How do you store music?

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ipsanand

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Am in kinda hurry to leave office - so will be brief...

I was an mp3 guy till the audio bug hit me and i am now creating a flac collection.

With CDs the challenge was how to preserve them. With mp3s the challenge was how to discover collection across multiple hard disks (office comp ;-). home comp, home laptop)....

Now i've bought the Marantz CDP 6003 (supports USB but not flac). Am either converting the flac to wav and using USB drive to play (but my 1 year old kid has already pulled out and damaged 2 of my usb drives), or ripping the flacs to music cds and playing on the marantz... however, am not good at storing/maintaining cds medium to longer term.

Looking for best practices/advice from experts on how to best organize and manage a music collection... hope my quick post has made sense...

thanks. Irwin
 
Hmm...lets see

CD/DVD/BD option is gone.........
USB SS/HD option is gone.........

Whats left........

May be an external server
 
buy a longer usb cable and try to keep the actual usb hdd locked up in a cabinet or far from the reach of your kid. I think external powered usb drive should work fine.
 
Hmm...lets see



CD/DVD/BD option is gone.........

USB SS/HD option is gone.........



Whats left........



May be an external server
Click to expand...



Why is USB HD gone? I still use USB mode! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Gone as in ruled out. Not obsolete:rolleyes:

I think any solution will only remain childproof temporarily. Just a matter of time before your kid figures out how to reach your valuable AV gear:eek:hyeah:.
 
(but my 1 year old kid has already pulled out and damaged 2 of my usb drives)
Click to expand...
Internal drives are harder for children to get at! Keep the external drives for backup --- in, as anm says, a cupboard!
 
I though to find something else in thread like how do people rips their CDs and where and how do they store etc. Anyways...

One solution can be to buy a cabinet with turn key and keep the key safe while using all previous modes of playing. I am thinking off track? ;)

If you dont use USB or CDs you can plan to sell the CDP. :D
 
I am having all collection mp3, with ID3 tag properly filled.

Though recent ones are in both mp3 and FLAC format, I am still confused, whether to go for FLAC / WAV for the entire collection.

I store all the songs in external HDD and have a copy in my Zune Player and Internal HDD of the PC too.

Whenever I rip/download, tag all the details and then move a copy to both internal HDD and external HDD. Then sync Zune with internal HDD. (except songs in flac format).
 
All media stored on a NAS I built myself (Sempron/6TB/FreeNAS) connected to an wireless AP. The format for music is Apple lossless and 256 kbps AAC. I use the 256 kbps version for syncing my iPod which is connected to the AMP using a Apple component cable. Will invest in a Squeezebox touch after some time so that I can play the lossless version.

Movies are stored in whatever format I downloaded them in :)
 
Last edited:
@maya: It is a simple back to back connection. I connect the Ethernet port of the PC running FreeNAS to one of the Ethernet ports of the Netgear AP (not the uplink port). I use the AP as a bridge, so no NAT/DHCP etc. Another Ethernet port of the AP is connected to the Airtel DSL modem. This way I can run bittorrent client on the FreeNAS PC. My laptops connect to the Internet/NAS through the AP.

I hope it made some sense.
 
There are few different questions in a single question
1. Where should I store music
2. what format should I store my music in
3. what all I need to do when I rip music from cdp.

There is a good computer audiophile article for this. Computer Audiophile CD Ripping Strategy and Methodology | Computer Audiophile

Choice of format is dependent on these
a. whether you want universal support, ie your files are played by any player? In that case, WAV is the best format.

b. do you want to embed your album art also in each song? Things get little nasty here as there is no common standard when it comes to media players. You have to make tough decisions here.

c. how much disk space you have.

Direction I am heading to (guys correct me if I am wrong): rip in wav and alac. WAV remains master copy, while with alac album art can be embedded inside each song. This requires lot of space.
I have, for now, chosen my appletv as primary source. Primary software to manage music is iTunes, that also syncs with appletv. Appletv has external powered 1TB external hdd attached to USB.

An external portable 1TB hdd connects to my laptop, and path of music on this is added to iTunes. This is my transportable music source, that I use to listen to in the office. I rip on my laptop, and save on this external drive. Then sync with appletv.
 
Hmmm... As the originator of this thread, let me intervene and rephrase my questions:

- What's the best way to store music (CDs, HDs, Internal/External)? Objective being preserving music collection for longevitiy, having one prime music source or sink.

- Formats - for me as of now, ive worked out VBR/320 ripped mp3's for chalu music, and flac for high grade music. However, there still is a challenge that i need to convert flac to wav every time i want to play it on my CDP/USB. And then i require interim storage (USB pen drive/CD) every time i play using my CDP... Phew...

- What's the easiest mechanizm of discovering stored music? If i connect an external HD to my CDP through USB, discovering/browsing for the right music will be pain in the a%$.
 
searching music, browsing by genre etc is not supported by most CDPs that have USB. That is one reason for me to go for appletv as transport. I think cdp is best left to play CDs given their less convenient user interface.

A more convenient CDP would be one that has an USB/ optical/ spdif input to work as a sound card, rather than file reader. Or a better option would be to spend money on good dac, and use your laptop's optical drive to play/ rip cdp.

Life is much easier after moving to iTunes. It may not be the best, but it is quite convenient and has low entry barrier in terms of rnd needed.
If there are better software for managing music for multiple computers and devices, please share.
 
ipsanand said:
However, there still is a challenge that i need to convert flac to wav every time i want to play it on my CDP/USB. And then i require interim storage (USB pen drive/CD) every time i play using my CDP... Phew...

- What's the easiest mechanizm of discovering stored music? If i connect an external HD to my CDP through USB, discovering/browsing for the right music will be pain in the a%$.
Click to expand...

Best way out is to:

1. Invest in a NAS. Basically a device that stores data in HDDs (optionally multiple HDDs to guard against data loss). It usually has USB out too.
2. Invest in a Media Player that has good user interface for Browsing music + can fetch album cover / artist info etc from net
 
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