How to connect a regular hifi CDP to a PC/Mac

Nifkin

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Hi knowledgeable folk,

This may be a dumb question, but I'm struggling to find anything useful that answers the question in the thread title, as everything talks about how to plug a PC CD ROM drive into a computer.

What I would like to do is back up my CD collection to a lossless format to a harddrive: is there a way of taking a digital optical or coaxial out from the back of my CD player and plugging it into a PC or Mac (using a a suitable adaptor, as most computers don't have an optical/coaxial input) and using suitable software to rip stuff?


Or do I have to purchase a dedicated CD ripper, like the Astell&Kern one?
 

bencat

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An ordinary CD Player will only play at normal replay speed so to rip you would have to play the complete CD at normal speed . Unless you only have a small number of CD,s this will take a very long time . If your CDP has a usb output then that would one way of connecting to a PC . Otherwise you would need a PC with some form of digital input and then a converter from what your CDP outputs to what your PC allows as a digital input.

If you have lots of CD,s to rip then search eBay for an Iomega USB CD/DVD ripper they are big and old but they rip at speeds up to 52 times and just work £30-50 will get a good working one (mine was less than £25) so you can wait for a good priced one .
 
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Nifkin

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An ordinary CD Player will only play at normal replay speed so to rip you would have to play the complete CD at normal speed . Unless you only have a small number of CD,s this will take a very long time . If your CDP has a usb output then that would one way of connecting to a PC . Otherwise you would need a PC with some form of digital input and then a converter from what your CDP outputs to what your PC allows as a digital input.

If you have lots of CD,s to rip then search eBay for an Iomega USB CD/DVD ripper they are big and old but they rip at speeds up to 52 times and just work £30-50 will get a good working one (mine was less than £25) so you can wait for a good priced one .
Thanks, that's really helpful: it had occured to me that there would be a speed issue with a standard CDP🤣 I guess that would be alright if you chose to rip as you listen to an album at your leisure, but who has time for that! I'll check out your recommendation 🙏
 

Sumdumgi

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A standard usb cd drive plugged into your computer is all you need. There are plenty on Amazon for not much money if your computer doesn’t have one and all will rip at speed. Software - likes of DbPoweramp will rip to a variety of lossless formats and is very reliable and good for sourcing track & album metadata including artwork.There are plenty of choices for ripping software but I’ve found DbPoweramp to be as good as any.

Once you have them ripped you will then be inexorably drawn towards streaming them from your hard drive into a hifi and the multitude of choices to be made about streamers, software, DACs, digital cables ……. 😀
 
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Ed Howarth

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Spend £15 on an external usb cd drive (most new ones play dvd discs as well, so you might be able to get a second hand CD only one on eBay for peanuts). Spend £58 on dbpoweramp (which will give you lots of benefits) or just download some free ripper software.
As you rightly say, rip it to a lossless format. Rip it once, back it up at least once and it will last a lifetime.

Edit: Beaten to it......
 
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bencat

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My only comment to add to both of these is that it really depends on how many CD's you need to rip . Around 4-500 and I would agree that any usb cd drive if fine . Over that number then my suggestion starts to make sense an average CD will take around 3.5/4 mins to rip on most usb cd drives. Using the Iomega this is reduced to 2 mins in many cases . If like me you are ripping thousands rather than hundreds that speed is important and it makes sense. Totally agree about getting dBPoweramp as again it just works and makes the whole storage and tagging job very simple .
 
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glenhb

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+1 for DBPoweramp. I started off with the trial, then purchased a licence.
Or Exact Audio Copy which is free.
I use EAC with an external USB powered Samsung drive and it rips CDs to FLAC in about 2 minutes.
If you need to do any tag editing then I recommend Audioranger. The free version is limited to the number of files it can tag but the full licence is about £18 and well worth buying.
I assume you don't have a cd/dvd drive built into your PC. If you have a spare drive bay available why not fit an internal drive? Plenty of good ones available for about £20.
 
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