Thread: CD ripping directly onto a music server.

When I purchased a new CD I had to use a separate computer to rip it to an external drive then load the CD onto my server. I am not in the market for a new server but my curiosity is piqued.

Do any major brand servers incorporate ripping software? That could be via either an internal or external optical drive.

I may not understand what you are looking for. The Aurender ACS10 rips the CD directly to the internal HD. A entry solution the Bluesound Vault. The Aurender ACS100 I believe does as wellbut I'm not as familiar. The ACS10 has 8TB storage with 8 more as back up. Using Aurender you have to use their Conductor app at this point.

Buying my ACS10 has made me an Aurender fanboy.

I nearly forgot the NAD M50.2 rips and stores using the Bluesound app. I had one before my ACS10 and I gladly paid the difference. The ACS10 has more storage as well.

You could also take a look at the Innuos Zenith

Per their website the new HifiRose 130 can after you attached a cd player via USB. They sell their RSA780 CD Drive for it.

Originally Posted by XRS

Per their website the new HifiRose 130 can after you attached a cd player via USB. They sell their RSA780 CD Drive for it.

Correct. I have their drive for my 180B to rip. I did testing comparing the drive to an Apple drive and the Rose unit sounded better. I was surprised as I thought they'd sound the same. They don't.

Originally Posted by Dizzie

When I purchased a new CD I had to use a separate computer to rip it to an external drive then load the CD onto my server. I am not in the market for a new server but my curiosity is piqued.

Do any major brand servers incorporate ripping software? That could be via either an internal or external optical drive.

Yes. Take a look at the NAD M50.2. It can rip your CDs directly onto its twin hard drives (for added security), it can simply play your CDs, and it's a music streamer too. No DAC but AES/EBU as well as coax and optical outputs. Does a few other things too, although I don't use mine for anything other than those 3 jobs. I had kept my ageing Mark Levinson 390S CDP until this clever box came along and made a stand-alone CDP unnecessary and ripping is dead simple.

There are now one or two (not more I believe) alternative devices that also offer choice of Rip or Play. T+A or AVM do a much more costly alternative I believe and Metronone used to offer a similar beast! Also if you had the HiFi Rose 150 (and maybe other models), you could fit an internal hard drive and attached their RSA780 CD Drive and this combination offers CD play and CD rip. Good luck.

Originally Posted by nicoff

Not sure what you are trying to do from your description. What do you call a "server"?

Thanks to everyone. By server I mean music stored on an HDD or SSD drive for playback. I am not sure why that was not clear.


Thanks for the education on various options. None really work for me. I already have an Aurender N20. If I make a change it will be to an N30SA. I was merely curious. It seemed like such an obviously good idea. I guess I had not looked in the right places. Hopefully this thread will be useful to others.

Why not buy the ACS30? Or, add the ACS10 to your existing N20. You can hook up an existing hard drive to the ACS and adding an ACS gets you future easy ripping/storing. metadata can be changed by the Aurender app or computer.

Originally Posted by Dizzie

Thanks to everyone. By server I mean music stored on an HDD or SSD drive for playback. I am not sure why that was not clear.


Thanks for the education on various options. None really work for me. I already have an Aurender N20. If I make a change it will be to an N30SA. I was merely curious. It seemed like such an obviously good idea. I guess I had not looked in the right places. Hopefully this thread will be useful to others.

Originally Posted by nicoff

Got it!
Just a word of caution: If you are plan to rip classical music CDs, you should be aware that the metadata for classical music is all over the place. I would assume (but not certain) that the (Aurender) device where your music will be stored can be accessed via a computer to fix it, otherwise you are stuck with not so good metadata.

The metadata on my Aurender N20 is already a mess. I transferred files that had been burned via different machines over 16 years. I lack the skill set to do any repairs. Albums that JRiver showed complete now show up as separate tracks. Sometimes (infrequently) an artist is listed multiple times as 1-album, 1-track. And that is for a single artist album but a compilation of their best. e.g. Emmylou Harris Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems

Compilation CDs from multiple artists are also blown up into single track listings. Fortunately my library is less than 1TB so I have learned to deal with it.

No classical so I avoided that rabbit hole.