Digital music transfer questions.....

[golfreggie]

From a Seattle newspaper
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...e-in-new-cars/

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by AX17609

The last time I looked at Hondas, I concluded that they really want you to use your cell phone as the center of your electronic world...for music, for navigation, for everything. I came away from that experience with the feeling that, like it or not, having to download music to my phone was inevitable.

To be honest, I think that's how it should be. I'm still driving my 2004 civic. My phone has far more power and features than would have been available in 2004.

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by golfreggie

From a Seattle newspaper
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...e-in-new-cars/

and that was from November '15!

[1neeto]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

To be honest, I think that's how it should be. I'm still driving my 2004 civic. My phone has far more power and features than would have been available in 2004.

Mine is a 2003. Most reliable car I’ve ever owned, and I’ve owned quite a lot of cars from all kinds of brands over the years.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

To be honest, I think that's how it should be. I'm still driving my 2004 civic. My phone has far more power and features than would have been available in 2004.

Pretty condescending words there, mate.

[BT55]

I’m still driving my awesome 2007 Audi A4. The Bluetooth died on the OEM radio so it was time for a replacement. I store all of my CD’s in iTunes @ 320k. My exact replacement android car radio connects to my cars controls, has GPS, DVD, Bluetooth, a backup camera, a rear USB connector (cabled into my glove box) that supports 32GB plus a front 32GB SD slot. Not bad for $450. Plenty of music and easy to update. A real update from my OEM four CD radio.

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Pretty condescending words there, mate.

Sorry. I took them out.

[catdaddy]

Originally Posted by fitness1

I exercise preventative maintenance on everything I own - do everything I can to keep all of my possessions as new. I'm not rich enough to replace things down the line, and I find it gratifying to take care of things to the best of my ability. I'd say it's one of my core values.

Honest question. Given your propensity for high level maintenance and admitted financial limits why are you even considering a change from your 2016 Accord to a new one? I ask this as the new owner of a 2015 Accord for which I traded in my 2003 Accord. That vehicle had almost 200,000 miles on it and was still in great shape, but I decided to make the change because financially it was a good time for me, and for the plethora of tech and safety improvements that a 12 year model upgrade provided.

Given Honda's reliability and the Accord's recently recognized status as the car most likely to still be on the road with over 200,000 miles on the odometer why abandon your CD player with a vehicle that is still relatively new? From my perspective it almost appears to be spending money to be inconvenienced.
Just curious.

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by catdaddy

Given Honda's reliability and the Accord's recently recognized status as the car most likely to still be on the road with over 200,000 miles on the odometer why abandon your CD player with a vehicle that is still relatively new? From my perspective it almost appears to be spending money to be inconvenienced.
Just curious.

It's called a lease.

Also, I don't drink, smoke, buy fancy clothes, go out to dinner etc etc - I knew at a very young age that one of my vices was going to be always driving a new car.....one that gets great gas mileage and is VERY reliable.

I lease them, when they get near the maturation date, I buy the lease out, sell it outright (I take care of my car in the same manner as everything else, and it has very low miles) for a good bit more than what I owe, pocket the money and start another zero down lease.

I've done this with my last 6-7 Hondas with great results. It would be silly to turn it back into the dealer in showroom shape with 8k miles per year and let them make the profit.

Between the money I get at the end and never having to do tires, brakes, exhaust etc, I'm a good bit ahead of the game.

[imwjl]

There are modestly priced streaming services you can consider if the time to convert your media is an issue. With iPhones and iTunes mentioned, know you can always download the file if you have their subscription service. So far about everything we care for in our family is already on a phone or in Apple's library.

Recent car purchases did change some of our habits.

If you're going to stay with late model cars via leases you are swimming against the current to not accommodate the dashboard of the car. More and more I read that cars are going to Apple and Google dashboards. That says their platforms will work best whether the topic is compatibility or simplicity.

[marioed]

H fitness,

I converted all my cd's (over 3000) to digital files a number of years ago, and while it took some time it was worth it. I have a pc and used a software program called dbPoweramp to do the cd ripping. If the cd's have the metadata stored on them it goes pretty quick, about 3 to 5 minutes per cd. The files can be saved to an external drive so it doesn't use up drive space on the computer.

If your cd-r's are copies of manufactured cd's the metadata was probably copied as well. If they are bootlegs than you have to enter the data by hand which does take a good deal more time. The automatic ripper/convertor's will work pretty well with manufactured cd's but very poorly with bootleg cd-r's.

If you convert to ALAC (lossless compressed for use with iTunes) or FLAC (lossless compressed or uncompressed for use with a variety of players) than the sound quality will be the same as on the original cd. Personally I wouldn't covert to either mp3 or acc (standard iTunes formats) as they are lossy formats and the sound quality is less than cd. I chose to use uncompressed FLAC for my archive files. You can always convert the files to copies in mp3 or acc formats if you need to. iPhones & iPods will play ALAC files in 16bit/44.1hz resolution through iTunes.

There are devices such as this, http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=COX12, which will do the ripping to lossless formats without the need for a computer. If you don't need the streaming features you can save quite a bit by using dbPoweramp & a big external drive. For a 1000 cd's a 3 TB drive would be more than sufficient.

I'm not familiar with the audio player in your car but you might want to see what audio software (like iTunes or J River) it uses, what file formats it will play, and if it lets you connect a hard drive to it for use as a music library.

Oh yeah, a word of advice if you do decide to convert your cd's to digital files make a backup on a second hard drive. You only want to have to do the conversions once.

Regards,
marioed

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by marioed

H fitness,

I converted all my cd's (over 3000) to digital files a number of years ago, and while it took some time it was worth it. I have a pc and used a software program called dbPoweramp to do the cd ripping. If the cd's have the metadata stored on them it goes pretty quick, about 3 to 5 minutes per cd. The files can be saved to an external drive so it doesn't use up drive space on the computer.

If your cd-r's are copies of manufactured cd's the metadata was probably copied as well. If they are bootlegs than you have to enter the data by hand which does take a good deal more time. The automatic ripper/convertor's will work pretty well with manufactured cd's but very poorly with bootleg cd-r's.

If you convert to ALAC (lossless compressed for use with iTunes) or FLAC (lossless compressed or uncompressed for use with a variety of players) than the sound quality will be the same as on the original cd. Personally I wouldn't covert to either mp3 or acc (standard iTunes formats) as they are lossy formats and the sound quality is less than cd. I chose to use uncompressed FLAC for my archive files. You can always convert the files to copies in mp3 or acc formats if you need to. iPhones & iPods will play ALAC files in 16bit/44.1hz resolution through iTunes.

There are devices such as this, http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=COX12, which will do the ripping to lossless formats without the need for a computer. If you don't need the streaming features you can save quite a bit by using dbPoweramp & a big external drive. For a 1000 cd's a 3 TB drive would be more than sufficient.

I'm not familiar with the audio player in your car but you might want to see what audio software (like iTunes or J River) it uses, what file formats it will play, and if it lets you connect a hard drive to for use as a music library.

Regards,
marioed

Thanks for that thoughtful response - this is the info I was hoping for. Only took 50 replies!

I've got a program on my machine called Roxio that may do the ripping.....I'll have to check into it.

I'm going to to go the Honda dealer in the next couple days and see what options there are for playback and go from there.

I have an external hard drive that isn't being used......I'm guessing that will be in the mix at some point. I like the idea of flash drives with better quality files on them, and I'm not really worried about the metadata much. I just want to have a good part of the music I already have available to me.

[marioed]

Hi fitness,

Glad I could help. Don't downplay the importance of metadata, (Artist, album name, genre, disc #, track #, track name, ect), that's how whatever software player your car has will catalog and sort the music files in your library for playback. So if you want to play, say, Eric Clapton's "Unplugged" the player can find it in your music library, without metadata it can't tell one cd or track from another.

I haven't used Roxio in years so I don't want to comment on it. dbPoweramp, https://www.dbpoweramp.com/, is relatively inexpensive, $39 for a single pc and has some nice features like accurate rip error correction, multiple online metadata sources, easy editing of metadata, ripping and conversion to almost any format and resolution, bulk format conversion, and high speed ripping. I found it had a fairly easy learning curve and to be easier to use than the built in ripper software for Foobar or J River. iTunes may be even easier but it won't do FLAC which I wanted and it's error correction wasn't as good.

Regards,
marioed

[MikeBmusic]

I did the ripping with Windows Media Player - it offers format (I chose 320k MP3) and includes the metadata.
For discs/files that don't have metadata (bootlegs and some local artist discs), I used Foobar (free program) add the metadata. It's time consuming.
I finished the ripping of 389 discs to the my computer and transferred to a 64G USB stick last night. Took a couple of weeks. There were 2 discs (commercial releases) that couldn't be read - I'll try to copy them to get them ripped first.
16G of space left on the stick. Definitely not enough for the 200+ live bootleg discs I've got!

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, I'm in the UK, and i'm on my fourth Honda. I bought a low mileage 2014 CRV EX in March.
it does have a cd player (my last Accord had a six CD player - in the dashboard!)

I donlt have a "smart phone" but I do have a few Ipods. and keep an Itunes library on my dessk top of app. 25000 tracks - all of which are on my 160gb Ipod.

also when I do put a CD onto my player in the CRV - it automatically records the CD (via Gracenote - sometimes) to a hard drive.

I use very old high grade stereo systems in my office and in my lounge and so appreciate the quality of a well recorded CD, but I have to admit the sound quality of the system in my Honda is remarkable, even though it is some sort of compressed file.

However, after my encounter with throat cancer last year I'm ding far less gigs and have retired from my public speaking engagements so I'm spending far less time in my car, and mostly listen to the BBC talk radio or Classic FM - but on "DAB" radio which is really very good. (I use DAB at home as well).

Shod I wish to access my entire music library, I can use my Ipod in my Honda.

There is one important factor in using CDs (or cassettes) whilst driving - in that it is a demand on your attention whilst driving and so changing CDs could cause accidents and is probably liable to being an offence of "driving without due care and attention as if using a hand held phone.

BRING BACK THE IPOD!