My entire CD collection in one USB stick ...

[robnplunder]

My 2004 Audi TT has a cd cartridge behind the driver's seat that died a few years ago. I have instructions for putting (hacking) in an audio port instead of going to the cd cartridge. It is supposed to be used with an MP3 player. Any suggestions on better equipment to work with an audio port? My Android tablet has an audio port. Could it be used with the lossless format?

My guess is that if it is a "port" into your system, you can feed anything to the port including an ipod/iphone, CD player with an earphone out, etc.. I.e, anything you can hook up to the port will work regardless of what the source supports in music format. That'd be my guess, not knowing what is exactly you have in your back seat.

 

[Music Lover]

Although I have some flac, most of my music is 320bit mp3 which is good enough for general listening and in my car. I can't be bothered to rip any CD's to flac.

I have about 5000 songs stored on my main computer and backed up on a second computer in my music room in the basement. Out of those songs, I've loaded about 1500 of my favourites onto a flash drive for my car.

 

[kgtest]

Wow - this sure beats my 1974 method, which consisted of a removable cassette deck mounted under the glove box, and the 12-inch speaker extracted from an old Ampeg guitar amp lodged in the cardboard shelf of the VW, between the backseat and rear window. That system was home-made state of the art then, at least when you didn't have the fundage for a real system (imagine that !).

I too am now digital, but not sure how much better that really is.

I grew up a couple generations later. But I remember I had somehow installed a DAC CD-ROM drive into my center console of my car. SO I would be able to play my cd's that I burned.

This was before MP3 was a thing of course, and before FLAC was a thing.

My friends effectively labelled me "ghetto" but I saw this as bleeding-edge personally.

 

[Jerry1]

Exact Audio Copy. See the link below for instructions and link to the free software:

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-rip-your-cds-to-flac

Started testing this program. Seems to work well. One thing I see is that while it clearly saves a copy of the album art, Windows Media Player does not pick the picture up when I click on a file to play it. I'm going to do a bit more testing before I try to rip all my CD's, but so far this is the only problem (small problem) I've encountered.


Another question is, what software do you use to convert a FLAC file to an .mp3 or other format?

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

+1 for FLAC. You want to copy your CD's in a loss less format, and FLAC does that. You can reconvert to .wav and burn a CD exactly the same as the original if desired/needed.

+1 for backing up your FLAC directory to multiple, remote storage locations.

+1 for Exact Audio Copy.

If you really want to ensure a perfect CD rip, it is worth it to invest in something like AccurateRip: AccurateRip
(I think this is what I used n years ago when I ripped my CD collection, but it might have been dbPowerAmp: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmchelposx/CDhelp.htm)

The key here is that the rip is verified (well a CRC of it) with an internet database to ensure that the rip is 100% accurate.

When I did this (circa 2010 or so), I had four CD drives (internal and external) connected at the same time so that I could rip my 400-500 CD's in a reasonable amount of time.

I have a 128GB nano USB drive with 9500+ songs in my truck as my on-board music supply. I also have Apple Music which I stream for songs/albums that I don't already own.

 

[Freedom56]

Started testing this program. Seems to work well. One thing I see is that while it clearly saves a copy of the album art, Windows Media Player does not pick the picture up when I click on a file to play it. I'm going to do a bit more testing before I try to rip all my CD's, but so far this is the only problem (small problem) I've encountered.


Another question is, what software do you use to convert a FLAC file to an .mp3 or other format?

I use FLACsquisher to convert FLAC to 320kb/s MP3.

 

[Jerry1]

I use FLACsquisher to convert FLAC to 320kb/s MP3.

Thanks. EAC seems to be crashing frequently. Not really a deal breaker, but enough of a hassle that I may look for another program if it keeps happening.

I'll check out FLACsquisher next unless my car can read FLAC files from a USB stick.

 

[Freedom56]

Thanks. EAC seems to be crashing frequently. Not really a deal breaker, but enough of a hassle that I may look for another program if it keeps happening.

I'll check out FLACsquisher next unless my car can read FLAC files from a USB stick.

I don't have any issues with the software. I am running version 1.3 on Windows 7. Windows 8 and 10 may give you some problems.

 

[Jerry1]

I will have to find a different program. EAC is crashing on my all the time now. It worked for a bit and I thought it only crashed if there wasn't a CD in the drive, but it's just crashing randomly now. Too bad. I'll either have to find another program for FLAC or another lossless format/program.

 

[HFWR]

I have over 10,000 songs on my iphone, synced to my ipad and itunes on my laptop. My car only has a 1/8” phone plug, i.e. no bluetooth, but I bought a bluetooth receiver that connects to the plug, and voila...

 

[target2019]

I will have to find a different program. EAC is crashing on my all the time now. It worked for a bit and I thought it only crashed if there wasn't a CD in the drive, but it's just crashing randomly now. Too bad. I'll either have to find another program for FLAC or another lossless format/program.

I've used CDex, and it is still free (open source).
https://cdex.mu/

 

[Jerry1]

I will have to find a different program. EAC is crashing on my all the time now. It worked for a bit and I thought it only crashed if there wasn't a CD in the drive, but it's just crashing randomly now. Too bad. I'll either have to find another program for FLAC or another lossless format/program.

I've used CDex, and it is still free (open source).
https://cdex.mu/

I ended up buying dBpoweramp. It was $39, but it is working very well. I have it set up to make a FLAC version and a MP3 version at the same time and saving them in different locations to keep them separate. dBpoweramp also seems to rip very quickly. As I sit on the computer reading and playing my games, I'm swapping out disks and I'm about a third done. Other than the fact that it was not free, I'm happy with this product and the results I'm getting.

 

[Yarnstormer]

I have some friends that combined their collections - they each have an external hard drive with all the music on it.

 

[OverThinkMuch]

I used a CD ripping service a few years back which saved me a lot of effort. Might be worth looking into before ripping a collection of 200+ CDs.

 

[RunningBum]

I have some friends that combined their collections - they each have an external hard drive with all the music on it.

That's not legal. Very doubtful they'll get caught or be prosecuted if it stays between the two of them, but it's really no different from the illegal file sharing sites.

This is one reason I save my CDs even after ripping them to mp3. I can account for the mp3s I have either through a legal online purchase, or from having the physical CDs.

 

[donheff]

That's not legal. Very doubtful they'll get caught or be prosecuted if it stays between the two of them, but it's really no different from the illegal file sharing sites.

This is one reason I save my CDs even after ripping them to mp3. I can account for the mp3s I have either through a legal online purchase, or from having the physical CDs.

Sharing the material is technically illegal although, as you note, no one is likely to be prosecuted unless they do so online in publicly accessible locations. Millions of people use free software to pull soundtracks from Youtube or software like Station Ripper to extract MP3s from online radio stations. I haven't heard of anyone having a problem from this unless they post their collections on file sharing sites.