Starting out Ripping My CD Collection
Posted by: Anavrin on 30 April 2018
Hi Guy's
Hope this is the correct area to post this, I've just taken the plunge and ordered a Uniti Star, I wont get it until mid July but I'm keen to start ripping some of my CD's to an external HDD.
My Question is if I use some PC software to rip some CD's to a USB HDD, can I then use that same drive in the Uniti Star and continue to rip more CD's using the Star?
Will the file system already on the drive be compatible with the file system the Uniti Star will Create? is there a standard file structure I should use?
I've got a Muso and Muso-QB with Tidal, my CD collection has been stored away for a good few years as I've had nothing to play them on, I just don't want to spend time ripping on a pc if its going to create a file structure that's incompatible with the Star, then have to start again once the Star Arrives.
Hope this makes some sense
If you look at the documentation for the star, you'll see that both NTFS and HFS+ disk formats are supported.
One of the main things is to get the directory structure and metadata right, so that you can access the music you want, in the way that you want to see it listed.
When you use the Star for ripping, it will only save the files to a USB drive attached directly to it, not to a drive sitting elsewhere on your network. There should be no problem adding other music to the same drive by plugging it into your computer, and transferring to files to it.
If you have a very large collection, you may ultimately find that a separate NAS/server attached to your network is a better alternative, but I would just use the Star for now. Your Musos should be able to access this music via the Star, too.
You may run into the problem that the Star wants to format your drive, at which point it will put the right file structure on it for ripping.
i think the best way to do this would be to reckon on letting the Star have a new drive, transfer the rips you have already made to that drive after it has been formatted by the Core and then use the first drive as a backup.
But there are all sorts of options here!
best
David
It may be worth using two drives, as the Star has two USB ports, front and rear (as well as an SD card slot.) One for Star rips, and the other for PS rips/downloads.
Thanks everyone, one last question if I may, it states I can store upto 20000 tracks on the locally connected USB drive, does anyone know what size drive is needed for the full allocation of tracks?
I’m guessing by my quick maths that a 1TB might be ok but a 500GB will be too small.
Anavrin posted:Thanks everyone, one last question if I may, it states I can store upto 20000 tracks on the locally connected USB drive, does anyone know what size drive is needed for the full allocation of tracks?
I’m guessing by my quick maths that a 1TB might be ok but a 500GB will be too small.
This will also depend on your chosen format. Naim players generally prefer WAV, but you may well find that FLAC, which is still a lossless format, but has smaller file sizes, works for you. When you get the Star, you can experiment with this, as it's always possible to convert between formats if you change your mind.
If you ever want to play the music on a non-Naim device, you may well need to use FLAC, as the unique way in which Naim rippers work can mean that album info is not always visible to non-Naim devices.
As hard discs are cheap, personally I would go for "plenty large enough for the forseeable future", which might suggest 2TB rather than 1TB or 500 GB
best
David
As a rule of thumb, take what you calculated and double it.
Naim rippers use a proprietary model for tagging which is not compatible with anything else, apart from some basic information. A ripper on a PC gives you far more accuracy and control over tagging and something like EAC or dBpoweramp are examples of the most accurate rippers you can get. Easily as good as a Naim rip. You can get started now but you won't be able to mix these rips up with the Naim ones. However, it is easy to run lots of files from different locations and have them all indexed in one list. A NAS will be your best bet.
Anavrin posted:Thanks everyone, one last question if I may, it states I can store upto 20000 tracks on the locally connected USB drive, does anyone know what size drive is needed for the full allocation of tracks?
I’m guessing by my quick maths that a 1TB might be ok but a 500GB will be too small.
If it helps, I have about 1200 albums on a 1TB drive, all as .flac, probably at least 2/3rds 16/44, the remainder a mix of hi res. It is getting full, though there is still with room to spare (nearly 150GB IIRC).
The advice to think what size you think you’ll need then double it is good, though with hard disks (as opposed to SSDs) I wouldn't consider bother with less than 2TB given that the cost is so little more than 1TB, even if only anticipating 500GB being needed. Different with SSDs as the price differential is still rather high.
David Hendon posted:You may run into the problem that the Star wants to format your drive, at which point it will put the right file structure on it for ripping.
i think the best way to do this would be to reckon on letting the Star have a new drive, transfer the rips you have already made to that drive after it has been formatted by the Core and then use the first drive as a backup.
But there are all sorts of options here!
best
David
Hi Anavrin, when I started reading your post I thought "Is this guy krazy, wanting to use the same disk in the Star !?", but then, on reflection, I knew where you were coming from and that seemed a good idea at first sight, however... on further reflection, I've got to agree with David about the Star wanting to format its own disk as soon as you mount it. So I agree totally with what David is saying. Don't risk losing a lot of hours ripping time by trying to use a pre-populated disk in your new Star !
As a (very) simple rule of thumb ... when ripping a CD to WAV (as in the Core's default) 2 CDs take up 3GB space - therefore a 1TB drive will take around 700 discs.
If you compress with FLAC, 2 CDs take up less than 1GB space; so 1TB drive will now take 2000 CDs.
Now here's a wild idea. What you could do is take your new hard disc into your Naim dealer and get them to let you mount it on their demo Star and format it.
Then you take it home and you can put all your PC rips into the Downloads folder on your hard disc. Then when you get your Star, because it will detect your hard disc as having already been formatted, it will just accept it as the Music Store for ripping to.
Mind you, you will still have to sort out a way of backing it up!
best
David
Eloise posted:As a (very) simple rule of thumb ... when ripping a CD to WAV (as in the Core's default) 2 CDs take up 3GB space - therefore a 1TB drive will take around 700 discs.
If you compress with FLAC, 2 CDs take up less than 1GB space; so 1TB drive will now take 2000 CDs.
Eloise,
If I remember correctly, blank CD discs were 700 or 800MB capacity i.e. 2 CDs would take up no more than about 1500MB as wav files.
Agree your figures for FLAC files assuming a compression rate of about 60%
That would fit in with my sizing. I have about 1,600 albums, mainly WAV rips with some small number of hires, they take up 1.02TB. So about 630MB each, with the discrepancy from the 700-800MB coming from the earlier albums which started life as LPs, so had shorter running times.
Thanks guys, very helpful info, I’ll have play with some ripping software and see how I get on, I also have a 1TB USB Drive around somewhere to play with.
i think eventually I’ll have a NAS drive, so long as I can easily remove the disk from it, I have a HDD copier I can use to make a clone backup of the Disk.
A PC rip may sound different from a Naim rip.
I'm using a Vortexbox based ripper and it has a few quirks like listing Miles Davis - In a Silent Way in the various artists section. Very annoying.
flammenwerfer posted:A PC rip may sound different from a Naim rip.
That's a very old White paper. Naim go to a lot of trouble to make the rips bit-perfect and so do current PC-based ripping solutions, so PC and Naim rips should sound exactly the same.
best
David
David Hendon posted:flammenwerfer posted:A PC rip may sound different from a Naim rip.
That's a very old White paper. Naim go to a lot of trouble to make the rips bit-perfect and so do current PC-based ripping solutions, so PC and Naim rips should sound exactly the same.
best
David
However, there is ripping and ripping, as indicated in the notes in “Dipping toes into the NAS (world) with no clue and getting rid of the CD player” thread about using dBPoweramp - the trouble is, you can’t know if the rip is bit-perfect - though of course that is what “Accurate Rip” used by some rippers is seeking to check, based on a consensus of other rips of the same music. That white paper doesn’t mention AR, though I don’t know if AR may be implemented in the current Naim ripping solutions.
David Hendon posted:flammenwerfer posted:A PC rip may sound different from a Naim rip.
That's a very old White paper. Naim go to a lot of trouble to make the rips bit-perfect and so do current PC-based ripping solutions, so PC and Naim rips should sound exactly the same.
best
David
They also got into a bit of trouble, I seem to remember, over the claim that their rips could be more bit perfect than other rippers!
sjbabbey posted:
You're right ... that should have said...
As a (very) simple rule of thumb ... when ripping a CD to WAV (as in the Core's default) 3 CDs take up 2GB space - therefore a 1TB drive will take around 1500 discs.