[wildman]

OK.
Now driving her computer sound directly off motherboard (line out) through a 100 watt/channel amp into a pair of Boston Acoustics and all is sublime in Wildman's household tonight.
All it took was some rummaging through the junk box for the right cable.

She is a great classic music lover and hyper sensitive to what she calls "natural" in sound. She once compared the Klipsch to the Boston Acoustics and her only remark was "one sounds like a machine the other like a musical instrument" - end of discussion.

Anyway so far so good - thanks for the suggestion.
Wildman

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Last edited by wildman; 10-16-2014 at 03:25 AM.

[lammie200]

Download iTunes PC or Mac. For $25 a year you can upload your songs to iCloud and play them on an iPhone, iPad, iPod, or a computer (PC or Mac) wirelessly with an internet connection. You can use Bluetooth connectivity with a receiver that plugs into your audio-in jacks to play them through your stereo. You can get Bluetooth stereo headphones and listen to them that way, too. You can also get a stereo wireless speaker component with a rechargeable battery. Modern day version of a boombox, except a lot smaller, and completely cordless, and you will have access to your entire collection of music on demand.

[thazooo]

I bought a Gadget called WDTV Streaming. Made by Western Digital, its a media center tool. Connects thru your home network and Plays your files to your stereo system/ TV. Hard Drives can also be connected directly to it via usb. It will play Music (many formats), Video (many formats including .iso), Pictures, and will also connect to the Streaming Services (Netflix, Hulu.........). I've used it for a couple of years now without problems.
I've moved my Video files to a connected Hard Drive. Playing them thru the WIFI had some problems with choppy Play back cause of a Windoz piece of code. It is in Vista. The music never failed to play.
I'm very satisfied with the Gadget. It runs about $100 and if you watch you can get it on sale. I think I paid $75 for mine.

[magkelly]

You might find this helpful. Messed up tags can really be a pain and this allows you to edit them. It's free.

Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

[gmans]

I have a 1TB hard disc as auxiliary connected to a PS3 which you can use as a media player for music, movies and recorded tv shows. The PS3 plays through to tv and sound goes through a Toslink to a old 5.1 dolby Amplifer sounds pretty good and you can watch Blu ray as well. Have Pink Floyd at the Albert Hall that comes up pretty good. The best thing is everything is through the remotes, but it takes a bit of getting used to so many remotes, which button does what and in what menu.

[wildman]

You might find this helpful. Messed up tags can really be a pain and this allows you to edit them. It's free.

Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

Thanks very much for that tip.
It has already saved me a lot of work getting my Wife's 300 bird call files into taxonomic order.
I wasn't even aware such software existed.

[wildman]

Well I finally finished this project.

Ended up with 40gb of files (5400 files) in 250 folders - a lifetime collection of music.
Mostly ripped to mp3 but some select works to flac. Still working on getting the file structure just right.

After all this I realized the main CD system in the living room was pretty dated and especially the speakers were worn out.
So we replaced the ancient AR's (Acoustic Research) speakers from the late 1960s with a new pair of towers.
We don't live anywhere near any audio outlets so we just bought what a friend has and we know to sound good.
Turned out to be a pair of surprisingly inexpensive towers from Amazon (BIC American) for 250 bucks for the pair.

Anyway thanks for all the advice.

[wildman]

Keep in mind that mp3's and other compressed formats don't have the same quality as a CD although depending on your tastes in music, you may not notice.

Yep - I didn't notice so much but my Wife did. She often listens with a good pair of headphones (AKG K 240) and she said certain sections of the music was "screeching" at her.
Sure enough we went back to the original CDs and the "screeching" wasn't there. These were all sections from high quality Deutsche Grammophon CDs of string Quartets and vocal music.
The problem is she has a very well trained ear for how something is supposed to sound and I take her word for it when she says the sound is not up to snuff.

So I fussed around with increasing the quality of the MP3 rips and also going to flac with mixed results.
And anyway the files were getting pretty big so I figured if they are going to get this big why bother with any compression at all?

So I used NERO to make an audio CD image file in their nrg format - the only software that I had that would make a image file of a audio CD directly. Also it uses Gracenote to identify the album, artist, tracks etc and is incorporated into the file.

Anyway mount the image file on a virtual drive using Daemon tools, right click on the drive and VLC asks me if I want to play the "CD" just like a real CD.and it plays perfectly with no "screeching".
Done this way it's analogous to using RAW in a camera - no compression, lots of high quality data but big files (about 75mb/Cd).

As it is I can live with making image files because only a few select CDs really require this level of quality and I can get a one TB USB drive for under a 100 bucks so storage is cheap.
But I was wondering what do the audiophiles do when they want to rip music to the highest quality while at the same time minimizing file size?

Any thoughts?

[Al_Kahollick]

You really can't get the highest quality AND minimal file size. I use the .WAV format, it's essentially music's RAW. Windows Media Player (if you're not on a MAC) has lossless WAV as a rip option.

[reeftool]

This is a new and upcoming music player. I don't think it's easily available yet and probably expensive but the problem is being addressed.
Neil Young officially unveils new high-tech music player and streaming service | VentureBeat | Gadgets | by Richard Byrne Reilly

[ChrisPlatt]

I've contemplated all this and decided it's just an exercise in futility.
I recently purchased an "old school" NAD compact for the bedroom.

http://nadelectronics.com/products/hifi-receivers/C-715-Compact-Music-Systems

It works even when the computer isn't turned on, and uses zero resources.

Chris