New user, two simple questions

[MarkSealey]

Hi - new user here… &*128523;

I'm facing the immense job of ripping a collection (begun in the 1980s) of several hundred CDs of Classical music CDs to Roon on my 'Late 2014' iMac, currently running 10.14.6 - but soon Big Sur (macOS 11).

Two related questions, if I may:

1. until now I've been using XLD - which seems to do a great job. (How) is dBpoweramp CD Ripper for macOS superior in terms of reliability/accuracy of ripping - to FLAC, and ease of use, please?
2. I don't think I can face 'feeding' multiple, cased, CDs in boxes, envelopes, jewel cases etc, manually, one at a time; I've spent some time looking for 'CD-Changers' (and similar) which would allow me to 'load' even half a dozen CDs in one session and have dBpoweramp CD Ripper rip them sequentially… again, ideally, USB direct to my iMac.

May I throw myself on the mercy of experienced users here for any convincing + suggestions, please?

Shall be truly grateful !

[Spoon]

You should find dBpoweramp has much better metadata and is easier to use than XLD.

I will find out about running multiple cd rippers on osx.

[garym]

given that your CDs are mostly classical, I'd recommend biting the bullet and ripping them one CD at a time. Classical CD metadata provided by databases is often a mess, and you'll likely want to carefully edit/modify the metadata at the time of ripping to suit you. Once you get a process going, it's simply not that bad. I recently ripped about 900 CDs in less than 3 weeks, while doing other things on the computer. All one CD at a time.
p.s. Many dbpa users have ripped many thousands of CDs. I know I've ripped over 5,000. So a few hundred should be very doable. Also, test the waters. Rip various kinds of CDs (various artists, multiple CDs in a box set, etc.) and see how you like the file naming outcome, metadata tags, etc. Most people find that they end up changing this after they get started when they start using the rips in their server/player. Better to figure out up front these things than AFTER you've ripped all the CDs. Good luck.

[MarkSealey]

Thanks, @spoon - I appreciate your help, and look forward to anything you can advise on hardware :-)

@garym - I took a look at the count: it's closer to 4,000 CDs/CD sets… I didn't want to frighten anyone off (including myself) :-)

It also seems as though accurate metadata is less of an issue (=chore) than I thought it would be because I use Roon.

At first I expected to have to spend hours with each CD and Yate or Jaikoz. Even though Freedb seems no longer to be working (in XLD) and not all Classical CDs are cataloged properly in Musicbrainz, Roon somehow 'knows' as much as I need - although I am fanatical/meticulous about such things.

It's the enormity of the task which seems so off-putting… even at ten a day it's over a year!

Your encouragement much appreciated!

[Spoon]

There is an option in CD ripper >> File >> Rip with multiple drives, which allows cd ripper to run one window for each drive.

[MarkSealey]

Thanks - So if I got, say, three drives, feeding wouldn't be too much of a 'hardship', would it.

In which case I have another vital question, please: is all hardware created equal; or do I need to select a(n external) drive from which to rip CDs in sequence with any special characteristics?

...There is an option in CD ripper >> File >> Rip with multiple drives, which allows cd ripper to run one window for each drive...

[garym]

Thanks, @spoon - I appreciate your help, and look forward to anything you can advise on hardware :-)

@garym - I took a look at the count: it's closer to 4,000 CDs/CD sets&*8230; I didn't want to frighten anyone off (including myself) :-)

It also seems as though accurate metadata is less of an issue (=chore) than I thought it would be because I use Roon.

At first I expected to have to spend hours with each CD and Yate or Jaikoz. Even though Freedb seems no longer to be working (in XLD) and not all Classical CDs are cataloged properly in Musicbrainz, Roon somehow 'knows' as much as I need - although I am fanatical/meticulous about such things.

It's the enormity of the task which seems so off-putting&*8230; even at ten a day it's over a year!

Your encouragement much appreciated!

Yes, Roon will provide lots of useful information on top of file tags, so that's good. Of course, one of the number one complaints on the Roon forums is that it doesn't handle classical as well as it should, particularly large box sets.

p.s. It could be worse. I probably ripped 3 or 4 thousand CDs to mp3 back in the day, before I really knew what I was doing. I had to re-rip all those after I learned about lossless (FLAC), secure ripping, etc. And in the end, at least you've found what many to believe the best ripper/converter software in the business (dbpa), and it's just a matter of starting the task. It won't take as long as you think (on a roll, with AccurateRip matches, I could easily do 10 or more an hour rather than a day!).

[MarkSealey]

You're right, @garym. I know you are. Thanks :-)

Yes, I was pretty skeptical about Roon's handling of Classical. But approached it looking for what it does do, rather than the improvements which one hopes are yet to be made. So far I've been extremely impressed. Not least because the forum - apparently like this one - is excellent for help. Audirvana's support is&*8230; 'patchy'.