RFC - Archiving Music CDs for Backup Purposes

[Joep L. Blom]

Steve wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:01:25 -0000, Joep L. Blom <jlblom at neuroweave.nl>  
> wrote:
> 
>> Justin Gruenberg wrote:
>>> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 1:38 AM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>  
>>> wrote:
>>>> My questions:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Is it the right way to go?
>>>> 2. Will I be able to "play" the CD in Amarok (or any other audio  
>>>> player, for
>>>> that matter)?
>>>> 3. If this isn't the right idea - can you give me some others?
>>>>
>>>> My main goal is to store them in digital format that is easy to manage  
>>>> and
>>>> reproduce in case the original CD gets unusable. Disk space is also an
>>>> issue. My original idea was to convert them all to FLAC format - but  
>>>> that's
>>>> about 250 MB per CD...
>>> You aren't going to have any space savings over FLAC if you're making
>>> exact bit-for-bit copies of the CDs, although you would be able to
>>> mount them and play them in any application that plays cd audio.  Each
>>> CD will be as big as 700mb (so you're wasting a lot of space).
>>>
>>> Honestly, I'd just rip to mp3 unless you're a serious audiophile.
>>> You have the benefit of adding metadata to all the files, making it
>>> easier to find music instantly.  mp3 plays on just about any device.
>>> If the lossless bit is really important to you, go for flac... enough
>>> hard drive for your 100 cds is pretty inexpensive now.
>>>
>> You don't need to be an audiophile to not use mp3 as serious backup for
>> CD's. It depends on the sort of music you want to backup. NEVER use it
>> for classical music and jazz. I have no experience with other kinds of
>> music.
>> Joep (musician)
>>
>>
> A true audiophile would never listen to digitised music anyway:-)
> 
> Just rip the CDs to ogg, flac, mp3, whatever, listen to them and carefully  
> store the CDs away.  If a CD, or any other original media, gets damaged  
> beyond use you have to replace it anyway. Do  you backup books.
> 
Justin,
That's untrue! All CD's are digital. Or do you mean that the only 
musical reproduction to listen to is a vinyl recording? or an audiophile 
only listens to a life performance? (as it was >120 years ago).
I agree partly. I record my own performances (jazz piano) on 24-bit (OK, 
it's not analogue!) but the commercial recordings I work(ed) on are of 
course all 16-bit. But the gist of the matter is that you should never 
make a backup with a lesser quality than the original.
About replacing that can sometimes be a problem. Older CD's are often 
not available any more (at least with respect to classical music and jazz).
Joep.