It was 2021 and during the pandemic I started all sort of new obsessions. One of these was ripping my CD library to digital FLAC files and finally have all the music I personally own available for streaming in my Plex library with Plexamp.

Why would I do such a thing when most of my music collection is easily available on Spotify or Apple Music? Well, for once, this is not ‘just’ a collection, but my personal collection, music I’ve curated since my teens, up till my thirties. There is a history here, memories, parts of my life I associate with certain soundtracks. Hell, my late teens - early twenties was an important period where I basically formed my core music interests (like most cool people).

I can possibly tell you some trivial facts related to me or the music for about 80% of my collection. It’s a huge part of me, so that’s why I’m one of the few people who didn’t get rid of their CD collection when I moved over to streaming (and kept supporting artists when I by collecting vinyl). As a good memory, my CD’s have always been following me around, bound to their Ikea shelves, wrapped in plastic when moving houses. Nowadays they sit in eye periphery behind my PC monitor. I guess that’s where the idea sprung to rip everything to FLAC files.

I didn’t really play these CD’s in years. I didn’t even own a CD player until I recently got my old Sony player back from my parent’s house (stuffed in a closet nowadays). I’ve embraced playing digital music files for almost twenty years now. It’s a lot more conveniant, easier to take with me and doesn’t take up a lot of physical space. Also I’m a sucker for new tech. I was an early adopter when Sonos was still primarily pushing their streaming devices for your own mp3 collection. Streaming services weren’t even available in my territory back then.

So almost two years later I finally ripped the last CD in my collection. Together with everything I already collected (mostly from Bandcamp and/or digital download cards that came with vinyl) I have about 1TB of music stored on my NAS. By using Plex and its music app Plexamp it’s possible to stream all my own music outside of the house. Making this my own little private streaming service. The cool thing about Plexamp is that, similar to Spotify and other paid services, they are using local algorythms, to keep listening more interesting. Especially sonically similar sounding albums are a great addition, but also creating your own sonic journey from one track to anothere is an excellent way to discover new or forgotten songs.

What did I use to rip my CD’s? From CD to FLAC I used Exact Audio Copy. As far as I know this is still the best audio ripping software. It’s not exactly fast, but accurate and at least it automatically recognizes CD’s, so the meta data is usually correct.