Trying to get a friend with 10K CDs into Roon

Yes, that’s the way to do it !.
Dirk

Yes, and it hasn’t come up in this thread.
When people were concerned about disk space, I did a calculation of the cost of disk per album vs. the cost of storing jewel cases in an IKEA Billy bookcase, including the cost of the floor space in your house or apartment.
Storing jewel cases was 100X more expensive than the hard drive cost.
And this was three years ago, since then disk cost has gone down and housing cost has gone up.
RIP ‘em and toss them or put them in the basement or garage or somewhere cheap. Bury a chest in the garden…

You can always get rid of the plastic jewel cases and store the CD’s in boxes of some sort.

Cataloged and bar coded to specific Boxes. Boxes and contents are indexed in a database, so if I need to re-rip, I know exactly where the disk resides. The boxes then stored in a climate controlled cellar.

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Yes, but my wife says that I charge too little per CD, even a dealer where my flyers are says that, ah, it is partly hobby

Man, you’re good.
Wanna come over and do mine?
Unlimited beer.

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I think even finding those 10k albums in a streaming service is a lot of work. Also, albums disappear all the time from streaming services. For this reason albums I discover and like I always buy a download, SACD (which I can rip with a PS3), or CD (in that order usually unless I really care about the album art and only the CD has it).

Ripping the CDs over time is not really that much work if you’re not in a hurry. There are robots that can take stacks of CDs, usually 50-100. Or if you take it a little more leisurely you can have your computer and pop a CD when the last one has finished ripping. This is what I did and it took 3+ years at least (but then again I had to go to work during the week). I gather I’ve ripped about 2,000 CDs or so.

Couple of things about ripping:
1- You can use any one of multiple setups. I use a mac and XLD (software). Nothing special about this other than getting decent metadata from the internet
2- Getting the right metadata is not a fool-proof process. I’d say 50% of the time I need to fix something - either the album art, how I like certain things to be tagged, etc
3- If you are careful about getting decent tags as you rip, you can then play that library just about anywhere with any software
4- You need to choose a format for ripping - I would recommend FLAC, but if you’re very mac-centric and not adept at technicalities, use ALAC (which is almost identical to FLAC but the mac can read/play it natively).

There are a few advantages of using this within Roon:
1- Roon will recognize the album and pick all the proper metadata for it - It does not touch your files so that metadata exists only within Roon
2- The “Versions” tab will allow you to find the album in the streaming services - very useful to add your favorites to your streaming library so you have them on the road

One more thing I WISH Roon could do:

Create an album version for a physical album which would include some form of location information of your choice. So for example with my “Ella And Louis” album I have a ripped CD version, a high res version, versions from TIDAL and Qobuz, and I would like to have a “Physical CD” version with the metadata of my choosing, and a “Vinyl” version with the same - and a location field somewhere in each of those versions so I can find it in my storage method.

Because very many albums are not available in any streaming service (even modern music like Eletronica), and also because albums that are available disappear all the time. Just hit “Clean Up Library” in Roon - the count of missing tracks is tracks that have disappeared from the service.

Approximately how much would it cost to pay someone to rip 10,000 CD’s?

The ability to discover new music is unprecedented.

I keep my CDs because I like the physicality of the medium, the album art, etc. But I get that’s a bit of a stretch.

I have started to scan the booklets as I rip a CD. It takes very little time (less than ripping) and I get a pdf file that I put in the same directory and Roon shows me next to the album (and so does Audirvana btw).

Also, all: PLEASE BACKUP YOUR PHYSICAL LIBRARY!!! Not one backup, many. You will thank me one day.

A 10x ripping speed is common in my setup (2010 mac pro, XLD software, LG USB3 CD drive). So 6 minutes give or take. I did 2-pass ripping a while back but that takes twice the time and I never found it helped.

As for ripping service cost, Google tells me about $0.69 per CD, so $6,900 for 10k CDs. But at $10 per CD in cost, that’s a $100,000 library. Honestly I have done it myself leisurely and that’s fine for me.

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That 38 years of Qobuz. I would store the CD’s and subscribe to Qobuz.

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You should subscribe to Qobuz regardless. I subscribe to both Qobuz and TIDAL. Wanted to get rid of TIDAL but I have found many albums available in one platform and not the other.

I subscribe to Qobuz Sublime+ ($249/year). The advantage is their high res albums for purchase are deeply discounted, almost always cheaper than the CD versions. Since I would have bought those anyway, the subscription pays for itself multiple times!

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Actually, I use Roon tags for that. After I packed up all my CDs, I tagged each CD in Roon with the CDBox# I put it in and then put the box away.

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Well, I’m out your way next, I’d be happy to stop by and have a beer. :smiley:

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They may be, but I’m evaluating the choice between CD’s or subscription service. I earlier suggested CD’s, but after seeing how much it cost to rip them, I changed my advice to subscription service.

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I like that, but I am thinking a bit more detailed, not just a box, like a location (shelf 5, 3rd row). For example I have cases where I have a CD, an SACD, and a vinyl version of an album. Or I might have only the vinyl and my pick from TIDAL, say. Or simply just the vinyl. I would love if I could tag that as well within Roon.

I do like your suggestion though.

If I had 10,000 CD’s, jewel cases or not, I would definitely have then stored and documented in some sort of system where I could easily find the one I wanted. That might be in Roon, but also a written index of some sort in case I stopped using Roon. Or, maybe just a spread sheet.

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Since I’m a database guy, I used a database. I’m sure a spreadsheet would have worked, but, I’m more comfortable with data tables and queries, LOL.

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