I use dBpoweramp. It’s way more than just a ripper but if all you want is a basic, reliable ripper, it will do that too. It can tag WAVs. Not a great feat unless you own a Naim ripper, which can’t (unless Naim have finally worked out how to do it and I missed the announcement).
Just checked how well squeezer works with classical.
It’s not as good as miniserve and the ‘on Qobuz’ doesn’t work.
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I have been using Qobuz for a few years now and have not had connectivity or downtime issues to date. I do also have 2000+ albums on a NAS which I also use occasionally. There is also internet radio available for use occasionally. Maybe I have been lucky but my Network has been up 100% of the time but have had a couple of times where power was knocked out by storms or electric company updating/repairing a piece of equipment.
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Unfortunately that’s not quite the case @ChrisSU and @KevT. I would have really liked that. No, when you start digging, it becomes slowly apparent that the Zen Mini CANNOT run Roon Core sufficiently. Program responsiveness and ability to handle tasks requiring more horsepower, like DSP and Room Correction and multiroom playback and convolution files for example.
That’s what I mean when I say belt and braces. If you get a cheap Roon Core NUC server @ around £600, as well as the Zen Mini, you get a very powerful ripping server and streamer split over two boxes with lots of options. You get an extremely powerful Roon server which can be hidden somewhere and the Zen mini just functions as a ripper and a streamer if required - sounds really quite good with additional power supply into a DAC by the way doesn’t it @ratrat 
. The Zen mini is not being worked hard in this scenario. And if Roon goes down, all is not lost. You simply switch to Innuos’ brilliant Sense app and access tidal etc from there. That’s a lot of functionality for less than £1800. But ‘ahem’…£1800 sheets…
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Like many lower spec Roon Core devices, a Zen Mini is a bit underpowered if you want to use DSP extensively or run more than perhaps 3 or 4 ‘endpoints’ from it. Plenty for most users, I would have thought.
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I have just had the pleasure of listening to some alac files from my collection of ripped cd’s which I just dusted off a few days ago. Unfortunately most of my music which I ripped years and years ago are in mp3. So maybe it’s time to redo some of that work, but better this time.
Also I just realised myself that I don’t own any pc’s with cd or dvd drives anymore.
My question would be: What cd drive with usb output would you recommend for ripping purposes only? Of course it needs to be able to read all of those bits in the right manner but also ease of use is important for juggling around the cd’s.
Search www ‘Best Buys’ & you can find a good selection.
All are good & it doesn’t matter much as its the ripping software that ensures it collects all the data.
GIISSMO seems to be a 2022 favourite, good for all the Windows & Mac laptops.
Re ripping software: dBpoweramp is far & away the best to go for, it has so many features & options plus stuff you’ve never realised you needed.
I advise ripping to FLAC rather than ALAC, its so much more flexible user & op system friendly.
Not sure…I remember looking into it at the time and I’m sure Innuos themselves advised against using Zen Mini mk3 for Roon Core duties. I’m curious now…
You’re description of the Mini being more versatile than the Core is spot on - t’s value for money quotient is high.
Innuos do make it clear that their servers have limited abilities to run Roon due to their relatively low power which is a similar approach to Naim’s in designing a server that generates low levels of electrical noise. Up to 4 endpoints and no upsampling to DSD is their recommendation.
The quality of the audio-cd firmware (on the drive) varies on cd-data drives. Mostly exception handling and special codes, there were also some copy protection schemes that exploited less well known additions to the redbook standard.
Pioneer Blue-Ray RW mechanisms are the ones I know with good quality firmware.
Hello,
I have been exclusively streaming high rez from Qobuz thanks to excellent wifi. Relatively new to streaming I have been immediately impressed by the quality through the ND555 and so I decided to “archive” my CD555 since I had access (with some exceptions) to “all the music in the world” with Qobuz. There is much more detail and space etc so it is “much better” than the CD…but I have come to realize I was listening to Qobuz streaming less and less and with less attention. Somehow it felt better than before (with CD555) but not involving.
Since I have Roon setup (on a Nucleus with internal SSD) I also transferred some rips to the internal drive, and then I realized that what I was missing, the involvement, was there, even in CD format.
So to make it short I think local files are better than streaming files, because they generate more “involvement” and it is worth to rip one’s cd’s and transfer to NAS.
I use db poweramp too, running off an old aluminium unibody 2008 macbook that has a cd drive…I do not think the hardware affects the ripping result.
Thanks @ChrisSU. And as you say that’s enough for simpler use cases. I see that the ‘S’ version (SSD) just released, has 8mb Ram. Interesting…
I’m probably a control freak. But I decided to buy the Zen min just for ripping and storage, after I’d bought the RoonNucleus. My thinking was that it will not be pushed so hard and thus it’s lifespan will be longer. And also the fact that if anything happened to Roon, I’d still have another way of serving via the Sense app. Right now the Zen Mini is in the lounge acting in Roon Render mode playing into my nDAC, It sounds not bad really…
If you have a big collection it might be worthwhile to get yourself a Melco ripper. It does a fantastic job in getting the best musical result fro your discs. I can recommend to anybody with a big collection.
As ripping software I use EAC while the mentioned Dbpoweramp is also a good piece of software. The golden route is to directly rip onto a Melco, but I didn’t go that route out of reasons of convenience….
The last week I tested the Melco D100 ripper connected to my Melco music server. I agree it sounds better then anything else I have tried. I cannot explain it - but it does. Normally I use a Buffalo BDXL.
Sad but true……i did not really want to pay that much, but worth it.
I am not yet 100% done with re-ripping everything. But I have at least already processed 8000 CD’s through the ripper and I paid 750 euros for the ripper, so still acceptable and especially if you see what we sometimes pay for our other stuff….
Of course you are right Bert, i just did not want to spend that much just for a ripper, but as i said it is worth it. I even use my Plixir psu instead of the Melco one, again, another noticeable uplift.
Your profile says you have a Uniti Core, Gazza. So are you using that just as a server, but ripping via a Melco device? I need to start to understand these things just in case my NS01 dies…!
I need to update my profile, i have a 5 tb Melco n10, plus Melco ripper. Thanks Clive.
Hello @AndreM. And welcome to the madness.
https://ripcaster.co.uk will be able to give you good advice about this.