Personally I have an external CD drive plugged into my computer into MusicBee and then also a portable one with a case for on the go :)
I bought an ADC CD-100X player and listen through a Technics SA-80.
I have a Sony Discman I prefer to listen on with nice headphones, for that full retro 90s experience.
But honestly I rip them to FLAC and listen on my PC or phone.
Same for me, I ripped all mine a while back and put them on a Jellyfin server in FLAC or WAV format. I actually found a good source for high quality files, which are at minimum 16-bit CD quality, and many are even higher quality at 24-bit depth sampling 41kHz rate.
I ripped all my CDs back when computers all had drives. I still buy them though, and now I have to use an external drive to rip them.
oh yeah I have them all ripped too! do you convert them into FLACs like I do or another format entirely?
I have changed my mind so many times! I have some flac, some mp3, and some ogg. I still have all the physical CDs in crates in the attic, so it’s not so important to get it right.
I rip all new stuff to FLAC. But still have mostly mp3. If I get CDs by an artist I already have I sometimes go back and rerip to FLAC older CDs. I use MusicBrainz Picard for tagging.
Same, I like having the physical copy but I enjoy them all on my phone or pc
I rip the discs and put them in an old Sony 300-disc DVD jukebox. Theoretically, that’s wired to the hi-fi, but it mostly gets turned on to add discs these days.
I actually ended up in a very interesting rabbit hole recently: reliable ripping isn’t always easy. I tried a brand new disc in several drives and got inaccurate rips when connected to my mainboard, but one or two drives would work. It wasn’t just bad checksums, it was data faults that were quite audible on mid-fi gear. Both a brand-new Piodata drive and a motley assortment of used LG ones misbehaved, but an old Samsung seemed reliable.
However, once I bypassed the motherboard’s SATA chipset-- using either USB -> SATA adaptors or a $15 “m.2 to five SATA ports” adaptor, the drives all produced quality rips. I suspect this might have started when I swapped in an ASRock X670E Pro RS mainboard (TBH, I’m intentionally stuffing this comment with keywords in case someone else has the same issue and searches for it)
I love CDs, but those I do have are ripped to my computer and played via VLC (but I intend to keep all my physical CDs as long as I can!)
They all go into my Plex server on my Synology DS220+. Plexamp (Plex pass required) is the best Android music app I’ve ever used. I also sync to a dedicated DAP, a Hiby R5 Gen 2.
If I were to take up physical media again, it’d almost certainly be a Sony MiniDisc player. I loved my MD
I’ll second that Plex plug. One of the cleanest pieces of commercial software I’ve ever used.
All our CDs have been ripped. I use fre:ac to convert to FLAC and MP3 simultaneously and that covers all playback options, indoors and out.
All files are stored according to Schofield’s Second Law.
btw, I have noticed that some of the oldest discs are starting to deteriorate in the last couple of years.
A few years back I bought a Yamaha CDC-685 second-hand which has a 5 disc changer and optical output. I try to get away from screens/phones for a while every day so I do most of my listening on the real CDs. Having five stacked up means I can make some selections, set it up once, and have my music for the evening.
It sits on top of a Yamaha receiver that’s ~20 years newer - thanks to the consistent style they still look great together!
I also bought a Discman recently but I haven’t had many opportunities to use it out and about.
deleted by creator
I use a Yamaha BD-A1060, which was the only reasonably priced disc player that would read SACD (I have a few). It’s connected to an Onkyo TX-NR696 that I really like. This stuff is amazingly cheap for what it does. I rip everything to MP3 and FLAC (using XLD) and the Onkyo box can work with that stuff as well. I love physical media, especially for the metadata, but mostly listen to the FLAC or MP3. All of my MP3 is coded at 320 kbps rate, so the files are still pretty big. This is all probably wasted on my 65 year old ears…
I prefer to use a physical CD player hooked up to a component stereo. Sometimes I listen to Fraunhofer MP3 rips (better for music with heavy distortion).
I use a very slim Sony DVD player hooked up my stereo. Usually get one listen there before being ripped and then stacked with the rest of the cds. One day, going to get the cd shelving built and have them all out and ready to go.
