Hello All,

I have decided to rip my entire CD collection to an external 3 TB Hard Drive. I am using my Toshiba Laptop, running Windows 10 Professional, along with a program called "Musichi" which I purchased from the developer after reading glowing reviews on the web. Musichi is a relational database program which greatly facilitates the ripping and, especially, the identifying and tagging of CD data. I have to do almost no manual data editing as I rip each CD.

Since I have well over 1000 CDs (most classical), this is a massive project. The availability of Musichi has made the project much simpler, much faster, and offers the opportunity for me to finish the project before I "cross the bar".

My reasons for engaging in this project are as follows:

1. I recently purchase a higher-quality, stand-alone Peachtree DAC. Interfacing this DAC to my multi-changer system was not possible. Therefore I decided to store my CDs on a HD so I could play them through the Peachtree DAC.

2. I was intrigued by the possibilities of what I could do with the digital music files from my entire CD collection, once I had the data stored in a central location.

3. The Peachtree DAC is capable of 24 bit 192 Khz performance. Therefore, I want to download some high quality digital music files and see what the difference in audio quality might be in my system. 24 Bit, 192 Khz audio should be far superior to the 16-bit 44 Khz files stored on a CD - we'll see.

4. I was running out of space in my CD changers to store additional discs. Therefore, I decided that the future for me lies in downloading digital music files and storing them on my HD.

I am saving my CDs as backups. I have also purchased a second identical 3 TB hard drive on which to back up all of my digital music files and I am backing them up as I rip and load them onto my main HD.

The Musichi software is very comprehensive and fully supports what I am doing. It is somewhat tedious to learn how to use, but my efforts to do so have been amply rewarded with the results. The software is available on line and can be downloaded free for a 21-day trial. The free download is a fully functional package and allowed me to save my work.

The developer is a native of France and who now lives in Greece. He and I have engaged in extensive email correspondence, both during the trial period and after I decided to purchase the software. The program seems to be very stable and is very well thought out - especially for cataloging classical and jazz CD collections.

The program also includes a high-quality software player which I will use to play files from my computer into my DAC, once I have completed the ripping and storage process.

For any of you who might be interested, check out the software on the Musichi website. If you have questions, please email me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Happy Listening to all,

Art

Art, I to am involved in this endeavor. In my case I have over 3500 CDs, however, I am not converting all of them.

Just some points for you to consider. I can elaborate but this will suffice for now.

1) You may want to rethink the ripping software you are using. Exact Audio Copy is the de facto standard in this space. And for good reason, particularly in "problem" CDS. Hence point #2.

2) Check your CDS by holding the top toward a bright light. You will likely find you have about 15% with "pinholes". I can elaborate here as this is a very troubling phenoninon and I have been and continue to research the matter.

3) I will be looking to purchase an 8TB unit in the near future and am considering options (brands, etc.). I have a 1TB unit at the moment.

4) A proper CD setup using balanced inputs will produce superior quality sound.

Best of luck as you and I are in a similar boat here.

Hal

Hal,

Some interesting comments. So far, I have ripped about 70 CDs with Musichi and I have not had a single issue arise.

What problems do you have with a CD that has the pinholes?

Where do the pinholes appear? Near the Center? Anywhere on the disc?

Does Exact Audio Copy provide access to online data bases for instant and complete coverage of all CD and track info?

Art

The problems that I have with CD "pinholes" are the same as everyone else. If there are enough of them and/or they are large enough in diameter, then enough reflective material is missing that will cause skips, clicks, digi-noise, and severe cases loss of data. They can and do appear anywhere on the disk. To notice them, simply hold the disk up to bright incandescent light with the data side facing you. Note that if you have disks with full surface labels, you will likely not see anything suspicious. Given that you have 1000+ CDs my guess is you have many different brands, etc. Look for those that appear translucent, blueish in-particular. Yes, EAC (Exact Audio Copy) has an online database, however, to my knowledge that is used to further verify check-sum information for known tracks. Art, I realize you believe you "have not had a single issue arise", however, that is the problem when using software other than EAC. The copy typically performs to completion and the user believes things are a-okay. This is not to say there is anything necessarily that has gone wrong, however, EAC reports the time index of track errors making it much easier for you to manual inspect by listening the erroneous portion of a track. First and foremost is to inspect the disks as I described and see if you notice what I'm speaking of. Once you do - trust me, the pinholes are there on certain disks - you can be in a better mental state-of-mind to deal with it. Note that in this context, pinhole(s) does not mean a literal hole in the disk. It is the absence of reflective material, the size and shape of a pinhole. You can google this and related search terms such as "CD ROT", "CD detereoration" etc. and you will find many individuals over the course of years have reported this. Unfortunately there is no immunity (i.e. brand, handling, environmental conditions, manufacturer etc.) are currently known to be variable, random, etc.

Also Art, as to your desire to download some high quality digital music files and see what the difference in audio quality might be, check this out. This is the pinnacle of FREE ultra-high quality downloads www.2l.no/hires/index.html

Hal,

Thanks for the detailed explanation about those CD flaws. And, especially, thanks for the high-resolution download link.

Regarding the CD flaws: When you encounter a flawed disc, how does that disc perform when played in a CD player? Does it skip or hang up or drop data?

Musichi does have error-detection capability, but I don't specifically know how it might react to the pinhole issue.

I plan to stay with Musichi for my ripping and storing activity. If I encounter issues with a specific disc, I will communicate with the developer.

Musichi is a powerful program with regard to gathering comprehensive data for each disc I rip, thereby making the process very efficient.

I'll let you know when and if I encounter a disc problem.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Best,

Art

You are very welcome Art.

Regarding your question “Regarding the CD flaws: When you encounter a flawed disc, how does that disc perform when played in a CD player? Does it skip or hang up or drop data?”

It depends. Different players will react differently. If the pinhole is small (diameter less than 1/8 inch) many players will “ignore” it. Whether or not that ignorance is dropped music is extremely hard to tell. Some players will produce some kind of “digi-noise”. Different players have different kinds of error correction and tolerances in which they can detect an error.
If the pinhole is large enough, the disk may skip, may not play past that point, and/or it will produce something audible like multiple attempts to re-play the same spot. Believe me, you will know when your player encounters it because you will hear something has gone wrong.

What EAC does to resolve this – when ripping – is (a) have very high sensitivity to detect the pinhole and (b) when encountered it greatly slows down the disk read process, re-tries that same spot multiple times and then calculates the correct value (error correction) to fill the spot (in the rip, no change made to the disk of course).

I am interested to know whether or not you are finding any pinholes as I’ve described.