chris1973 wrote:
I would suggest you get a trial copy of JRiver Media Center for your PC and experiment with ripping and playing back some CDs and see what the experience is like for you.
Hey Grover, so this is simply software I download to my computer? I continue to use the same hardware, which is my desktop computer, my current CD player, and a bunch of new CD-R's. The software however improves the transfer, and I get a better quality duplication in the end??? BUT, even if I have several backup CD copies of my favorite recordings, the reflective CD layer has a limited life expectancy. How old are the Pearl Recordings?
Thanks Chris[/quote]
Well, I didn't mean to be too alarmist. The Pearl CDs, along with a lot of other British classical CDs, were manufactured at a specific plant in England back in the 90's and this plant was known to produce defective CDs. Many of them went bad after only a year or two. But since you yourself expressed the desire to preserve your favorities, it would not be a bad idea to back them up. I would back them up to a removable USB hard drive. The last thing you want, IMO, is more CDs floating around.
I suggested JRiver because it's a well-established, affordable, full-service ripper, cataloger and player. It utilizes a pretty good database for locating metadata. It locates cover art, etc., and it produces a decent rip. It also has a very good remote app for mobile devices, both Android and Mac. This is handy for home playback from anywhere in the house on any mobile device, but it also lets you access your music collection when you're on the go if you set it up that way. (I can stream my whole collection from anywhere I have wifi or cell service--the car, airports, hotels, whatever.) It also has a decent visual interface that makes browsing your collection easy and pleasant.
If you're concerned solely with the most accurate rip possible, then you want EAC (Exact Audio Copy) which compares your rip to a gigantic database to achieve a perfect bit-for-bit rip. But it's a sloooow process. I've never been that fussy, myself.
Depending on what kind of collection you have, ripping can be very easy or very frustrating. I have a friend who gave up because it seemed like half his collection never showed up in the free databases. That's why I suggested downloading a demo copy of JRiver and throwing 10 or so CDs in just to see how they turn out, and how convenient you find the process. Just rip them right to the PC, down't worry about storage right now.
As for playback, tell us exactly what kind of CD player/DAC/preamp you have so we can determine how easily you could use it for PC playback. It could be as simple as hooking your PC to it with a USB cable to see how it sounds.