Are you into using CD players or do you use other formats, and why?

[Robert94]

Just interested in your opinions and experiences, or even if you couldn't care less about the format or listening medium - although I'm sure you do care!

 

[sterling shoote]

Folks are finally coming around to realize CD is as it was promised back in 1982, perfect sound, forever perfect. Until multi-channel mixes take off; and, so far, that's not happening, CD appears to be the defacto medium for quality sound reproduction. It's versatile too. You can buy, sell, trade, and copy CD's for personal use; plus, uou can play on most any kind of disc based media player.

Since CD, we've been propositioned by SACD and DSD but these mediums for most can not be discerned to sound better than CD so it appears CD still has some future. It's biggest threat is iTunes and Amazon music downloads which offer great convenience and in some cases don't require a purchase beyond a single tune from an album. If owning, selling or trading is not important this sort of distribution of music might finally crush the CD but I hope not.

 

[TheWarrior]

I like iTunes for background music while I work. But when I want to sit and enjoy a pair of speakers, I want a disc. I even still enjoy having to get up and put a new disc in! Who'da thunk it!?

 

[Alex2507]

I use every format available to me. Some are better and all that but I really just want to hear music.

 

[slipperybidness]

CD is my first choice for critical listening.

I rip all my CDs to FLAC so that I can enjoy them on my phone, etc, for easy access.

 

[Locoweed]

CD is my first choice for critical listening.

I rip all my CDs to FLAC so that I can enjoy them on my phone, etc, for easy access.

+1 on ripping cd's to flac. Then I put them on a memory stick that I plug into the back of my Oppo. Using the remote app for my Ipad enables me to skip around very quickly, which I frequently do.

 

[little wing]

I enjoy the CD format as well. Since I got the Oppo 105 I have downloaded some music from HD tracks to try that out. Some of the music I purchased on HD tracks, I already had on CD, I wanted to see if I could tell a difference. I can't hear much of a difference between High Res (on a thumb drive) and CD, they both sound good. All the CDs I listen to on a regular basis, I ripped (Lossless) and use foobar to get it to the player. It's really convenient to be able to scroll through your music on the TV screen. But I still like to put a disc in the machine once in a while. There just something about taking a disc out of the case and putting in the tray that I'll never completely get away from. One thing I do regret is that my CDs on my computer are in WAV format that doesn't show album art (I used windows media player to rip)

 

[slipperybidness]

I enjoy the CD format as well. Since I got the Oppo 105 I have downloaded some music from HD tracks to try that out. Some of the music I purchased on HD tracks, I already had on CD, I wanted to see if I could tell a difference. I can't hear much of a difference between High Res (on a thumb drive) and CD, they both sound good. All the CDs I listen to on a regular basis, I ripped (Lossless) and use foobar to get it to the player. It's really convenient to be able to scroll through your music on the TV screen. But I still like to put a disc in the machine once in a while. There just something about taking a disc out of the case and putting in the tray that I'll never completely get away from. One thing I do regret is that my CDs on my computer are in WAV format that doesn't show album art (I used windows media player to rip)

+1 on Foobar2000!

I MUCH prefer Exact Audio Copy for ripping CDs. This was what was recommended to me when I asked about it on this forum.

EAC is free, but you do have to jump through some hoops on the configurations etc. It's a bit of a chore, but it's tough to complain for $0.

What I really like about EAC is that it compares the rip to known rips, and let's you know if the rip is an exact copy or not.

I prefer FLAC format myself.

 

[fmw]

All of my CD's are ripped to MP3. I don't use CD's at all any longer. My blu ray player will play them if I ever get the urge.

 

[little wing]

+1 on Foobar2000!

I MUCH prefer Exact Audio Copy for ripping CDs. This was what was recommended to me when I asked about it on this forum.

EAC is free, but you do have to jump through some hoops on the configurations etc. It's a bit of a chore, but it's tough to complain for $0.

What I really like about EAC is that it compares the rip to known rips, and let's you know if the rip is an exact copy or not.

I prefer FLAC format myself.

I wish I had started with flac, only because of the album art. I can't complain about the sound quality of WAV at all. Streaming Wav to the oppo with an ethernet cable sounds as good as a CD to me.

 

[slipperybidness]

I wish I had started with flac, only because of the album art. I can't complain about the sound quality of WAV at all. Streaming Wav to the oppo with an ethernet cable sounds as good as a CD to me.

Hmmmm.

I'm not an expert on this, and I tend to use FLAC over WAV.......but I don't think that the album artwork is tied to the WAV file at all???

I think that the artwork may be part of the "meta-data". I'm pretty sure that I can link artwork to the few WAVs that I have, but like I said I don't use this format much, and I'm not an expert in this niche.

When you use EAC, when you rip a disc, it gives the option to search a database (you tell it what db you want to use) and let's you choose artwork from the db. You can set up EAC to rip as WAV or FLAC, and I believe the artwork works the same for each.

The main reason that I use FLAC is that it compresses the file (lossless compression) where WAV does no compression.

Edit: You should be able to convert WAV to FLAC pretty easily. When I use EAC, it seems that it natively rips as WAV, then I have an extension program that takes WAV, compresses to FLAC, then discards the original WAV.

 

[its phillip]

cd ripped to flac mostly for me.

and yes, you can easily compress all of those wav files to flac

 

[Steve81]

I ripped to Apple Lossless, which gets the job done for me. All of my CDs are just kept in a box at this point.

 

[little wing]

Hmmmm.

I'm not an expert on this, and I tend to use FLAC over WAV.......but I don't think that the album artwork is tied to the WAV file at all???

I think that the artwork may be part of the "meta-data". I'm pretty sure that I can link artwork to the few WAVs that I have, but like I said I don't use this format much, and I'm not an expert in this niche.

When you use EAC, when you rip a disc, it gives the option to search a database (you tell it what db you want to use) and let's you choose artwork from the db. You can set up EAC to rip as WAV or FLAC, and I believe the artwork works the same for each.

The main reason that I use FLAC is that it compresses the file (lossless compression) where WAV does no compression.

Edit: You should be able to convert WAV to FLAC pretty easily. When I use EAC, it seems that it natively rips as WAV, then I have an extension program that takes WAV, compresses to FLAC, then discards the original WAV.

Thanks for the info. I will look into converting from Wav to Flac. It's not really a major deal and the sound is great. The file size of Wav files isn't as big an issue for me because my PC's hard drive holds over 900GB of data. Thanks again for the heads up on EAC though!

 

[fmw]

I wish I had started with flac, only because of the album art. I can't complain about the sound quality of WAV at all. Streaming Wav to the oppo with an ethernet cable sounds as good as a CD to me.

WAV is an exact bit for bit copy of the CD. It can't sound any different. FLAC is the same thing but compressed. It is uncompressed and played just like a WAV. It can't sound any different either. MP3 is the lossy format I use. Since I use a high bit rate, it doesn't sound any different either.

 

[Seth=L]

I like playing CDs for critical listening. I will occasionally listen to something off the iPhone over Bluetooth.

The best way to enjoy music, for me, is in darkness and silence (for all but the music). This means no TV, no display, no mechanical noises. This is why I prefer CD players with low mechanical noise so I can't hear them when I'm in the listening position.

 

[MR.MAGOO]

I like all kinds of ways to listen to things; CD, tape (I'm going to try to hookup an old Advent 201 cassette deck to my A/V receiver), HD radio (can't get a reliable signal), Internet radio, and vinyl. Hell, if music came on IBM punch cards I'd try that too!

 

[ParadigmDawg]

WAV files ripped from CD and hardwired from my CPU to my AVR for critical listening.

Spotify from tablet to AVR for general listening and most zone 2 and 3 listening which include bedroom and backyard/pool.

 

[mtrycrafts]

When Cds became the norm and getting affordable to but the player, my vinyl went to the recycle store.
Later had and still have a CD 6 disc changer but now not hooked up, collecting dust and aging the parts.
I use the BD now if I want to listen to good music sounds. Casual listening, whatever is available.

 

[tyhjaarpa]

I only use my blu-ray player to play CD/DVD/SACD/blu-ray as media.