I’m a backwards audiophile. I don’t mean that I play beautiful sound into pricey electronic devices. I mean that I reversed my horse and cart about computer-stored digital audio. Most audiophiles are adopting computer-based audio gingerly or reluctantly; some haven’t even made peace yet with CDs and hold fast to their LP collections. But that’s not me: I was ripping CDs to my computer and building up a sizeable digital library well before I got bit by the audiophile bug.
Unfortunately, for my first several years I was ripping those CDs in woefully inferior file formats, heavily compressed and sonically compromised. It didn’t matter all that much given that my computer-audio rig, a Dell PC connected to a Logitech powered speaker system, couldn’t have distinguished between fine audio and a hole in the ground. Nor had I made the plunge into audiophile-dom. Nor was it time to start thinking in terms of streaming digital media to other devices on a network. My “good” living room stereo was CDs only, no computer.
But time passed. I made the move to Apple. Most importantly, I decided it was high time that I gave myself something that I had always wanted but never felt I could afford: true high-end audio. I couldn’t go from sea level to cruising attitude immediately, of course. I started by upgrading the living room stereo to an Arcam amp, Rotel CD player, and a pair of B&W 805s speakers. Trickle-down did its thing and my former living room stereo went into my home office, there to be fed by my computer-audio setup.
At that point it became obvious that those low-res files that I had been amassing weren’t cutting it. Anybody could hear their shortcomings: one-dimensional, flat, constricted sound. That’s the problem with upgrading one link in your audio chain—you start hearing the weaknesses in the rest of the chain. Compressed mp3 files are perfectly OK heard through iPod earbuds. But not through a proper stereo.
From that point on I always ripped my CDs into Apple Lossless Format, resulting in files that retain all of the data on the original CD, just shrunk down like a zip file that can be reconstituted into a carbon copy of the original. ALAC files sound just like CD, no compromises.
The need for no-nonsense, hi-res files has become all the more critical given that I have continued to upgrade and gussy up my stereo systems. That sweet living room system now resides in my home office, trickle-down itself after my acquisition of the lordly Fasolt and Fafner, twin B&W 803D speakers driven by a brilliantly powerful NAD amplifier, for the living room.
And I have gone altogether batty about headphone audiophilia, and nothing is more revealing of every jot and tittle in a recording than an ultra high-end headphone powered by an equally exalted headphone amplifier.
For several years now I have been avoiding that old stratum of low-res audio files on my media server, skipping fastidiously over them when selecting music to hear. Who wants to hear some cruddy flat-ass mp3? But there are so very many of those old files, and I’m a busy guy. About a fifth of my record collection has been languishing in the purgatory of icky mp3 files.
It’s summer now and I have promised myself to restore those paleolithic layers of my library. To that end I’m re-ripping all of my pre-audiophilia CDs. This is not a trivial task; there may be as many as 1000 discs that need my attention. But I’m not just re-ripping; I’m also re-listening, acquainting myself with CDs that I have never really heard—given the dramatic improvements in my playback systems in the interim.
And yes, I could have just played the CD at any point. But physical media don’t really float my boat any more. When I buy a CD, I “process” it by ripping it in ALAC format and cataloguing it via tags. Only then do I listen to it via my media server. I haven’t listened directly to a CD in…oh, I don’t know, a few years now. So for all practical intents and purposes, these newly-re-ripped CDs are fresh additions to my library.
It’s kind of like going on an utterly hedonistic record-shopping spree and coming home with 1000 some-odd CDs. Except that I’ve already got them, so they’re all free. What fun!