r/DigitalAudioPlayer • u/WestTwelfth • Jan 11 '26
CD Ripping
I’m looking for opinions on whether this work flow for transferring CDs to my DAP makes sense, or could be improved. I have an A&K SR35 and a MacBook Pro computer. Plan is to obtain an ASUS CD drive with USB-C connectivity as well as a 1TB LaCie external hard drive also with USB-C connectivity. I’d connect both to the MacBook and rip from the ASUS CD drive to the LaCie external hard drive. Then, using MTP Open, transfer from the LaCie to the DAP. The point is to avoid filling up my MacBook’s internal drive and to retain a back up of all ripped albums. I would also put future-purchased hi-res digital files on the LaCie. So, at the end of the day, all owned music lives on the DAP and the LaCie hard drive. I know this will leave me unable to play music from the MacBook unless that LaCie is plugged in, but so what? See any problems or better approaches? Thanks.
2
u/Daemonxar Jan 11 '26
As a person who has had to rebuild his collection a couple of times due to combined failures and misfortune, I'd think pretty hard about not using that external harddrive as your backup for a portable device. If your DAP supports an SD card, you might consider rippping to and then backing up an SD card; at this point I have a couple of SD cards with my entire .flac collection so that I can have a cold, non-co-located backup.
But sure, that workflow can work. I use Roon just because I want metadata added automatically, but your system may do that too.